XP TRACKERHabit tracker ideas: what to track and how
Good habit tracker ideas fall into two groups: what to track (a habit you're building, a number you want to watch, or a thing you want to do less) and how to show it (a grid, a chain, a bar, a colour). Pick three to five ideas from the lists below for one month, then swap.
Short answer: track three to five habits you're building, one number you want to watch, and at most one habit you're cutting back on. Good starting ideas are reading pages, a daily walk, bedtime, water and a phone-free hour. Show them as a simple monthly grid, and change the list each month.
Most people who search for habit tracker ideas have the tracker and need the list, or have the list and want the tracker to look less boring. This page covers both. The first part is 60 habits sorted by area. The second is eight ways to lay them out.
Before you copy a long list, decide on your limit. A tracker with 15 rows is a tracker you'll stop filling in. Three to five rows is a month you can actually win.
60 habits to track, by area
Body
- Walk 20 minutes, or a daily step goal you choose
- Workout or training session
- Stretch for 3 to 5 minutes
- Drink water (glasses or litres)
- Eat a vegetable with lunch and dinner
- Cook at home
- Floss
- Take medication or vitamins as prescribed
- Get outside in daylight in the morning
- No caffeine after noon
Sleep
- In bed by a set time
- Hours slept (a number)
- Phone out of the bedroom
- Up at a set time, including weekends
- No screens for 30 minutes before bed
- Wind-down routine done
- No snooze
- Bedroom aired and dark
Mind
- Read 10 pages
- Meditate for five minutes
- Journal or write three lines
- Write one thing you're grateful for
- Learn a language for 10 minutes
- Practise an instrument
- One deep focus block with no phone
- Mood (a colour or 1 to 5)
- Time outdoors
- Breathing exercise
Home and money
- Make the bed
- Dishes done before bed
- Ten-minute tidy
- One load of laundry
- No-spend day
- Check your bank balance
- Log every purchase
- One life-admin task
- Water the plants
- Pack lunch
People
- Message a friend
- Call family
- Quality time with your partner or kids, phones away
- One act of kindness
- Eat a meal with someone
- Reply to messages you've been putting off
- Plan something to look forward to
- Say thank you to someone in person
Work, study and craft
- Plan the day with three priorities
- Two study blocks of 25 minutes
- One job application
- Side project for 30 to 60 minutes
- Inbox to zero, or a set number of emails cleared
- Close the day with a short shutdown list
- Learn something from a course lesson
- Write 300 words
Cutting back
- No social media before noon
- Screen time under your own limit
- Gaming time under your own limit
- No sugary drinks
- No alcohol on weekdays
- No smoking or vaping
If you're unsure which ones matter most for you, the best habits to track explains how to choose.
8 tracker styles
| Style | How it works | Best for |
|---|---|---|
| Monthly grid | Habits in rows, days in columns, shade each box | 3 to 6 daily habits |
| Chain calendar | A big X on each day for one habit | One habit you care most about |
| Water circles | Eight small circles per day, fill one per glass | Counts, like water or study blocks |
| Page bar | A long bar split into 300 pages, colour in what you read | Reading one book or a monthly page goal |
| Mood colours | One square per day, colour it with a five-colour key | Spotting links between mood and habits |
| Sleep lines | A vertical line per night from bedtime to wake time | Seeing your sleep pattern across a month |
| Year in dots | 365 dots on one page for one habit | Long habits like walking or journaling |
| Quest log | Habits written as quests with XP and a running total | People who enjoy games and levels |
Mixing two styles is common. A monthly grid for the daily habits, plus a mood row along the bottom, takes a minute a day and gives you a lot to look at during your monthly review. The paper tracker guide shows how to draw the grid.
Three sample trackers
- Busy parentWalk 15 minutes, bed by 10:45, message a friend, plus a mood colour. Four rows, all doable on a bad day.
- Student before examsTwo study blocks, phone in another room while studying, a short walk, bed by midnight, plus hours slept.
- Getting back in shapeTraining session (three days a week), daily steps to your own goal, water in glasses, stretch, no sugary drinks.
Notice each one has five rows or fewer, and each habit has a small, clear finish line.
Common mistakes
- Tracking everything on the list. Sixty ideas are a menu. Order three to five.
- Only tracking bad habits. A page of "no" rows feels like a diet. Pair each cut-back with one habit you're adding.
- Vague rows. "Exercise" is hard to judge on the night. "20-minute walk or a workout" isn't.
- Never retiring a habit. When a habit happens on its own for a month, move it off and make room.
What to do today
- Pick three to five ideasAt least one from Body or Sleep, which tend to help everything else.
- Write a finish line for eachMinutes, pages, glasses or a time.
- Choose one style and start tonightA monthly grid is the safe choice.
Many of the ideas above exist as add-on quests in XP Tracker, picked from "+ Add a quest": Drink water counts up to a daily target you choose in litres, Walk reads Apple Health or Health Connect, and Screen-time limit has you report your day against the limit you set. You can add up to 12 daily add-ons, though three to five is a better start. See how it works.
Questions people ask
What should I put on my habit tracker?
Three to five habits you're building now, plus at most one number you want to watch, like sleep hours or pages read. Leave out habits you already do without thinking.
What are good habit tracker ideas for a bullet journal?
A monthly grid for daily habits, a mood colour row, a water row with eight small circles a day, a reading page count, and a "no-spend day" row. Keep the layout simple enough to fill in under a minute.
What are habit tracker ideas for students?
Study sessions (for example two 25-minute blocks), reading pages, bedtime, phone-free study time, a short walk, and one assignment step a day. See how to get motivated to study for more.
Should I track bad habits too?
Yes, if you track them kindly. A "no social media before noon" or "no energy drinks" row with a tick for good days works better than counting slips.
How often should I change what I track?
Review every month. Drop habits that have become automatic, keep the ones still in progress, and add one new one at most.
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