I’m going to continue with my monthly check-in on my habit tracker in my bullet journal (see last month’s post), as that is where I am keeping track of the various smaller goals (in the form of my giant Goal #2) that I’m working on…
How did I do in February?
I started the month with 8 habits to work on… and then part way through I added a 9th.
- Morning Routine (aka get up at 5:30am)
Results: 1 yes; 7 partials; 9 days that are n/a (weekends & holidays), which leaves 12 “fails”
I think I struggled with the whole morning routine and determining what was a pass or a fail… hence the partials… - Exercise/Fitness
Results: 16/29 (more than 50%, but I had a goal of 4-5 times per week…)
The first 2 weeks were a success, the last 2 weeks were not… the total does actually work out to 4 times per week (assuming 4 weeks, which is true for February most of the time, but not this one). - @ Work Before 9am
Results: 8 yes; 3 partial; 9 n/a; which leaves 9 fails.
Still a goal… I should probably figure out what time I need to leave my house so that I can get to work before 9am so that I can make sure to leave the house by then… also, I should probably follow the morning routine I laid out for myself a bit closer and I’ll be on time (it has me leaving the house at 7:30, which would probably get me to work by 8:00… hmmm…) - Blog Post
Results: I posted 7 blog posts in the month of February. I “should” have posted 8… And I didn’t totally post following my Tuesday/Thursday “schedule” improvement from January, so progress has been made…
2016 Also, I decided I didn’t need to track this for March because it is mostly X’s anyway since I only post 2 times a week, so I’ve moved it to my weekly layout in my bullet journal…
- Reading
Results: 4/29
But I don’t know if I really considered reading my travel books as “reading,” which maybe I should have? I did a lot of reading of travel books while researching for our honeymoon… but the non-travel book that I got from the library had to be returned before I finished it again… Hmm… Might be time to reconsider what defines this… I wouldn’t really add a count to my number of books read by reading parts of travel books, but then, it is still reading… what do you think? - Budget Review
Results: 11 reviews done.
I wanted 1 per week minimum, definitely beat that. Success! - Evening Routine (aka bed by 10:30pm)
Results: 10 partials; 9 n/a (weekends & holidays); 10 fails.
It’s been a bit of a toss up… if I spend time getting my evening chores done, I normally stay up a bit later… if I leave the dishes for the morning, I am more likely to get to bed on time… I think similar to my morning routine, I need to determine what time I need to start on my chores so that I still get to bed by 10:30… - Drink 8 Cups of Water
Results: 19/29
At the beginning of February I was just trying to remember myself if I had drank enough or not… and I wasn’t always that good at keeping track, so part way through the month I started putting a tracker on my daily pages of my bullet journal to count each glass of water. That’s when you can really see I got the hang of it…
Adding water trackers to my daily spreads in my bullet journal… - No Alcohol Challenge
Results: 21/22
This is the one that I started after Superbowl weekend… I may or may not have drank quite a bit that weekend, and I had a friend that was doing a dry January/February challenge with her boyfriend, so I decided to jump on the bandwagon. I made one exception near the end of the month to celebrate my friend’s birthday, but I didn’t go crazy and I made myself very weak drinks that were mostly soda water and lime… I feel very good about this one.
So, what’s new in March?
