I’ve started enforcing the “time blocking” method into my calendar to ensure I consistently improve on my skills during the week (weekends are reserved for family time currently).
At the moment, this is done for 30 minutes a day and set as events in my Google Calendar. I’ve scheduled this to be done at the beginning of the day when I’m more likely to be able to work on it and not be interrupted. This time slot doesn’t limit me to only 30 minutes a day, but rather is to try and get me into the habit of doing a little bit of work everyday.
Physical versus Digital Trackers
I use a simple, physical, paper habit tracker in my Planner to give me a visual reminder of my daily progress. This also provides me with a score sheet.
Previously, I was using the Streaks app before my physical tracker but I decided to switch. I found that although digital versions can be good for some people, I didn’t think this app I used worked very well for me.
Finding a few issues with this has put me off using it unfortunately. The issues could have been because of:
- An incompatible build with the Android version on my phone
- Just general bugs
The problems that I experienced were only with the notifications though. Sometimes the notifications didn’t arrive at the same time everyday so I wouldn’t get into the habit of tracking consistently. And sometimes notifications for some days were skipped altogether.
I also found that because it was an app, if the notifications didn’t remind me, I would forget to enter this in. Seeing my phone was not enough of a visual cue to trigger this habit because it was not associated specifically with this task.
Besides these issues with Streaks, the app looked and felt great to use. So, if you fancy trying a simple tracker app and aren’t using a bespoke version of Android, I’d recommend trying this.
Using A Dual System
So, for the time being, this dual system is working well. Using a physical tracker in conjunction with getting alerted via Google Calendar works best for me.
What do you use to track your daily habits?
