Daily Tracking = Big Wins: 6 Habits I Monitor for Real Results
I work with energy, emotions and intuition, but some structure is also necessary to get things get done. That’s why I have many habits and productivity strategies in place. One of them is daily tracking of a few metrics.
Measuring how you’re doing in any area of life helps you know if you’re going in the right direction or not at any moment. It’s true that what gets measured, gets done. But many people aren’t fans of this practice and avoid it, which actually decreases their productivity.
Hopefully, this post will inspire you to get back to tracking the things you want to improve in your life, and maybe give you some ideas on what to track daily or weekly.
Many of these things are habits I’m actually coming back to because I remembered how well they worked. We can all leave effective habits behind, but it’s good to re-evaluate the situation and come back to that practice if it was helping you get more done.
Daily Tracking: What I Track Every Day
1. How much time I spend working.
I’m self-employed and work from home. That means many distractions, easily getting lazy or even forgetting about work and mixing it with others things (like personal growth, in my case).
So a few months ago I installed an app to track how many hours I actually put in the business, with the goal of increasing that number.
I don’t work too much. Four hours a day of focused work is my goal, and the rest depends on how much inspiration hits.
Lately, it hits more often and I have bigger goals in mind, though, so the input looks good.
An app can allow you to basically clock in and clock out. I also add the pauses, and only track actual time spent working.
This little change helps me put in an extra hour or two here and there and actually get to 4-6 hours during the workdays.
Also read: 12 Simple Productivity Habits That Help Me Write a Lot Daily
2. Daily tasks.
That’s my to-do list and I use a simple app for that too.
I also like adding tasks to my to-do list the moment they come up so I don’t need to remember anything or even think about it until it’s time to work on it.
I feel a sense of accomplishment when all the items for the day are ticked off. But I also easily move an item to the next days if it looks like today isn’t the day for it.
The good old to-do list has worked well for me for over a decade now.
3. Intermittent fasting.
That’s another thing I’ve been doing since I can remember (on and off). It’s perfect for my lifestyle and helps me get things done and be productive, with a clear mind, and to control my food intake while still enjoying the foods I love.
I wrote more about intermittent fasting here (it’s quite an old post, though, but everything in it still applies).
4. Daily steps.
I started doing this in the beginning of the year (6-7 months ago) because I was just feeling good and wanted to add a new habit and spend more time outside.
I never tracked steps before, but now aim for 10K a day. I use my phone, not a smartwatch.
And this isn’t to lose weight or stay fit, and I don’t count steps made during workouts in the gym.
Daily 10K-step walks are to get me out of the house, to enjoy my city, to breathe some fresh air and see the sun (when it’s there), to break up my workday, and to focus on personal growth.
I turn the walk into more than just a walk. I listen to powerful podcasts, reflect, come up with business ideas, post on TikTok if I feel like, connect to my goals and big vision, calm down my nervous system, say affirmations in my mind, etc.
There’s a lot of inner work being done during those walks, and that’s actually my favorite part about them.
5. The work that gets done.
Something I’ve been doing forever and just for personal accountability is to also write down the work that actually gets done daily.
This helps me with my monthly meetings (once every 10 days to see if I’m hitting the goals for the month, and one at the end of the month).
6. Content.
In a Google Sheet, I track all the new content I publish and the old posts I update on my blogs. For each blog post, I include details such as the date, keyword it’s optimized for, URL, title, etc.
So these are the things I track daily. I feel in control of those habits because of tracking them.
Now vs Then
I also found this post from 2015 where I list the things I was tracking then. Some are the same, but I see that then I was also keeping track of the time I wake up (maybe I can do that again, actually, as I want to wake up earlier), water intake, food intake, new habits, and what I’m reading in a day that helps me grow.
How about you? What are you currently tracking? And what aspect of your life or business do you want to improve by daily tracking?
