30 Days of Habit Tracking

In August 2021, I shared a post on the best daily habits. 

Here is my current list:

60 Squats
60 Pushups
60 Sit-Ups
Do 10 Pull-Ups
60 Shoulder Presses
60 Bicep Curls
Read a book for 10 minutes.
Stop electronic usage at 10:00 PM.
Stretch for 10 minutes.
Record and share a video.
Wake up at 8:00 AM.
10 minutes of breathwork/meditation.
Take my supplement pill.
Go for a run.
Get a new sale.
Write and share a blog post.
Review this checklist before the day is over.
Message someone new.
Follow up with someone who can use your help.
Go rollerblading.
Drink 8 cups of water.
Brush teeth twice.
Floss teeth.
Have a profitable day.
Moisturize
Didn’t smoke marijuana.
Fast until 12:00 PM.
Stand at a desk until 2:00 PM.
Don’t eat after 7:00 PM.

Below, you can see what the sheet looks like:

On the left, there is the date. There is the completion percentage which automatically calculates based on the number of yes and no responses in the columns. You can’t see it in this sheet, but there is also a mood score (I use the DSM manic-depressive scale) and notes.

I am using the DSM scale to track my mood and the notes add a bit of qualitative data to the process. I will use Speak to analyze those notes at some point and see what themes and patterns I can extract.

What have I learned?

A few interesting insights I’ve seen so far in just over a month are that my mood is higher on days that I am not completing as many of the habits. This includes Sundays, Saturdays and Thursdays:

Mondays and Fridays are my most successful days in terms of completion rates of habits.

In the line chart in the featured image, you can see the progression of completion rate and mood score since I started on August 22nd.

That August 22nd is a Sunday and does skew some of the data.

What else have you noticed?

Because I’ve been working out, I’ve had pretty significant increases in muscle and decreases in body fat. 

I’ve removed a lot of dairy from my life and drank more water which has contributed to that. Although that isn’t part of my habit tracking, good habits reinforce eating healthier. Overall, I’ve felt a lot of these tasks have worked together and compounded.

I get a small dopamine rush at the end of each day when I review and fill out the sheet. It’s interesting – there is a difference between copy and pasting “yes” across all the columns and then switching the ones to “no” versus switching “no” to “yes”.

Conditional formatting with colour offers a nice bit of instant feedback to support this and give you visual feedback.

What tasks are the most difficult to achieve?

When I review these tasks, there are several that are the most difficult:

Read a book for 10 minutes.
Stop electronic usage at 10:00 PM.
Stretch for 10 minutes.
Record and share a video.
Wake up at 8:00 AM.
Get a new sale.
Write and share a blog post.

I’m going to continue working on these habits and report back as new insights emerge. There are some limitations to my structure of data for data analysis that I do hope to figure out. Hopefully, I can continue to cement these habits. I am very happy with the progress to date. 

Hope you enjoyed this reflection. Wishing you all the best in your habits!