Here is my March Habit Tracker in my bullet journal:
You can see that I changed up the habits a bit…
- Get up at 5:30am
- Morning Routine
I split my original habit #1 in to two. I want to keep track of which days I get up at 5:30am, and which I don’t… and then keep track of which days I follow my morning routine (though if I don’t get up at 5:30, the times will be different.) - Exercise (no change here)
- Ride Bike to Work
I want to start riding my bike to work. I know it isn’t feasible every day, because sometimes I have things to do or pick-up after work, but as the weather gets nicer, I’d like to start doing this. It’s about 7km ride each way, so it should be a good supplement to my normal exercise routine, especially as my winter sports finish up. Last week I was working on getting my biking gear together, I had to get a new bike light and get my helmet fixed… So, now that is all sorted out, I did some biking on the weekend, but haven’t made the plunge to bike to work quite yet… Maybe tomorrow… - At Work by 9am
Still working on it… - Reading
I still want to track this… but I think from now on I will include reading in my travel books (you should see the stack of them I got from the library…) - Budget Review (no change here)
- No Spend Day
I have seen others track this stat, and I thought it might be fun to try it out… I’m not thinking about bills or things that come out automatically from my account, but me actually pulling out cash or a card and paying for something… although part way through this month and I’m realizing that I’m not sure if I should count when the husband is paying for something… I’ll continue and see how it goes this month… - Evening Routine
- Bed by 10:30pm
Just like the morning, I’ve decided to split up the evening routine to better track when I do my chores but don’t get to bed on time, or when I get to bed on time, but maybe don’t do the chores… hopefully I can eventually work it out that I do both! - Drink 8 Cups of Water (keeping this one the same)
- No Alcohol
I’m not going to say that I can’t drink ever… as you can already see this month… and especially when I go on my honeymoon later this month… but I want to try to keep it to a minimum until we go away… Of course, we went for drinks with my dad at the pub last week, and I went to a friend’s place for board games on the weekend… but my old ways were to have a glass of wine or a cider almost every night, so I am working on decreasing that…
So, there you have it, my extremely long winded habit tracker update…
Are you working on some new habits for March? How are they going so far?
All-Round Better Me 
I’ve changed ‘going for a run’ which I failed at miserably in February to ‘be active ‘ for March. I’m aiming to beat my Fitbug target 5 days out of 7. I’ve done pretty well so far.
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I’ve read (and have also found myself) that starting with a small basic goal for a new habit is more likely to end in success than something that may seem daunting… I think it was in the book Zen Habits (have you read it?). The book suggests that if your ultimate goal is to go for a run each morning, then your first goal should be to just go for a walk around the block or something similar. Make the goal easy, so you get out there, and then once you are out there, it’ll be easier to go further if you want, but if you do just go for a walk around the block, then you’ve met your goal…
Seems that sort of applies to what you have done here… rather than having a daunting run, you’ve just set a goal to be active, and so far it seems to be working! Way to go!
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I’ve been waking up at 5:30 AM here and there because have to get to work by 6:30 AM for meetings. I applaud you for waking up that early every single day. That takes a lot of commitment.
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Well, I try to get up at 5:30am… I’m not exactly that successful at it…
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Congrats on getting through the month with some successes! I gave up on logging my goals in January, but I still continue to try to meet them. Having an early morning committment has made it easier for me to meet all of my others goals. I started a fitness class in late February so every weekday I wake up at 4:45am, exercise for 55 minutes, drink my 64 oz of water, take my vitamins, dress well for the upcoming day, clean up the house before bed, and get to sleep by 10pm (although usually earlier). I had no idea signing up for this class would help me to meet my other goals naturally; I only wish I had started going sooner!
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Wow! 4:45AM!!!! That’s crazy early! So impressive!
Having a commitment definitely helps with the mornings. When my running buddy and I meet at 6am, I am way more likely to get up at 5:30am. I would love to get to bed by 10pm, but I always seem to get doing something in the evening and lose track of time…
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Getting up at 4:45am has been easier than I thought it would, but I definitely still struggle to get to bed on time. Making the conscious decision to not watch TV after the babies go to bed has helped out a lot. Maybe figure out what the trigger activity is for you and save it for earlier in the day or weekends. Or you could always set an alarm to tell you when you need to start getting ready for bed. I hope my suggestions are helpful!
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That’s a lot of goals but you definitely seemed to do well with them! Let me know how the riding your bike to work thing goes, I love hearing about people who give up their car for active transportation!
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It is quite a few goals, but they are all just small things that I *should* be able to get in the habit of…
I biked to work a couple times last week, but the weather hasn’t exactly been the best… And then this weekend I tweaked a muscle in my leg playing soccer… so I’m having to rest it a bit before I can bike again… Hopefully I’ll get back in to it later in the week.
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