My Habit and Goal-Setting Routine for This Year

This year, it’s crucially important for me to get into a great routine when it comes to my daily/weekly habits and my goals. I want to set up my life in such a way that I can make progress on my goals while also keeping tabs on some of the habits I’m tracking this year. I feel better when I have a structured routine for tracking goals and habits, and so I took some time at the end of the year to figure out exactly how this should look for me. I wanted something that would be fun but not too overwhelming. And I wanted to be able to notice trends—which goals were a struggle, and how could I adjust my expectations to better meet my needs?

With that in mind, I have three categories of tracking my goals and habits:

• My paper planner
• A goal-tracking spreadsheet
• My gold star reward system

Let’s get into the nitty-gritty of each, shall we?!

My paper planner

I spent a lot of time scrolling through Amazon, Google, and Instagram to find my ideal planner for 2026. For me, a paper planner is a place to list weekly/daily goals and keep tabs on my habits. I write down appointments and such, but I mainly use my Google Calendar to track things like that, and then I cross-reference when I’m setting up my weekly spread in my planner every Sunday.

Eventually, I landed on the Curation planner from Saint Belford. While it’s not perfect (I truly do not understand why the monthly layouts are bunched at the beginning of the planner and not spread out), I do love that it allows me to do a lot of different kinds of tracking. There are two weekly layouts: an overview page and then a more traditional weekly layout where you can track habits, set daily goals, and list out appointments/plans/etc.

Here’s how I’ve been using the overview page:

I love writing down my gratitude from the week before, and then I paste in a habit tracker that I printed out. I use the other page to list out a few weekly goals, and then there’s my favorite part: the personal tracker. (I could make this a drinking game. “Take a drink every time I say track or tracker!” But you guys would be completely toasted by now.) There are so many ways to use this tracker, and I’m sure I’ll change what I’m putting in this section as the year goes on. Right now, I’m using this section to write down how many apneas I had the night before, my sleep total, and what movement I did. (Movement is very hard for me right now with all my joint pain, hopefully this will improve once I’m in treatment!)

At the end of the week, I tally up my percentage totals on my habit tracker (more on this later) and use a highlighter to tag any days I had 5 or fewer apneas (the ideal number of apneas per night), got more than 7 hours of sleep, and did any movement. That way, when I’m looking over this overview page at the end of every month, I can quickly see my progress (or lack thereof).

On the weekly layout, I write down a few other types of habits (these are more fun habits to track for now, nothing too serious, although I may move them over to my bigger habit tracker if I’m inspired to do so) and then notate what I’m doing that week. Every morning, I sit down and write down 6 goals in the space next to each day. Usually, I give myself a few cleaning chores and set some easy goals, like making a call or doing an admin task. (Obviously, as you can see, these goals roll over from one day to the next quite often. And sometimes I forget to write down daily goals, which happened on Tuesday. Not the perfect layout to show you, ha.)

A goal-tracking spreadsheet

This idea came to me from a link that Sarah shared on one of her posts near the end of the year. It was a goal-tracking spreadsheet, and I was all about it! I customized the spreadsheet to suit my own purposes, and only update it weekly (it’s part of one of my weekly admin tasks). There are two tabs in this spreadsheet: resolution dashboard and weekly review.

Resolution dashboard

This has all of my annual goals, separated by category. I have a notes column for just some of the goals, like keeping tabs on what my current sleep average is and how many pieces of snail mail I’ve sent. And then at the end of each month, I’ll review each goal and notate my progress. The dropdown (currently only showing up in the January column, but I’ll have it in every column by the end of the year) is where I list my progress. I can choose:

• On track
• Mostly on track
• Inconsistent
• Paused
• Struggling
• Completed

The middle three categories are where my focus will be during my monthly review: inconsistent, paused, and struggling. For example, right now, I would say my goal of closing all of my Apple Watch rings is firmly in the “struggling” category. And that’s because I can’t exercise right now (even going for a walk longer than 10-15 minutes is painful, sigh), so I’m definitely not hitting my movement and exercise goals. But I knew I would struggle with this goal in January, as I await that first rheumatology appointment (SIX DAYS!!!!). So nothing really needs to happen there. I’m also struggling with my hydration goal, and that’s an area where I can think about how to make this goal easier for me.

Weekly Review

The weekly review is a pared-down version of my goals, only tracking the goals that are daily habits or new routines that require a bit more attention to ensure I stay consistent. On Sundays, I use my planner to jog my memory and then input the totals into the spreadsheet. I also have the same progress categories, and you can see where I landed with these goals last week!

P.S. It’s because of last week’s review that I decided to be a little kinder to myself this week. My whole body feels like one big inflammatory flare, and I need to prioritize rest and listening to my body. I’ve paused the goal of “tracking my macros” for the time being, and I’m paring down the goal of “close my Apple Watch rings” to “meet my stand goal every day.” That’s much more doable for me right now, and hopefully, in a few weeks, I will be in a place where I can be a little more aggressive with my healthy living goals.

My gold star reward system

Last but certainly not least, it’s my gold star reward system! What is going to motivate me to be consistent with my goals? Prezzies! At the end of the week, I get to dole out rewards and punishments based on my progress. (For this system, I am only tracking the goals that are listed in the printout I’ve pasted into my planner). Here is my system:

• 7 out of 7 days complete: two gold stars
• 6 out of 7 days complete: one gold star
• 5 out of 7 days complete: $10 into a special savings fund (right now, I’m saving to replace my office chair) + a night off from cooking
• 4 out of 7 days complete: $5 into a special savings fund + a night off from using my CPAP machine
• 2 or 3 out of 7 days complete: $5 into a special savings fund
• 1 day complete: nothing

And any time I get 0 out of 7 days complete, I have to give myself a slightly annoying punishment. For each habit I didn’t mark complete at all during the week, I have to choose between (1) no Happy Color for one full day; (2) no social media for one full day (including Reddit!); or (3) no ChatGPT for one full day (I hate that I’m so addicted, but I use it so much to get guidance on my chronic pain!). These “punishments” are annoying enough that they motivate me to try to do better the next week without feeling like I’m punching myself in the face for not meeting my goals.

Whenever I get 10 gold stars, I get a prezzie! I can choose something from a wishlist (either on Etsy or Amazon), one book, or one item of clothing. I may move this up to 20 gold stars if I find collecting gold stars is easier than I expected, ha, especially since I’m tracking so many goals! But it’s the right pace for me right now.

Was this whole post completely overwhelming to you? Or are you also completely neurotic about goal-tracking?