Habit Tracking

January 20, 2026

I want to establish habits such as getting up at the same time every weekday and having a regular meditation practice. These are things I know make me feel better, but I haven’t been doing consistently recently.

I decided a habit tracker would be useful to help me achieve this. From a motivation point of view, being able to track things visually helps me stick to them. I tried a number of the apps on the App Store, but found they were overly complex and were very naggy about trying to sign me up to the premium version.

The Solution

I decided to start with a simple solution of tracking in a Google Sheet. The sheet is very simple:

  1. One day per row. Highlight the current day. Hide all rows which aren’t the current week
  2. One habit per column
  3. A checkbox for completing the habit that day

Here’s a copy of the sheet if you want to try it.

Why it Works

It works because it’s simple yet effective. There are a few principles I’ve followed.

  • Build flexibility in: one habit is “Getting up by alarm”, not “Get up at 6 am”, which lets me progressively move my getting up time earlier. It also means I can get up at a different time on the weekend
  • Habits are complementary: if I get up early, I likely have time to meditate. If I don’t drink the night before, I’m more likely to get up early. If I sleep well, I’m more likely to exercise, etc.
  • Habits focus on the positive: I track Alcohol Free (AF) days, instead of days I drink
  • Habits are limited in number: I have four habits for now, I think that might even be one too many, these are the ones I want to focus on
  • Habits are not overly prescriptive: I want to make sure I exercise regularly. I have a marathon training plan in Runna, which can be used for much more specific tracking, so I want to keep it simple here

I’ll update later in the year on how I get on, let’s see if I need to add a habit of writing consistently too.

Additional Thoughts

If you’re interested in forming and sticking to new habits I recommend Atomic Habits by James Clear.

I tried some other MacOS desktop widgets but had a similar experience to the iOS apps. One app I liked was Geektool to show the Google Sheet permanently on my desktop. It’s a cool tool, but I did’t really like how it looked. I could vibe code a frontend, but that really isn’t necessary, as the sheet is helping me track things nicely.

If you'd like to contact me then you can email writing@petegraham.co.uk or message me on BlueSky petexgraham.bsky.social.