Tag: Habit Tracker

The Advantage of Habit Stars vs. Habit Trackers

Posted on by Brian Hazard

When using Frankenlog, daily habits are tracked with a set of up to five symbols that – when completed – make a nifty little star to celebrate your awesomeness. So why are these habit stars better than habit trackers? (Okay, yes, I know… Habit stars are habit trackers. Get off my back!)

I’m currently in the midst of my best star day run ever. Granted, that’s only a run of four days (almost five!), but I’ve noticed that those stars contribute a little something extra to my efforts. You see, with regular trackers, I’m usually using just watching the progress of one habit at a time. Each habit is it’s own thing, unrelated to my other efforts. I mean, yeah, a lot of folks will use a full page tracker for several habits at once, and doing this allows them to see if they did all of them each day. So what’s the difference?

It’s hard to describe (can’t ya tell?), but making that star means more. All my daily habits are integrated with each other. They’re all a part of that star. I want that star. So if I’ve done two or three of my habits for the day, you can bet your BuJo I’m gonna finish those last two. The star causes momentum and motivation.

Without the star, maybe I finish four out of five for the day, so I give yourself a pass on that fifth one. “I’ve been good today, four outta five ain’t bad.” But nay! Not with star habits! Instead, I want that last habit. What a shame it would be to miss a star day by one habit! What a crime! I gotta do it!

When I made the daily habit tracker in Frankenlog, my only goal was to create a compact system that would somehow fit in a tiny calendar. I never intended star habits to become a motivational tool, but I’m ever so glad that they have. 🙂

What has your experience been with the star habits in Frankenlog? Have you been using them? Leave your comments below!

Thanks for swinging by.

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Too Many Habits!

Posted on by Brian Hazard

(This entry assumes you’re familiar with Frankenlog. If not, head over here and take a gander!)

I was chatting with a fellow Frankenlog user on Facebook earlier today and she mentioned finding it hard to achieve star days. These are days in which you have successfully done all of your habits and have filled in that day’s box with all five symbols, creating what looks like a starburst to celebrate your achievement.

Here’s a New Year’s fueled streak of accomplishment!

The truth is, achieving five habits everyday is a hard thing to do! It could even be argued that five habits is too many habits to track each day.

As we all know, the best way to start new habits is to start with small, incremental changes. This may mean starting with only one habit that is tracked each day. Once it becomes second nature, we can add on another and so on until we are happy with our results.

Just because Frankenlog allows for tracking five daily and five weekly habits doesn’t mean you need to go that route. Here’s how you can use the system to track fewer habits and still get “star days.”

Less Daily Habits

Tracking 2 or 3 habits each day

Take a look at the 3rd and the 4th in the picture above. If you wanted to track only two habits per day, use the symbol from the 3rd for habit #1 and the symbol from the 4th for habit #2. You could even just skip that dot in the middle and use the lines to create your star day.

Now take a look at the next week. You could use the three symbols from the 10th, 11th, and 12th to track three daily habits, still making the star when you’re done.

Less Weekly Habits

If you look at the picture above one more time, you’ll notice that there are five boxes on the left of each week to track five habits. Putting a letter at the top of each column of boxes reminds us which habit we’re tracking with each box. But as you can see on my own Frankenlog, I only track three weekly habits. Sure, I could probably come up with another two, but filling up my trackers is the wrong reason to track a habit. I only track what I feel is best for me. You should do the same, too. 🙂

Wow, look at me. Lots of blog posts this weekend! Don’t get used to it, folks. Once grad school starts up again I’ll be a ghost. However I do hope to write soon about the other breeds of Frankenlogs that other users have come up with. Stay tuned!