I don’t know about you, but I’m feeling a little meh.
I’ve fallen out of the habit of sketching (again), Tank’s issues have wreaked
havoc with my schedule, and I’ve drifted away from my goals. I need a way to
regain my enthusiasm and motivation. Just in time for September’s new beginning, last week I happened upon blog posts from two different people who
in their own ways extolled the virtue of tracking. The first was Laurie
Perry (of Crazy Aunt Purl—now Crazy Tourist—fame) whose cute little stickers
and printable charts caught my fancy. The second was this thoughtful post from
Raptitude, which is worth a read in its entirety. (Go ahead and read it, I’ll
wait here.)
I believe in the power of tracking, and have used it at
various times to make changes in my habits. I’ve tracked money in/money out,
what I eat, my workouts, and for one week every quarter I keep a time log of
what I do all day. Tracking is great
for maintaining habits or making changes. Remember the Jerry Seinfeld Method for establishing a habit? It relies on tracking.
Why I like tracking
I like the practice of tracking because it gently helps me
to become aware of what I’m doing. I often live in my head, distracted,
daydreaming, decidedly not present. I’m forever thinking of what’s next
rather than paying attention to what’s now. At the end of a busy day,
I’m left wondering what I did—and why I didn’t do what I said was
important to me.
If you want to give this a shot, too, some things you could
track include:
- What money you spend/make
- What you eat
- Your workouts/physical activity
- Reading/study time
- Time spent painting or drawing
- Days you meditated
You can, of course, take tracking to an extreme, as I’ve
done in the past. But if you keep it simple and don’t try to track too many
things at once, you should be golden.
This is where you can make it as simple or as complicated as
you like. Hint: simple is usually better. You could create a spreadsheet, make
a chart you color in or fill with stickers, cross off the date on the calendar.
If you want to track your time, this is my favorite time-tracking log.
William Butler Yeats wrote, “Happiness
is neither this virtue nor pleasure, nor this thing or that, but simply growth.
We are happy when we are growing.” Tracking is one method of supporting ourselves
in our efforts to grow.
So I’m dusting off my workout tracker, and I’m going to
print out one of Laurie Perry’s charts to keep track of three areas that are
important to me: sketching, exercise, and writing. I’ll get to other areas of
importance soon, but right now this is all I feel I can handle, what with
everything else going on*.
 |
| You can't get much simpler than this. |
Have you tried tracking? How did it work for you? What would
you like to track now? Please share in the comments!
*Speaking of tracking…we live in central Florida, which at the time of this writing is square in the path of Hurricane Irma. We’re highly likely to be affected by this storm no matter which way it goes, so I may be out of touch for a while after this weekend.
