On my 2026 goals recap post, Engie commented, “So many goals! How do you track all of this? Have you talked about that before?”
I was mentally writing out a very long comment to her as I thought about how to respond and figured, why not make it a blog post? So that’s what you get today!
This probably won’t please many people, but I have to admit that I have relied on ChatGPT a fair bit to help me put together the right habit-tracking system for myself. I have a LOT of goals I’m tracking this year, and I would absolutely fall apart if I didn’t have a system for keeping track of everything.
Here’s how it works:
Daily
Most of the goals I’m tracking are daily habits:
- Drink water
- Close my Apple Watch rings
- Take meds
- Text one friend
- Do my morning/evening routines
- Move my body
- Get outside
For these goals, I bought a habit tracker pad on Amazon. There are a million of these, but this is the one I have, and I like it a lot!
It’s part of my evening routine to go down the list of daily habits I’m tracking and mark off which ones I did that day. I keep this pad on the breakfast bar that’s visible right when you walk into my apartment, so it’s something I see often. I really enjoy making those checkmarks every evening! And it’s quick – just takes a few seconds at the end of the day.
(I draw a line to separate the weeks, so it’s easier for me to visualize!)
Weekly
I have a list of weekly admin tasks that I typically do every Sunday. On that list are things like “set up my budget for the week” and “refill med organizer.” There’s also the task of “review goals.”
And that’s when I sit down at my laptop with my habit tracker pad and fill out a spreadsheet that ChatGPT made for me. It’s the kind of spreadsheet that is easy to use but way too complicated for me to put together myself. (I am not an Excel whiz!)
The first tab of my spreadsheet is called my “Daily Tracker.” It’s broken down by day (starting April 1st, since I didn’t start this process until Q2), and then I have each goal listed as the column heading and a simple “no/yes” dropdown. The goals on this spreadsheet mirror what’s on my habit tracker pad (although I add a few extra habits to track every month, just for funsies), so I just go down the list and fill in the answers for the week.
The second tab is called “Monthly Goals.” This is where I track goals that don’t need daily attention, like:
- Send three pieces of snail mail
- Watch one season of a TV show, listen to one album, and watch one movie
- Visit a new-to-me spot in my town every month
I click over to this tab every week in case there’s something I can fill in, like visiting a new spot or sending postcards. I also have a list at the bottom where I’m tracking my weekly goal of making plans with friends.
Again, this process does not take very long, and there’s a reason why it’s something I love to do every Sunday, which I’ll take about in a moment.
(I’m happy to give people a copy of my spreadsheet so they can make one of their own!)
Quarterly
I only really look at my numbers and figure out percentages every quarter, when I’m putting together my annual goals recap post. Should I maybe look at this tab more often to see where I can make adjustments? Probably, but I tend to do that during my weekly review session, where I can see which goals have been a struggle more than others.
And that’s when I visit the third tab of the spreadsheet, called “Monthly Dashboard.” It pulls in all of the data from the Daily Tracker tab and shows me how many times I’ve done each habit for the corresponding month. (I’m sure there’s a way I could get the spreadsheet to spit out percentages, but it’s not that much work to figure them out myself.)
So, when you break it down:
- Daily = checking off boxes on my habit tracker pad
- Weekly = updating my habit tracker spreadsheet
- Quarterly = actually analyzing how I’m doing on my goals
My Reward System
I find it very easy to sit down every week and input my goals into my spreadsheet because I set up a reward system for myself! Of course I did. Depending on how many times I marked “yes” on a daily goal that week, I get a reward:
- 7 days = 2 gold stars
- 6 days = 1 gold star
- 5 days = 1/2 gold star
- 4 days = 1/4 gold star and $5 into savings fund
- 3 days = $5 into savings fund
- 2 days = $10 into savings fund
- 1 day = $15 into savings fund
- 0 days = $25 into savings fund
I have a legit piece of paper that I use to keep track of my gold stars. Whenever I reach 10 gold stars, I can buy something from my Etsy or Amazon wish list. (My next reward is going to be Bluetooth sleep headphones to make falling asleep to my ASMR videos even more magical and a new luxurious bath pillow.) Sure, these are things I can buy without this reward system, but the reward system makes it so much more delightful!
The savings fund is also fun because I put that money into a “special” savings account where I save up for bigger purchases. I used this fund for my bedroom bench, the two new bookshelves I’ve added to my apartment, new running shoes, and soon… a reading chair!
You might think I wouldn’t be determined to mark off goals if I can put more money into savings the less I do something, but that’s not how my brain works. It makes me sad to part with my money, and I find adding gold stars to my chart to be a lot more rewarding. But if I find myself trying to “beat the system” at some point, I’ll rework things.
Final Thoughts
Is this system unnecessarily complicated? For some people, sure. But it scratches a very specific part of my brain. It is so satisfying to me to physically check things off, collect gold stars, and earn fun rewards. It makes goal-tracking and creating habits a lot more fun, too.
Do you have an unnecessarily complicated goal-tracking system like me?!
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