What Habits Should I Track? 50+ Ideas for Better Habits

The best habits to track naturally aren’t the ones that look or appear the most impressive; rather, they’re the ones that move you closer toward the person you want to become, your ideal end goal. 

It is not a good idea to simply track or target habits just for the sake of doing them or following others. There has to be a reason for using the habit. A desired end goal should be moving toward progress.

A habit tracker can help you stay consistent, but first you need to decide what it is that you are trying to achieve. You need to ask yourself what is worth tracking and for what purpose. Whether you want to improve your productivity, finances, health, personal growth, or relationships, the right habits should reflect the areas of your life you are genuinely trying to improve.

My goal is to help you become your ideal self, where you can look at yourself in the mirror and say, “I love myself”. 

Below, you will find a collection of habit ideas, designed to simplify your personal development. 

Key Things to Remember

People make common mistakes that kill their ability to effectively track and find success from habit building. People make the mistake of tracking and focusing on too many habits, setting targets that are too high, treating a missed day as failure, and not being specific enough in defining habits.

It is important to be more specific; rather than targeting “be healthier”, you need to find an action that helps you reach that goal, such as “walking for 30 minutes every day”. These habits need to be in your control. Exercising 3 times per week is more doable and effective than saying “lose 10 pounds”.

Track the behavior, not just the outcome.

You don’t track a goal or habit simply because someone else said it online on the internet, like on Twitter or Reddit. Track something that connects to the outcome you desire, an outcome you truly care about. 

How to Stay Consistent

When it comes to having the ability to stay consistent, it is about creating a system that is simple, something that you can realistically follow. 

It is important to start small, making the goals or targets small enough that your brain simply can’t reject them and find ways to avoid them. Your brain is naturally accustomed to a daily routine and is accustomed to the habits you have already built. It is not going to be easy to break out of those habits your brain isn’t accustomed to, as your body wants to focus on doing the things that already feel more natural. You have to build momentum first, and increase the intensity later on as you slowly progress. 

It is important to focus on the system and not perfection. Accept that missing a day just means that you are human; it is natural, it does not mean failure. Failure only occurs when you actually decide to give up; as long as you keep going, you will never fail. Even if you miss two days in a row, get right back to your routine, and celebrate the success no matter how small. Be positive!

Motivation comes and goes; it is important to have a system that helps you understand and show up, even when you might not feel like it. Some days you may get a lot done, more than the target that you set; some days you get less done, but it is important to have the mindset that showing up still counts. Stop chasing perfect routines, and start building ones that you can repeat.

Realization needs to set in: this is all about you, and only you. No one else will care if you don’t care for yourself. Believe in yourself; you need to set and change your mindset from “I am lazy” to “I am hardworking”. If you believe you are lazy, the actions you perform will be as though you are lazy. You need to believe you’re hardworking and challenge yourself. It is not easy, but essential for growth.

Daily Goals Examples

Health Habits

1. Drink water
2. Get enough sleep
3. Go to bed on time
4. Wake up at a consistent time
5. Stretching
6. Spending time outside
7. Exercise 
8. Walking 
9. Eating fruit and vegetables
10.  Take daily vitamins
11.  Teeth brushing
12.  Nail biting
13.  Showering
14.  Mood
15.  Energy levels
16.  Nutritional check (protein, carbohydrates, calories, sugar, etc.)
17.  Floss
18.  Take medications
19.  Moisturize 
20.  Meditate

Productivity Habits

1. Reading 
2. Phone usage
3. Work sessions
4. Limit social media
5. Journal
6. Daily reflection
7. Morning routine
8. Preparing for tomorrow
9. Setting priorities 
10.  Morning routine
11.  Therapy
12.  Cooking
13.  Limiting money spent 
14.  Learning a new skill
15.  School work
16.  Budget tracking

It is important to make sure that you are being specific in what you are tracking. A clear action needs to be able to be tracked to mark as complete. The easier the habit is to define, the easier it becomes to track consistency and progress.

Social Habits

1. Spend time with family or partner
2. Eat a meal without your phone
3. Express appreciation
4. Plan social time
5. Call or text a friend
6. Active listening

Home Habits

1. Clean your bedroom
2. Wash dishes
3. Laundry
4. Water plants
5. Take out the garbage
6. Make your bed
7. Keeping house clean
8. Cooking 
9. Organizing bills and payments

Habits to Stop

People often use their phone too much, which often includes late-night screen time, morning screen time, and excessive use of social media. People also stay up too late, procrastinate, skip workouts, and spend unnecessarily. All of these habits are habits to stop.

Habit tracking doesn’t always mean:

Did I do this?

It can also mean:

Did I avoid this?

How Often You Should Track a Habit

When it comes to frequent behaviors such as tracking how much water you drink, how many steps you walk, or how many pages you read in a book, this is something that should be tracked daily. Tasks that don’t need to happen every day, like going to the gym or meal prepping, are examples of weekly tracking. Reviewing goals and measuring progress are examples of goals that you should track monthly. Although most goals should be tracked and recorded daily, there are certain situations where some goals or habits make more sense to be tracked daily, weekly, or monthly.

What are Some Good Daily Goals

Good habits to track that people often gravitate towards include daily water intake, a consistent sleep schedule/routine, weight loss, physical activity, phone usage, showers, and reading. 

Although these are considered the most common and good daily goals to track and keep progress of, it is important to remember that it is all about you. There is an endless list of goals and habits that you can keep track of that people struggle with. It is important to think about yourself and what you need. You need to think about what you need to improve on in order to reach your goals. Nothing is more important than that. 

If you want to be happy, set a goal that commands your thoughts, liberates your energy, and inspires your hopes.
— Andrew Carnegie

How Many Habits Should You Track at Once?

There is no magic number. 

The goal and purpose of a habit tracker isn’t to just fill it up. It’s to fill your life with behaviors worth repeating. 

If you are new to tracking habits, start with something that is meaningful, something that is easier to stay focused on rather than trying to overhaul everything at once. Nobody is perfect; everyone has flaws, multiple flaws, and the truth is you can’t fix it all once. It takes time. In order to truly see change, it is more important to focus on what is more important to you. You can always add another habit when your current system feels manageable.

Remember the importance of making your habits small enough to repeat. 

One of the easiest mistakes to make is choosing a good habit but setting the bar so high that it becomes difficult to repeat and stay consistent. It is easy to say that I will be starting a strict low-carb diet; what is not easy is keeping up with it. You have to make it manageable. The brain is a powerful tool, and it does not like change. 

It truly can all be overwhelming; however, it is all simpler than it looks. With more than 50 ideas above, the temptation might set in to start tracking them all. 

The answer is most certainly: DON’T

Choose one area of your life that you want to improve and build. Pick one small behavior or habit that moves you in the direction you want to go. You need to define what success looks like for you, take it all in, and start from there.

Better habits are not built by changing everything all at once. It is all built by repeatedly doing the small things that help you move forward.