What?

Habit tracking is just what it sounds like: First, decide to do an activity, which we’ll call a “habit”. Next, monitor how often you’re able to do that activity. Congrats, you’re now an official habit tracker.

Why?

It doesn’t take a rocket scientist to know that writing helps make stronger mental connections…but that hasn’t stopped actual scientists from studying how writing down your goals has numerous benefits.

How?

We’ve covered the easy part. The hard part is choosing the right habit that will have the greatest positive impact to your routine. To help you get started, here are some of the best habits to start tracking in a notebook (in 2021)…

We suggest using a Rocketbook notebook to track all of your new habits (although, any notebook will work just fine).

Habit #1: Meal Planning

Why not start the list off in the spirit of the most popular new year’s resolution: get into shape. That’s a pretty broad goal, though, so add some specificity to your habit with meal planning. Scheduling meals builds an awareness of what goes into your body and makes it easier to cut out unhealthy choices from your diet. Start by planning meals for one day a week. Once that’s become a habit, start planning meal two days a week. Continue and you’ll eventually have all of 2022’s meals scheduled.

Watch this video guide on how to create a meal planner in a notebook.

Habit #2: Meditate

Let’s be honest, when you picture meditation, it’s probably someone sitting in the lotus position with chimes playing, incense burning, and endlessly repeating the word “om”. But meditation has the ability to improve your physical health and your work performance, even if you’re a complete beginner. Use apps like Headspace or Calm for guided meditations and reminders when it’s time for a meditation session.

Check out our co-founder who tried meditating for a full week.

Habit #3: Morning Routine

Everyone’s morning routine is different. Whether you need a coffee as soon as you roll out of bed or if you’d prefer to start doing push-ups at the crack of dawn, what’s important is that you build a routine and stick to it. Start with one activity in your routine, “like reading for 5 minutes in the morning”. Once you’ve made this habit second nature, add another activity like stretching for 5 minutes. Eventually you’ll have tricked yourself into having a fleshed-out, impactful morning routine. It’s like a Jedi mind trick for good habits.

Habit #4: Get Musical

Sometimes, it’s tough to find your groove. That’s where this habit comes in. Get your groove back (literally) by listening to some music. This habit isn’t just for fun, as listening to music has been shown to have numerous benefits including boosting productivity, happiness, and memory! Whether your looking for a pick-me-up or new tunes for your music library, start the habit of setting aside time to jam out once a week.

Habit #5: Work on a Project

It’s easy to distract yourself when there’s work to be done. And yet, one of the most rewarding things to work on is a personal project. Whether your final goal is to start a podcast, build a table, or learn to code, the important step here is to make a habit out of committing time to that project. Pick a chunk of time, once a week, to devote to your project no matter what. Convince yourself that even if aliens came to Earth during that time, you’ll be hard at work (however unlikely that may be).

Habit #6: Floss

This is the least original habit on this list, but it’s also the one that’s easiest to implement. We don’t need to tell you about the importance of flossing, but we will anyway. Is it possible this habit comes as a result of someone on our team recently going to the dentist and learning that they need to start flossing or else they’ll be getting cavities that will follow them for years? Possibly. Okay, yes that is the exact reason. But that teammate would also like you to know this habit is simple, and makes you feel minty fresh (and who doesn’t want that?).

Let’s just move onto the next habit.

Habit #7: Take Mental Breaks

If you get the full eight hours of recommended sleep per night, that leaves 16 hours of daytime for you to go through. That’s a lot of time, and you undoubtedly deserve some mental breaks during those 16 hours. These breaks aren’t just meant for relaxation, for they can have huge benefits to your productivity and creativity. Schedule mental breaks into your day until it becomes second nature.

Clear your mind by coloring inside the lines of free Rocketbook coloring pages.

Habit #8: Clear Your Inbox

Letting emails pile up can have dire consequences. First, you miss important emails as a result of the clutter and second, you feel overwhelmed at the sheer amount of messages that your other tasks suffer. Fix all that by incorporating a 15 minute daily habit of clearing your inbox. Note we’re not saying checking your inbox, but rather clearing. Imaging flying through an asteroid field after only checking if there were asteroids in your way — you’d be doomed. But clearing the asteroids would make it a smooth ride. That’s what we’re suggesting.

Habit #9: Reflective Writing

Finding and maintaining harmony between your work and your life is a balancing act that many professionals have difficulty with. Fortunately, there’s plenty of reflective writing activities that can help you work through any setbacks to allow you to focus on the activities that are adding positive value to your life. As with any great habit, this takes only a few minutes and is easy to track.

Habit #10: Habit Tracking

Okay, we know what you’re thinking: “hey! This doesn’t count”. But habit tracking in and of itself is actually an important habit. Without keeping yourself accountable for the habits you’re trying out, it’s impossible to know if you’re successful in implementing them into your life. Through tracking, you’ll perfect your new habits faster, so you’ll want to do them more.

These are just some of the many habits you can track with a Rocketbook Notebook. Each page can be written on over and over again, so it’s always ready for you to track your progress on your new habit. It’s also sustainable since it doesn’t use up paper, so technically by using it you’re automatically building a new habit of helping save the planet. Start 2021 with a new habit and enter 2022 having kept up that habit for a full year by tracking your progress in a notebook!