Blog
Writing on habit tracking
Mostly what to do when the system stops working. No motivation speeches, no morning routine cosplay.
17 posts
Sleep debt is real. Catching up on Saturday is not.
An hour short each night is seven hours by Friday. Here is why the weekend lie-in fails to clear it, and what does.
- sleep tracking
- recovery
- consistency
Earlier posts
Which body numbers are worth tracking, and which waste your time
BMI, body fat, waist ratio, weight. Four numbers, wildly different usefulness. Here is which to keep and how often to measure them.
5 min read
Why your watch says you burned 600 calories and you did not
Fitness trackers routinely overstate calorie burn by 20 to 30 percent. Here is where the error comes from and what to do with the number instead.
4 min read
When to quit a habit, and when to shrink it instead
The real test for quitting a habit is not guilt or boredom, it is asking how you would feel about a completed yesterday.
6 min read
Habit stacking that works
Pairing a new habit with an old one works, but only if the pairing is specific. Here is the version that survives past week one.
6 min read
Getting back on track with habits after a vacation
The first two days back from a trip decide whether a habit resumes or quietly ends. Here is the order to bring them back.
6 min read
Why your habits fall apart on weekends
Weekday habits ride on a schedule you did not build. Weekends remove it, and that is the whole reason your grid goes patchy on Saturdays.
5 min read
Bullet journal or habit tracker app: which one actually lasts
A bullet journal earns its keep as a whole planning system. A habit grid on its own rarely does, and that gap decides which one survives March.
6 min read
The keystone habit test: what to track first
One habit, picked well, makes the next one cheaper. Here is how to find yours instead of guessing your way through an empty grid.
6 min read
A morning routine that survives a bad night
Most morning routines only work when nothing went wrong the day before. Here is how to build one that holds up when something did.
6 min read
How to read a month of habit data
At the end of the month you have a grid full of boxes. Here is how to get something useful out of it instead of just feeling vaguely good or vaguely bad.
5 min read
Why habit trackers stop working after three weeks
The drop-off is not a motivation problem. It is usually five setup mistakes, all of which were baked in on day one.
6 min read
You broke a 60 day streak. Now what?
The day after a long streak ends is the highest-risk day in habit tracking. Here is what to do with it, and why the usual advice makes things worse.
5 min read
Habit streaks, without the guilt
Streaks are a good motivator and a terrible scorekeeper. Here is how to use them without letting a broken one take the whole habit down with it.
6 min read
What a month of sleep and mood data can honestly tell you
Two numbers a day will show you patterns worth acting on. It will not show you causes, and the difference matters more than most tracking advice admits.
6 min read
Paper, spreadsheet, or app: choosing a habit tracker
All three work. They fail differently, and the failure mode is what should decide it. A straight comparison, including where an app is the wrong answer.
6 min read
How many habits should you track at once?
Twelve habits on the first of the month is how you end up tracking none by the twentieth. Here is how to pick the number you can actually hold.
6 min read