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Speaker 1: Welcome to Before Breakfast, a production of I Heart Radio.

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Speaker 1: Good Morning, This is Laura. Welcome to the Before Breakfast podcast.

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Speaker 1: Today's tip is to try tracking your habits. Checking in

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Speaker 1: each day on whether you've done what you intend to

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Speaker 1: do can be a helpful tool in achieving your goals.

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Speaker 1: Habit tracking has a long history. Founding father and self

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Speaker 1: improvement enthusiast Benjamin Franklin famously created a list of thirteen virtues,

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Speaker 1: such as frugality, moderation, and temperance. In his autobiography, Franklin

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Speaker 1: describes the habit tracker he created as a way to

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Speaker 1: visualize his progress. Each week, he drew a grid in

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Speaker 1: his note book with a column devoted to each virtue.

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Speaker 1: In the evenings, he considered whether or not he had

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Speaker 1: upheld each virtue. Over the course of the day, he

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Speaker 1: filled out the grid for that day accordingly. Now, despite

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Speaker 1: my admiration for Franklin, I will say that his virtues

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Speaker 1: were a wee bit vague. I think many of us

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Speaker 1: would benefit from tracking more specific habits, really behaviors. Maybe

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Speaker 1: it's keeping your daily spending under a certain amount. Maybe

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Speaker 1: it's reading to your children for twenty minutes, watering your

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Speaker 1: plants or walking ten thousand steps. All of these sound

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Speaker 1: more doable than just temperance, but vague or not, Franklin's

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Speaker 1: grid provides a lot of inspiration. Whether you use a

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Speaker 1: paper note booklet Franklin, or an Excel spreadsheet or an app.

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Speaker 1: Habit tracking can help keep you on track. I think

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Speaker 1: this happens for a few reasons. First, habit tracking can

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Speaker 1: help to increase the frequency of a desired behavior, simply

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Speaker 1: because the act of looking at your tracker each day

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Speaker 1: may remind you to do it. Second, a habit tracker

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Speaker 1: can motivate you to start and continue a habit streak.

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Speaker 1: Let's say you want to write at least five hundred

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Speaker 1: words every day. After a few days of adhering to

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Speaker 1: this habit, you'll start to see a chain of check

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Speaker 1: marks and your habit tracker. This can be extremely motivating,

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Speaker 1: and you can make a game out of seeing how

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Speaker 1: long a streak you can maintain. Third, tracking helps us

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Speaker 1: visualize how often we do things, and by giving us

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Speaker 1: hard data, we can take some of the worry and

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Speaker 1: emotions out of things. People are in general bad at

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Speaker 1: estimating how often they perform certain behaviors. This problematic estimation

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Speaker 1: can lead to broad pronouncements like I'm always on email

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Speaker 1: or I never play with my kids. But by putting

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Speaker 1: hard data down every day, you can gain a more

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Speaker 1: objective perspective. This can provide a surprising level of comfort

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Speaker 1: and reduce guilt. You may be on email a lot,

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Speaker 1: but you are not always on email, Or maybe you

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Speaker 1: feel you don't call your parents often enough. By tracking

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Speaker 1: that behavior, you may realize that you actually speak to

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Speaker 1: them on the phone far more often than you thought.

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Speaker 1: You see, you call them twice a week, and you'd

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Speaker 1: like to call them three times a week, so you

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Speaker 1: just mindfully pick up the phone a little more often

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Speaker 1: than you would success now, I would suggest limiting how

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Speaker 1: many habits you track. Even Benjamin Franklin knew that focusing

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Speaker 1: on too many habits at once would be overwhelming. He

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Speaker 1: chose to focus closely on one of his virtues each week,

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Speaker 1: rotating through the entire list four times per year. Similarly,

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Speaker 1: it can be helpful to choose a short list of

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Speaker 1: habits to track for a designated period of time, maybe

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Speaker 1: a week, maybe a month. When that period is up,

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Speaker 1: you can review your data and decide if you'd like

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Speaker 1: to track the same habits again or change things up.

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Speaker 1: Try filling out your habit tracker at the same time

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Speaker 1: each day, maybe before bed, and enjoy watching how your

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Speaker 1: behavior changes or for the good stuff remains steady. I'm

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Speaker 1: sure Benjamin Franklin would have a great aphorism to describe

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Speaker 1: this feeling, but I'll just say that progress is motivational.

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Speaker 1: A page full of check marks will nudge you on

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Speaker 1: to great Thanks. In the meantime, this is Laura. Thanks

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Speaker 1: for listening, and here's to making the most of our time. Hey, everybody,

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Speaker 1: I'd love to hear from you. You can send me

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Speaker 1: your tips, your questions, or anything else. Just connect with

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Speaker 1: me on Twitter, Facebook and Instagram at Before Breakfast pod

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Speaker 1: that's B the number four, then Breakfast p o D.

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Speaker 1: You can also shoot me an email at Before Breakfast

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Speaker 1: podcast at i heeart media dot com that Before Breakfast

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Speaker 1: is spelled out with all the letters. Thanks so much,

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Speaker 1: I look forward to staying in touch. Before Breakfast is

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Speaker 1: a production of I heart Radio. For more podcasts from

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