The gist: Learn why goal and habit tracking tends to make us feel like sh*t, how to avoid it, and how to find the right tracking method for your brain and goals.
Has it ever felt like a goal or progress tracker was a record of your “misses” and “mistakes” instead of your actual progress?
Maybe you missed a goal milestone or scheduled habit completely, or you just forgot to track it. Whatever the reason, it can kill your motivation.
And that usually has to do with one of two things: using the wrong kind of tracker or bringing the wrong kind of mindset.
First, let's talk about the wrong type of tracker. The format or setup you're using might be a mismatch for your goal or brain, creating friction in the tracking itself.
Then, there's Hustle Culture's omnipresence in society. Its toxic mindsets might be seeping into how you think about it, expecting perfection and intensity from yourself when it’s not needed.
But once you unlearn Hustle Culture, figuring out how to make goal, progress, and habit tracking work for you is so worth the experimentation.
So let’s look at why tracking helps and different ways to make it work for you.
Why it helps to track your progress
Tracking does two things that make working toward goals less frustrating.
First, it reveals patterns.
After a few weeks of consistent tracking, you start seeing which situations lead to forgotten habits and stalled goals. That info can point you toward what to focus on changing, like rearranging your schedule on the day that's already too full for a new habit to fit.
Second, it makes your progress concrete.
Long-term goals can be rough because daily progress is so small, it’s barely noticeable. Fifteen minutes of walking doesn't feel impactful in the moment. A tracker that shows 52 days or whatever of short walks makes the cumulative effort visible and motivating.
Different ways to track progress
You might have found tracking tedious and hard to keep up with in the past.
But that’s only the case when you’re trying a tracking method for too much friction for your brain or the goal you’re working on.
I’m confident that you can find a way that makes it feel fun and motivating if you experiment a bit.
Some of the options include:
- Milestone checklists. Starting off with something simple, you can create a checklist breaking a bigger goal down into smaller sub-goals that you check off as you complete them. It could work well if you love the satisfaction of ticking off a checkbox and seeing exactly what you’ve done and still need to do, especially for goals with distinct phases or milestones as opposed to habits or recurring actions.
- Progress bar or visual tracker. Longer term goals can be tough because daily progress feels invisible. But tracking it with a progress bar, thermometer, or whatever “coloring container” works for you changes that by showing you how far you've come. Writing 500 words a day may not feel like enough when you have a whole book to finish, but coloring in a square for EACH 500 words lets you see how they add up.
- Spreadsheet/database. A spreadsheet or Notion database or something like that is the most flexible option with the most possibilities, especially if you're the kind of nerd that likes customizing them (like me). You can log whatever combination of factors matters for your goal and organize it in a way that makes sense to you. Plus, features like calculations, charts, and graphs make it easy to summarize the data to spot trends and patterns.
- Journal entries. Journaling reflections about your progress (whether through writing, voice notes, or videos) can capture details that structured tracking formats miss. It’s useful when you’re more interested in diving deep into qualitative info instead of tracking quantitative stats.
- Physical tokens. Using physical objects to track your progress gives you something tactile and visible in your space. For example, you can move beads or coins from one jar to another each time you repeat a habit. The physical action of moving something makes completion feel more satisfying to people who prefer tactile engagement, and seeing a physical representation of the goal can help keep it top of mind.
- Progress photos. Taking pictures to document changes over time captures visual evidence of your progress. This works well for goals with visible results, like decluttering a room or finishing a craft project. Seeing the before, middle, and after, can be better motivation than detailed statistics.
- Running count. Keep a simple running total of a number, like how many total words you've written or workouts you’ve done, is one of the simplest ways to track your progress on a goal. That can make it easier to maintain, even if it comes with trade-offs like lack of other details. It can also be useful when you don’t want to focus too much on frequency or consistency, just a total number.
Make your progress obvious by tracking it
Tracking makes the effort you're putting towards your goals feel more “real” in the moment, instead of not feeling accomplished until the finish line. And that reminder of progress can motivate you to keep going.
And if you work or spend time in Notion, that’s where the goal reminders should be, too. Check out our Gentle Goal-Setting Dashboard to build your goals into your Notion system.