Hello, my name is brooke and I like to track things. I’ve always enjoyed spreadsheets and the advent of habit trackers made me do a little inside happy dance. They just fit so well with the way my brain works and the ways I am motivated. I like to feel like I use my time intentionally (even if the intention is simply having fun.
Here are six things I’m tracking in 2022.
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Monthly habits. This is classic “habit tracking” and happens inside my regular calendar / planner. Each month, I choose three to five things that I want to make sure happen on a daily (or almost daily) basis. Some months, these habits are meant to improve my personall life and other months, they are more focused on habits that impact my career world.
Examples of habits I have tracked in the past or plan to track this year, include: flossing, refilling my water bottle four times a day, daily painting time, reading aloud to my kids, Bible time, posting to social media and walking 10,000 steps.
2/
Hours outside. This is my second year tracking the hours I spend outside. While I would love to hit the big goal of 1,000 hours outside in 365 days, the real purpose of tracking this metric is just in encouraging and motivating myself to spend more time outdoors.
I feel better when I spend time outside. My favorite days of the year are, inevitably, the days we spend camping. But even on a regular work-from-home-Tuesday, I know that my day will be improved, if I spend some time outside - working, taking a walk, reading a book, eating a meal, tending my flowers - just doing life outside.
Last year, I tracked my outdoor hours, by writing down the time (rounded to nearest 15 minutes) on an index card and manually adding each week. This year, I am trying the 1000 Hours Outside App as a method of tracking.
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10,000 Steps. It’s been a couple years since I tracked this goal and I’m ready to do it again. Again, this is something that I know makes me feel good. When I consistently move enough to get 10,000 steps in a day, life feels easier and better.
This is not something that I’m striving to hit every day of the year, but rather just something that I want to track and that I will aim to hit more days than not.
Note: The tracker I use for this is from Elise Joy (image at top of post) and you can get a free download when you sign up for her newsletter.
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Reading aloud to the kids. It’s year two for this tracking project. Last year, our goal was to read aloud 290 days. We met that and I think we might shoot for 300, this year.
Honestly, this project probably doesn’t need to be tracked. I think we’ve established enough of a routine (reading during afternoon snack time and/or before bed) that the tracker and the number goal won’t make a big difference in how often we read. But, I love to have our tracker on the side of the fridge because the kids seem to enjoy seeing our progress and, occasionally, one of them will notice that we’ve missed a few days and will suggest that now is a good time for me to read to them.
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More / Less challenges. This is something new I”m trying in 2022 and something with a very different kind of tracking method. Each month, I will choose something that I want to try increasing or decreasing from my regular routine.
I plan to write a blog post about each challenge just before it starts - sharing my reason why and my expectations - and another blog post at the end of the month - processing how life felt the same or different with more or less of that particular thing.
For January, my challenge is to read (a lot!) less than normal.
I don’t know what all twelve challenges will be, but I have a few ideas. I’m thinking more sweat, more prayer, less phone time and more writing will likely be challenges that I try in future months.
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Books read. I will track this in the goodreads app. I have no set goal of what or how many books I hope to read, but really do enjoy this simple way of being able to look back at what i’ve read over time.
ALSO / JUST FOR FUN:
I am tracking how many reams of paper our family uses, this year. My kids draw and write A LOT and I feel like I buy a new ream of copy paper every month or two. But I don’t actually know how much we use. Since we happened to run out of paper on 12/31, I thought it would be fun (and easy) to keep track of exactly how many reams we buy this calendar year.
