Habit, mood and health logsOne month
Habit tracker
A one-month grid for keeping count of daily habits. Habits run down the left side, the days 1 to 31 run across, and a Total column at the end gives each habit its monthly count. It is for anyone who wants a plain paper record of what they actually did.
- Type your details or print blank
- Print or PDF, Letter or A4
- Free, no sign-up
On this page
What prints
The sheet is landscape. A heading sits at the top (it says Habit Tracker unless you type your own) with a line for the month. Below it is one wide table. The first column is labeled Habit, then come 31 narrow columns numbered 1 through 31, and the last column is Total.
Under the grid is a single line of instruction: shade a box each day you keep the habit, then count the shaded boxes at the end of the month. That is the whole mechanism. There are no points, streak badges or scores.
The settings
- Heading. Type your own title (40 characters at most), such as "January routine", or skip it for the default.
- Tracker. Choose "Habit tracker (month)" for this sheet. The other two choices switch to the mood tracker and the year-in-pixels sheet.
- Habits (one per line). Up to 300 characters, and up to 15 lines. Each line prints in the Habit column. Leave it empty and the rows stay blank so you can write by hand.
- Habit rows. From 5 to 15. If you type more habits than the number of rows, the sheet grows to fit your list.
Choosing what to track
Short, observable habits work best because you can answer yes or no at the end of the day. "Walk after dinner" is easy to judge. "Be healthier" is not. Four to six habits is a realistic number for most people. Fifteen rows are there if you need them, but a grid that is half empty by the second week is a sign to trim the list.
Some people keep the habits the same each month so the totals are comparable. Others rotate in one new habit and drop one that has become automatic. Either way, the Total column is a count of days, nothing more.
Worked example: a quiet month of five habits
Say you type these five lines into the habits box: Stretch 10 minutes, Take a walk, Read before bed, Water at lunch, Pack tomorrow's bag. You leave the heading blank and write "March" on the month line.
On the 1st you shade the boxes for stretching, reading and the bag. On the 2nd you add the walk. By the 31st, the stretching row has 22 shaded boxes, so you write 22 in Total. The walk row has 14, the reading row 27, the water row 9 and the bag row 20. Seeing 9 beside the water habit tells you it never stuck, so next month you tie it to something fixed, such as the lunch break, or drop it.
Tips for keeping it going
- Put the sheet where the habit happens, such as the fridge for water or the nightstand for reading.
- Fill it in once a day at a set time instead of trying to remember on the 20th what you did on the 12th.
- A blank box is information, not failure. Leave it blank and move on.
- If you want a physical-activity habit to track, the CDC page above describes the kinds of activity it counts. For general mental health habits, the NIMH page covers sleep, connection and routine.
Related pages
If you want to record how you felt alongside what you did, try the mood tracker. To see the whole year at a glance, use the year in pixels. The weekly planner is a good place to schedule the habits you are trying to build.
Sources
- CDC: Physical Activity Basics cdc.gov
- NIMH: Caring for Your Mental Health nimh.nih.gov