Have you heard this saying before?
Effective time management and productivity start with understanding a crucial principle: We manage what we monitor. Or maybe you’ve heard Aristotle’s saying “We are what we repeatedly do.” In this post, we’ll explore how closely tracking your tasks and goals can lead to more organized and efficient days. By monitoring your activities and progress, you can gain insight into your productivity patterns, identify areas for improvement, and ultimately take control of your schedule. Learn how implementing strategic monitoring can transform your planning routine and help you stay on top of your priorities.
I absolutely believe that the more we monitor and track things, the more likely we are to do the behavior, which is why I love this Goal and Habit tracker insert. Back in January, I was pretty diligent about tracking my five habits that I was trying to implement – that was before I had even heard of Tula Xii. But then I stopped tracking, and guess what happened. Yep, I stopped doing the things… So here I am in June trying to re-implement those habits (and some other new ones).
Here’s the basic setup of the Goals & Habits insert.
First, the insert is intended to be used as a monthly tracker, which means one insert will last you all year long! woot woot! It’s easy peasy to use too, with checkboxes already in place for you!
On the left page, you’ll write the month at the top, then there’s a place for you two journal about what your goals are for the month. This is a great place to put a motivational quote that you can read when you’re having a rough day staying on track. The bottom of the left page has a place for you to track habits that you want to do on a weekly basis, as opposed to a daily basis, with space for five weekly habits to track.
The right page is your monthly tracker and has space for you to track ten different habits (or tasks, if you’re using it for other purposes). Of course, just like most of our inserts, you could use this insert to track things besides habits. Maybe you have daily tasks you need to accomplish for your business and this is easier than having a daily to-do list. You could even use this to track medical symptoms if you’re trying to see how frequently you’re having symptoms (I also recommend the Mental Health Tracker for this type of functionality).
What habits should you track?
Obviously, that’s going to depend on YOU and what YOUR goals are. I personally am working on increasing my water intake, consistently going to kickboxing twice a week, reading daily, and putting my phone down by 9pm. Here are some ideas to start your list:
Health Habits
- Water Intake
- Physical Activity (goal number of steps per day, number of trips to the gym per week)
- Number of hours of sleep
- Caloric Intake (target)
- Number of meals cooked at home
Mental Health Habits
- Time spent reading each week
- Limit amount of screen time
- Time spent on hobby
- Journal
- Set bedtime / wake-up time
- Gratitude journal
Productivity Habits
- Empty inbox (or work to reduce number of unread emails by a certain amount each day)
- Time block your day – see where you’re losing time
- Power Hour – set specific tasks that you need to accomplish, remove distractions, and power through the list!
- To-do list (use it!)
Habit tracking is better with friends!
Truly, having someone hold you accountable can be a huge asset in keeping up your habits. This is why I have started weekly Power Hour sessions in our Chaos Coordinator Community. These are just focused times for you to get things done with others who are trying to do the same. While I have a focus for each session, you are welcome to work on whatever tasks you need to accomplish! In today’s session, I worked on this blog! 
You can find some journaling ideas on my previous post: It’s time to make yourself a priority…
Until next time, coordinate that chaos!
~ Teresa Stone ~