11 years of the habits I’ve tracked
I started officially tracking habits in 2014 in my very first bullet journal. Since that time, I’ve been tracking habits just about every month (but that doesn’t mean I’ve been DOING the habits, just planning them, hoping I can mostly do them) because I know how much better I do at staying on top of things if I’m completing daily habits.
It was fun to look back through all the years of journals and see what I was tracking at different stages of life. I thought you might like seeing them too. These were not all the same through all the years, and even changed from month to month or week to week, but it will give you ideas of what habits I was trying to build at the time.
2014
We’ll start with 2014. I had all three boys at home (2 teens and a 12 year old) and we were homeschooling and participating in a once a week co-op. (Note: I don’t track habits that I’ve already built, these are habits that I was trying to develop. So some of these you won’t see Bible reading or prayer, etc, because it was part of my normal morning routine… but sometimes you will see those basics if I was in a season where I was struggling to do them well.)
Also, you’ll notice with almost all of them, I’m always better at the beginning of the month or week. As the month wore on I would forget to mark them, or sometimes forget to do them.

2015
The boys were 17, 16, and 13 and we were still homeschooling and participating in a co-op. I think the “nails” was to be sure to put a strengthener on my fingernails or an oil on them? They are always dry.

2016
The boys were 18, 17, and 14. My oldest finished homeschool, so I was doing the co-op with the younger two. Meditation here means Biblical Meditation. I was learning about how the Puritans meditated on God’s Word when my son was taking a co-op class on American Literature and was diving deep into what it was and practicing how to do it.

2017
The boys were 19, 18 and 15. My oldest was now in the Army and my middle son was finishing up homeschool. Still doing co-op with my youngest. I think with the extra headspace of two of my sons almost done with school, I got more ambitious with goals and habits and added in weekly habits too.

2018
The boys were 20, 19 and 16. I was still participating in the a co-op with my youngest. My middle son was still at home but attending the community college. My oldest was still in the Army. I think the “fast” was staying off screens until I had finished my morning routine and prayer (something I’m still working on).

2019
The boys were 21, 20, and 17. I was pretty much done homeschooling at this point as homeschool was just with my youngest who was always good about finishing his work. I was just record keeping and guiding. “Boundaries” and “RMM” (renew my mind) was marked off if I followed my food boundaries, “Zone” was if I did my daily 15 minutes of zone cleaning, “Nate journal” was if I wrote out some of the proverbs into his journal. “Memory” is memorizing Bible verses.

2020
Ah, we reach the year the world changed. I actually have two bullet journals for this year. I started the first one thinking the world would go on just as it always had… then when everything shut down and changed so drastically, I started a new journal.

2021
This year I was done with homeschool. All my boys had graduated, but I still had habits I was working on. I was trying to be consistent with writing out the book of proverbs, again, but for my youngest. I was still working on a lot of the same habits and trying to be more intentional about reading.

2022
I was really trying to build the habit of working for at least 2 hours every day. The circled “p” means that I did one pomodoro of work. “SOTM” was for the Sermon on the Mount study by Martyn Lloyd Jones (this is still the absolute favorite Bible study I’ve ever done).

2023
Here I was trying to spend less time on the computer (15 minutes in the morning) and working on typing out and editing the Susan Allibone memoir, one pomodoro at a time, which got me through completing it!

2024
2024 was a rough year. Death in the family, helping my newly widowed mother-in-law through grief, a cancer diagnosis, surgery, and all the decisions that entails. So for quite a few months, my habits slipped by the wayside and I wasn’t tracking at all. Then later in the year, I realized that life felt so out of control and chaotic because I wasn’t being intentional with time in the Word, prayer, and other cornerstone habits. So back to habit tracking I went.

2025
And that brings us to this year. For the last 2 1/2 years I’ve changed from a bullet journal to a Hobonichi Cousin (I love both!) and wanted to track my habits a bit differently this year since I can’t seem to make a good page for them in the Hobonichi. So I got a mini composition notebook and I’m using that. I like this because I can use one page for the habits and the other to review what happened during the week and I how I can improve.

What have I learned after more than a decade of tracking habits?
For one, I stink at being completely consistent at them, BUT, even being partially consistent made great progress! By God’s good grace I was able to read through the entire Bible a few times, finish some intense Bible studies, type out and publish an entire 600 page memoir, read a lot of good books (though never as many as I hope to), and develop a strong morning routine (and working toward a strong evening routine too.)
But, I think even with failure, missed days, and inconsistent tracking, overall it has been a really good thing for me. I’m still working on consistency and I imagine I’ll be working on that until the day I die. But I’m sold on tracking habits, even if done poorly, and will continue to do that as long as I can.
What about you? Do you track habits? Which ones have you seen most success in? What do you want to work on? I’d love to hear!
I love this! What a great retrospective. One thing (of many) you have been consistent on, Kari, is challenging me to redeem the time with goals & habits, pressing on towards heaven with growth in godliness (by God’s grace!).
I have always loved you sharing how intentional you try to be and even if you don’t achieve what you’re aiming for, you evaluate and keep trying. It’s encouraging to see someone share honestly when they don’t meet their goal and yet they keep going. I have been following along in your quest for efficiency and consistency. Your Bible studies have been a blessing to me and I loved being able to follow along on the Susan Allibone project as well. You’re always an encouragement.
I review my yearly & quarterly goals pretty regularly which keeps me on track (well, pretty close to on track). Love seeing your little tracking charts as it gives me ideas for mine. Thanks for sharing honest reflections on your progress.
I review my yearly & quarterly goals pretty regularly which keeps me on track (well, pretty close to on track). Love seeing your little tracking charts as it gives me ideas for mine. Thanks for sharing honest reflections on your progress.