TL;DR: I made a minimalist, geometric, 365 day habit tracker to help my wife give up smoking. It's based on 'Don't Break The Chain': decide what you want to do, go do it and cross off the day. Keep building your chain of X's and the action will become a habit. Download it here (it's free and no email required), print it out, stick it to your wall and start your year of awesome.

Happy New Year everyone!

Last year I made a habit tracker to help my wife give up smoking.

And since it's nearly February, I want to share it with anyone that might be struggling already this year. It's basically a piece of paper with 365 circles on it. But don't let that put you off. (Especially if you're fond of downloading apps and never using them.)

My wife called it her Year of Awesome...so the name stuck. (She's now on day 192...here's a photo of her tracker from a few weeks ago: https://imgur.com/cJYZEpe)

OK let's get going.

It's based on the 'don't break the chain' method

Some of you may be familiar with this method, made famous by the Jerry Seinfeld Lifehacker post.

Basically: decide what you want to do, go do it and cross off the day.

Your goal is simply to build the biggest chain of crosses you can.

As time goes on in theory, it should get easier because:

Your actions are becoming habit.
You'll feel more accountable for preserving your ever increasing chain.
You'll feel more confident as you start seeing results.

There are 2 pages to the download:

Page 1: The Setup Page. Think of it like the brains behind the tracker. It allows you to break your resolution/goal up into smaller achievable actions.

Page 2: The Tracker. 365 circles.

You can write the date or day inside the circle if you want or just leave it blank. (You can also write your target for the day inside the circle..it could be minutes, miles, calories, kilograms, depending on what you're tracking. More about this later.) To denote a win for the day you can cross it off, tick it, color it in, draw a smiley face or put a line through it...whatever you want.

It works well for simple daily repeating actions. Things like flossing, taking a multivitamin, making your bed, decluttering, meditating, studying and single exercises (like push-ups). But you can also use it to build more complex habits. Things like workouts, morning routines and new skills. The key is to build the habit incrementally and iteratively. In other words, break it down into small chunks and gradually improve.

But What If I Break The Chain?

When we start faltering with our New Year's resolutions, we usually give up. Ah well, that's that for another year. But why? Failing (or in the case of Year of Awesome, breaking the chain), is just an indication that the actions you are taking aren't quite right for you yet. So if you start seeing empty circles on your tracker, stop and review your setup. Can you make the action easier for a few weeks? Change it to get your chain going again. And then wear your failure with pride. It's a battle scar and it shows you've handled failure and come out the other side.

Here are a few examples of how you might use it:

• Flossing

Yes it's a basic habit, but less than a quarter of us actually do it everyday. The very first step is to stick your Year of Awesome tracker to the wall in your bathroom. That way you'll be looking at it every morning/night. Next, is to think about what could trigger your flossing. This is quite easy - you probably already brush your teeth. So we can use that habit to carry our flossing habit. Set the dental floss beside your toothbrush holder and when you've finished brushing your teeth, start flossing. One last piece of advice, and this goes for any new habit you're trying to build: try to stay focused on why you're doing it whilst your doing it. Developing a new habit is hard and painful. So you need to continually remind yourself of the end goal. You're answering the question 'Why am I bothering?". In this case, the end goal is to be able to smile confidently knowing you have clean teeth...or you could use the fear of having cavities and needing dental work. Keep that to the forefront of your mind whilst you're doing the action. Let it drive you to get your X each day.

Habit #1: Floss One Tooth

Range: Day 1-30

For the first 30 days you're going to floss one tooth. 'ppffft' I hear you cry, that's too easy! Well if this was easy, you'd be part of the clean-teeth-flossing gang already. So listen up horse breath. Floss the whole lot if you feel like it, but just remember to get your X all you need to do is one tooth. 1 tooth = X. Your goal is to get a string of 30 X's.

Habit #2: Floss Top Row

Range: Day 31-61

Habit #3: Floss All

Range: Day 62-

• Tidying

You don't have to be the next Marie Kondo to make tidying a routine. This habit will stand by you for the rest of your life. Wouldn't it be great to have a tidy living space all the time.

Habit #1: Make Your Bed

Range: Day 1-60

For the first month you're just going to make your bed as soon as you rise. That's all. Stick your tracker on the bedroom wall to make it easier to mark off once it's done each morning. It will also help to remind you.

Habit #2: Bedtime Pickup

Range: Day 61-161

Hopefully by now you're making your bed on autopilot, so we can move onwards and upwards. For the next 100 days, we're going build a habit of making sure we pick everything off the floor and put it in its right place. Keeping your tracker were it is, means we can trigger this action at bedtime. Getting into bed is your reward for completing this action and crossing off your day. It may take 5 minutes or 25 minutes, but don't finish until everything is off the floor.

Habit #3: Always Tidy

Range: Day 162-365

This last tidying habit is about listening to that little voice inside you head that tells you 'that's messy', or 'that looks out of place'. Here we're building the habit of immediately tidying up after ourselves. To get your X, you need to tidy as you go. How do you know you've earned your X? Look at your house at the end of the day...did you need to do any more tidying? If not, you've made tidying up a lifelong habit.

• Decluttering

One for the minimalists here. This is very much related to the previous habit of tidying, but I thought I would keep it separate because decluttering involves throwing things out you no longer truly value. (A good gauge of this is asking yourself, would you pay for the item all over again in order to keep it.) The minimalism challenge was created by Joshua Fields Millburn and Ryan Nicodemus...aka the Minimalists. The idea is simple. On day one, throw out one item. Day 2 throw out 2 items...and so on. Alternatively, you can commit to getting rid of one thing everyday for a year.

