Gratitude and Habit Tracking
My monthly habit tracker template.
Hello Dear Friends:
As we say goodbye to a year that has seen so much suffering on so many levels, I look forward with hope and gratitude. I am hopeful for a future with more ease and grateful for the many blessings of 2020. Trust me, friends, the blessings are there; even in the midst of suffering. If you have had great suffering this year, I am sorry and I wish somehow my simple messages bring you comfort.
Throughout this time in relative isolation, I have found great comfort in my daily rituals. This includes the practice of journaling. For almost six years now I have been keeping a daily log of at least one thing I am grateful for each day. Many days I am grateful for several things. And almost two years ago, I started tracking my daily habits. Both practices have changed my life for the better.
There are so many creative ways to track our gratitude and habits. If you go to Google Images and search for "gratitude log" or "habit tracker" a seemly infinite number of beautiful ideas will appear. Through trial and error in my dot grid bullet journals, I developed a tracking format that really works for me. Because many of you have asked, I will share the simple format that I use, no special artistic skills required.
My basic bullet journal template for over a year now has been a two page spread. On the left is my vertical habit tracker and on the right is my daily gratitude log.
Still using the same template for January 2021.
The vertical habit tracker has the days of the week and numbered dates from top to bottom. Across the top of the page are my daily habits, weekly habits and monthly habits. Daily habits consist of things I want to do every day. In June of 2020, I also started writing down the time I wake up and go to bed because sleep is one of my keystone habits. The habits we decide to track are unique to each of our own temperaments and personalities. My weekly habits are basically five ongoing projects that I have assigned to each weekday. For example, I try to do my weekly planner review every Friday. On a good week, it happens on Friday. More often it happens on Sunday evening and somehow during the holidays, it slipped to Monday morning. Finally, my monthly habits are a few things that need to happen every month and will take time away from the other habits. If I work on a monthly habit one day, some of the daily or weekly habits will fall by the wayside.
On the right hand side of this spread is my gratitude log. I write the days of the week and numbered dates from top to bottom to line up with the habit tracker on the left hand side. At the end of the day, I simply write down a list or sentence with what I am grateful for each day. If I have time for free journaling in the morning, I will loosely follow The Five Minute Journal template. The whole process takes anywhere from 5 to 20 minutes a day, longer on the rare occasion I have the luxury of time.
Setting up this template every month initially felt very arduous. However, in reality it doesn't take that long (maybe 15 minutes?) and I find it to be a very relaxing activity. I am not one to relax or sit still for very long, so this is probably a good thing for me to do.
Over the years, I have organized these trackers differently in my journals. I have mixed in the trackers with my free journaling pages (adding sticky note tabs for each month) and more recently, I started putting the trackers at the front of each journal. Typically, a dot grid journal lasts me about six months. The beauty of using a blank journal is that we can customize it to suit ourselves perfectly.
Two years ago at this time, I participated in a vision board workshop, which has become very popular in recent years. The workshop was fun; however, the vision board idea doesn't really resonate with me. It felt a little arbitrary and forced. Last year on New Year's Eve, I burned my vision board for 2019 in our backyard firepit. Perhaps a bit dramatic, I know.
Instead of a vision board, I prefer to add beautiful things I stumble upon to my free journaling pages. It feels much more natural to me and is always wonderful to look back upon. When I have time, I like to read the previous year's journal entry to remember memories and see personal growth. It's also good to see that past trials and tribulations always worked out just fine.
So, friends, this is my practice. Take what you want and leave the rest. Think of this as a buffet in journaling ideas.
I wish you all a happy, peaceful 2021. Look for the good in the world and ways to bring your best self to it.
All my best,
Carolyn
