Habit Tracker

How to Use the Habit Tracker

1. 1. Add your habits. Type a habit and press Add habit. You can track up to twelve at once; rename any of them in place.
2. 2. Tick each day. Select a cell to mark a habit done and select it again to undo. Use the arrows to move between months, so you can catch up on a day you forgot.
3. 3. Read your streaks. The table underneath shows this month's ticks, your rate so far and your current and longest streaks.
4. 4. Print it if you like. Choose a title, how many blank rows to add and Letter or A4, then print at 100% scale. Leave Print my ticks too on to carry the month onto paper, or turn it off for a clean sheet.

How Streaks Are Counted

A streak is a run of consecutive ticked days that ends today. Counting back from today, the tracker adds one for each ticked day until it reaches a day with no tick. A habit you have not yet ticked today keeps its streak, because the day is not over; the count then starts from yesterday. Miss a whole day and the current streak resets to zero. The longest streak is the best run anywhere in your history, and it never goes down.

The monthly rate divides your ticks by the days that have actually happened, not by the length of the month. On the 5th of a 31-day month, four ticks is 80%, not 13%. Once a month is over the denominator is the whole month.

Making a Habit Stick

A tracker does not build a habit by itself; it makes the habit visible. The research on how long that takes is a useful corrective to "21 days" folklore. In a study of 96 volunteers who chose one new daily behaviour, Phillippa Lally and colleagues (2010, European Journal of Social Psychology) found it took a median of 66 days for the behaviour to feel automatic, with individuals ranging from 18 to 254 days. They also found that missing a single day did not noticeably derail the process.

• Start small. A habit you can do on your worst day, such as ten minutes of reading, survives more weeks than one that needs a perfect day.
• Tie it to something you already do. "After I make coffee, I open my notes" gives the habit a cue.
• Judge the month, not the day. One empty cell is information, not failure. The monthly rate shows whether the pattern is holding.
• Track few habits. Three to five is plenty; twelve is the ceiling here, not a target.

Online or on Paper

The online grid is quicker to keep and does the arithmetic for you. The printed sheet is harder to forget when it is stuck to a wall or the inside of a notebook. The sheet is drawn at true size with a margin of 0.5 inch on Letter and 12 mm on A4, so it comes out the same on any printer. Weekend columns are lightly shaded and each row ends with a total.

Your habits and ticks are stored in your browser's local storage on this device, and nothing is uploaded. That also means they do not follow you to another browser or device, and clearing site data removes them, so print the sheet or copy the summary if a month matters to you.

Frequently Asked Questions

How many habits should I track at once?

Start with one to three. Each habit competes for the same limited attention, and a short list you actually tick beats a long one you abandon. The tracker allows up to twelve because some people track small daily basics alongside bigger goals, but that is a maximum, not advice.

Does missing a day break my streak?

Yes, a whole missed day resets the current streak to zero, but the longest streak keeps your best run. In Lally and colleagues' 2010 study, a single missed day did not noticeably hurt the process of a behaviour becoming automatic, so treat the reset as a counter, not a verdict.

How long does it take to form a habit?

There is no fixed number. In a 2010 study by Lally and colleagues, the median time for a new daily behaviour to feel automatic was 66 days, with a range from 18 to 254 days depending on the person and the behaviour. Simpler behaviours tended to become automatic sooner.

Where is my data stored?

Only in your browser's local storage on this device. Nothing is sent to CitationEasy or anyone else. Because of that it will not appear on your phone if you set it up on a laptop, and clearing your browsing data deletes it.

Can I print a blank habit tracker?

Yes. Turn off Print my ticks too, remove any habits you do not want named, and choose how many blank rows to add. Blank rows have an empty name cell so you can write habits in by hand. Pick Letter or A4, then print at 100% scale with headers and footers off.

Do streaks carry over between months?

Yes. The grid shows one month at a time so it fits a landscape page, but the streak counts back across month and year boundaries for as long as every day is ticked. Switch months with the arrows to see or fix earlier days.