Habit: Throw out 1 item a day

Range: Day 1-365

• Positivity/Smiling/Well-Being

OK, I know what you're thinking...what kind of happy clappy nonsense is this? But if you're not mindful about staying positive throughout your day, you'll naturally wonder into states of negativity as you react to things that happen to you. So here we just want to build a habit of spotting an opportunity to be positive. Also, the opportunity to turn your circle into a smiley face each day is too good to miss.

Habit: Stay Positive

Range: Day 1-365

To get your X for the day, you need to display at lease one positive action/reaction. As long as you recall it at the end of your day, you get to fill in your smiley face.

• Losing Weight

I haven't filled this out with any example setups. To be perfectly honest, I'm not qualified to give anyone advice on weight loss. You could use YoA to track your calorie intake over the course of the year. Or you could use it go cold turkey when it comes to eating junk food or drinking fizzy drinks. It's up to you to decide how best to use the tracker. (I'd love to hear about it if anyone uses it to help weight loss.)

•Running

Let's say you want to take up running this year. Better yet, let's say you set yourself a lofty goal of running the NY marathon in November. And we're starting from stratch here...the last time you ran was to catch a bus back in high school. Instead of trying to run 3 or 4 miles everyday and blowing up after a week or two, you're gonna start small.

Habit: Put Your Running Shoes On

Range: Day 1-7

For the first week you're going to put on your running shoes...and thats all. Pick a time to do it each day. Tag it onto something you already do. Or set a reminder on your phone. Put your shoes on and you earn your X for the day. Get 7 X's in a row and you're done. Let's move onto the next stage.

Habit: Walk The Block

Range: Day 8-38

Alright now you're going to start walking. Not too far, just round the block. And you're going to do this for a whole month. Sounds easy? Good, just do it, get your X for the day, mark it on your tracker and move on. If you feel like breaking into a jog, do it. But to earn your X, all you need to do is complete the lap of the block. By not overcommitting, you're building a lasting habit. It might not feel like you're making much progress, but trust me this is foundation work. It's the essential part that most people skip (and that's why their New Years Resolutions fail).

Habit: Jog The Block

Range: Day 39-69

Alright now you're cooking. You've probably made this thing a habit and it will start getting easy/monotonous. Time to shake it up. Our goal for the next 30 days is to jog continuously round the block. Feel strong? Cool, go a bit further if you want. But you don't get extra points. Build it slowly. Some days you'll not feel like running any more than a block. Some days you'll want to run twice round it. And this is ok. Just keep thinking about winning your X for the day and growing your chain.

Habit: Run 2 Miles

Range: Day 70-100

OK we've completed 70 days of habit building. We've turned our actions into habit. Now's the time to turn up the heat and increase the distance. Take a look at your area and work out a good strong lap and set that as your goal each day. I've said 2 miles here, it doesn't matter as it'll depend on your fitness. By this stage you may be running 6 miles or still be struggling at a mile. Work it out yourself and make it so it's achievable even on your worst day. Stretch it when you can but just make sure you get your X.

Habit: Run 4 Miles

Range: Day 101-131

We've reached the 100 day mark and we're compounding out efforts. Nows the time to grow and stretch ourselves again. Move the distance out. You can do this in smaller increments over less time if you wish.

Habit: Run 6 Miles

Range: Day 132-162

Another 30 days at an increased distance.

Habit: Run 10 Miles Every Other Day

Range: Day 163-213

OK we're into unknown territory now. You may be running everyday, or running every other day with a rest day in between. As long as it's planned, you still get your X. (That actually goes for any habit you're building...as long as an 'off' day is planned ahead, you're chain is still intact.)

Habit: Run 14 Miles Every Other Day

Range: Day 213-300

He's beginning to believe.

NY Marathon: Run 26 Miles Awesome.

• Gaming/Screentime

This is becoming more of an issue for both adults and our children. It's important we at least track and set limits for the amount of time we're spending in front of a screen. (For children, you can actually use screentime as a reward for completing another good habit.)

Habit: Gaming/Screen-time Window

Range: Day 1-whatever

Set a clear window when gaming, tv and internet activities can take place. To get the X, you/your kids just need to comply with the set window. Any time spent outside this window is a fail and will break the chain.

• Study/Homework

Even the best students experience procrastination.

• No Sugar/Fapping/Alcohol/Smoking

We'll end on bad habits. Specially, going cold turkey on bad habits you want to kill. These are dead simple...but definitely not dead easy. To win, you need to not do them. For each bad habit there will be a plethora of information out there to tell you how, either on Reddit or just by googling, so no point in me trying to go into specifics here.

You probably get the gist by now.

Year of Awesome is dead simple. The result of your action each day is binary. You can't 'kinda' do it...you either do it or you don't. You win or you lose. It's like setting a mini SMART goal for yourself everyday. And it creates commitment and accountability.

If you want to share progress/advice/support, I created a subreddit. Not much there yet, but you're more than welcome to join in the chaos and help get it up and running.

Download here: https://yearofaweso.me

Join here: https://www.reddit.com/r/yearofawesome

Good luck!

Submitted January 30, 2018 at 02:37PM by stickytoffeebumhole http://ift.tt/2GuyVzl

Tuesday 30 January 2018

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