🤔 There Are a Lot of Options for Habit Trackers in Notion
How do you know which one is best for you? Here is a simple guide to help you pick the best type of tracker to meet your goals.
⚖️ Table of Contents
🤔 There Are a Lot of Options for Habit Trackers in Notion⚖️ Table of Contents〽️Decision Matrix🥉 Three Types of Trackers⌛ One Database (1D) Time-Limited TrackerRecommended Template🔍 One Database Retrospective Tracker🕸️ Multi-Database TrackersRecommended Templates🖊️ My Habit Tracking Strategy👋 Thanks For Reading!
〽️Decision Matrix
TL/DR
Below is a flowchart to help you decide which type of habit tracker is best for you.
flowchart TD
id1[Do you want to look back on completed habits?]
id1 --> id2[No]
id1 --> id3[Yes]
id2 --> id4[Use the <b><a href='https://www.prescottjr.com/blog/The-Best-Notion-Habit-Tracking-Templates#fa137145393540bba37a59c4057c6913' style='color: green'>1D time-limited habit tracker</a></b>]
id3 --> id5[Do you want<br>to apply variable criteria to<br>each habit, like active timelines,<br>frequencies and more?]
id5 --> id7[No]
id5 --> id6[Yes]
id6 --> id8[Use the <b><a href='https://www.prescottjr.com/blog/The-Best-Notion-Habit-Tracking-Templates#eac11d4f42bb446eb309fa349ede1683' style='color: green'>multi-database tracker</a></b>]
id7 --> id9[Use the <b><a href='https://www.prescottjr.com/blog/The-Best-Notion-Habit-Tracking-Templates#c719a8d5923f4797a2b5b24fd9c936f7' style='color: green'>1D retrospective habit tracker</a></b>]
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🥉 Three Types of Trackers
⌛ One Database (1D) Time-Limited Tracker
This tracker is the simplest and is great for weekly habit tracking.
Recommended Template
🔍 One Database Retrospective Tracker
Concept
Each row represents a day, and columns represent habits.
This model allows you to look back on your habit’s success over time. For example, you could create a notion view for a specific time window and see the percentage of habits completed.
🕸️ Multi-Database Trackers
This model is much more complex but much more powerful.
In the multi-database habit tracking model, your habits live in a separate database from your habit tracking database. This second database allows you to perform complex calculations for each habit. For example, you can
- Add frequency to each habit, like daily, weekly, monthly, etc.
- Track habits completed in a window of time.
- Create cycles of different habits that have variable windows of time
- Set goals for individual habits and see progress over time
Recommended Templates
Ellie Gons’ Template → This is the most thorough habit tracker I have found. Gridfiti also created a comprehensive multi-database tracker, but it’s behind a $10 paywall.
🖊️ My Habit Tracking Strategy
I combine three different strategies for my habit tracking:
A daily journal
A simple journal to reflect on the day and track what I did.
Evergreen habit tracking in a 1D habit tracker
Evergreen habits are things that will never go away: hours slept, mental and physical health ratings, diet/nutrition, hours worked, an overall 0-10 daily score, and a few more.
Each of these items is a property on my journal database, and are filled out every day.
Non-Evergreen habit tracking in a Multi-Database tracker
Non-evergreen habits are things that only apply to a specific period of time. For example, if I were to become obsessed with knitting, and had a goal to knit two days a week, I would create that Habit in the second habit database, and then tag it in a relation property in the primary journal database.
A loom will be coming soon explaining the details of this journal.