How to Track Your Habits

By Hind Khalid

A habit is an action that is done consistently and is formed over a period of time. I’ll talk about my own experience with forming my habits and continuing with them every day alongside my university workload.

I started off by writing some goals down to get a clearer idea of where to go. Afterwards, I started breaking down each goal into smaller goals, attempting to identify what I have to do daily in order to achieve “the bigger” picture. I filtered through the habits I listed and ended up with 6 habits that I had to practice every day in order to achieve my big goals.

In order to motivate myself and track my goals, I printed a PDF which I will attach at the end and labelled each one of them with the title of the habit. The secret is to not break the chain or else you would have to start from Day 1. Doing them was challenging at first but then I got used to these habits and they became a part of my daily routine. I started in January and it’s currently April. The progress I see is fascinating and it keeps me disciplined, motivating to stay on track. I often find myself having to recall the purpose, the benefits and the end goal of doing this.

I’ll provide an example that might help you visualize and understand this more. I won’t use one of my personal goals, I’ll use a general one. For instance, you would like to publish a book and in order to publish a book, you would have to have a whole draft ready. Therefore, you would break down the outline of the book into small chapters or scenes and you would dedicate a specific amount of time per day and write related to that scene or chapter in your book. In 21 days, you would have a chapter or so ready and it would motivate you and remove the writer’s block. You would have to sit and just write; no criticism or perfectionism getting in the way.

I would encourage you to write a detailed plan of the purpose of the habit and your plan for each 21 days. This way it will be easier and less overwhelming to sit down and practice the habit. Habits can differ, I was mentioning the ones related to a big goal and there’s basic ones like, walk 10 minutes and you could manage your day based on it. Having habits as a part of your day makes your day feel more productive. To end this article, I personally have 6 habits I am keeping track of and it takes about 35 minutes of my day. I either pursue each one for 5 minutes at the start of my day or at the end when I have a lot of studies. I clear my mind and focus on what I am doing, I find it extremely relaxing. You get to do what you want and achieve what you want while only having to put in small amounts of effort everyday.