This post originally appeared on theExist blog.
I read fiction every night before I go to sleep now.
What Habits Should You Track?
Ive also learned what sets me up for success when choosing a new habit to track.
When you choose a new habit to track, consider these three aspects:
1.
Motivation
Choose a habit you care about doing regularly.
Dont worry about whether other people think its important.
For instance, dont make a run at exercise every day because you think youshould.
And yet, they happen to include some exercise.
See how that works?
Find something youre motivated to do.
Regularity
The more often you do your habit, the stronger it will become.
Each repetition enforces it as a behavior and strengthens the pathways in your brain related to it.
Youre spending more of your weeknotdoing it.
take a stab at find a habit you could track every day, or every weekday at least.
The more you do it, the faster youll develop it into a real habit.
The last thing you want is ability getting in the way when youre already battling with your willpower.
If you need tochoose something tiny to start with, go for it.
Better a tiny habit that you do every day than a huge one you hardly ever complete.
Youre making things much harder for yourself if you venture to build multiple new habits at the same time.
If youd already built the habit of going to the gym, there wouldnt be a question.
Youd go to the gym without questioning yourself, because its ahabit.
Every morning when you get out of bed, use that as a reminder to do your pushups.
Your trigger needs to be something you always do anyway.
Getting up or going to bed work well.
So do showering, brushing your teeth, or anything else you already do without thinking.
In case you hadnt noticed, these are all habits youve already built.
You know what that means right?
As you build new habits, you create new triggers for yourself as well.
Maybe you want to do 20 sit-ups as well.
Once youve built a stack with those two habits, you’re free to add a third.
Maybe you want to spend some time reading every morning after exercising.
So now youve got a stack of three habits.
Thats when you know you could add something new to the stack.
Or exercise at 10am every weekday at the gym.
How do you go about it?
It depends on what works for you.
If youre not sure, try a few different methods to see what works best.
Paper
The ol trusted favorite.
Mobile Apps
Im partial to tracking habits with my phone.
A couple of my favorites to start you off areMomentum(iOS) andHabit Bull(Android).
This isnt all written in stone, of course.
She is a writer atCrewand was previously Buffers first Content Crafter and Head of Content at Attendly.
Images byfaithie(Shutterstock),naama ym,Steven S.,see-ming lee(Flickr).
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