Thought my habit trackers were fine until I hit 47 days straight

I used to just scribble a quick dot or X for my daily habits and call it good. Then last month I wanted to see how many days in a row I actually brushed my teeth before noon, and I realized I had to flip through like 8 old notebooks to piece it together. Took me almost 2 hours to figure out I had a 47 day streak going. Now I use a single running log column on each monthly spread so I can see everything without going backwards. Anyone else waste time digging through old pages just to track one habit?

3 comments

3 Comments

felix_hayes6415d ago

That 47 day streak discovery is the kind of thing that should feel like winning a prize but just ends up feeling like you were doing homework you forgot to turn in. The running log column trick is smart. I tried something similar but my handwriting gets real shaky after day 30 so I can't tell if it's a checkmark or a failed attempt at a bird. The_susan's dot system sounds way more reliable than my approach which is basically a scribble and a prayer. Vera_palmer, I'm pretty sure I broke that streak about three times in the notebooks I lost track of, but 47 sounds better than 12 so I'm sticking with that number. My current system uses a single line of dates on a sticky note that I keep moving to new pages, but I lost the sticky note three times already this month.

vera_palmer16d ago

Oh man, flipping through 8 notebooks sounds like a nightmare. So did you actually hit 47 days in a row on that habit, or was your streak broken somewhere in the shuffle? I always worry I'll mess up the count and end up celebrating a fake streak.

the_susan15d ago

Wow, yeah, I've totally been there. I actually made a little cheat sheet on the last page of my current notebook where I jot down the streak date for each habit once a week. @vera_palmer, I wouldn't trust my memory either, so I use a tiny colored dot system - green for done, yellow for half done, red for miss. That way I can glance at one column and never have to flip back through old pages. Saves me from accidentally celebrating a fake streak because I lost count somewhere. It's not fancy, but it works.