how many habits are you tracking?

drkate · Post by **drkate** » Thu Jul 02, 2009 3:45 pm

Hi guys, I am new to the no s and I am loving everything about it esp. the habitcal. I have found that the little visual reward I get from tracking my new behaviors is amazingly motivational. I am tracking 4 behaviors: walking, workout, no s and preparing an evening meal. Sometimes as I go through my day I think ok I could habitcal this, this, this, this ad infinitum but I am afraid of doing so much that I will ditch it all. What has other people experience been and I would love to know what you all are tracking!
Kate

Bushranger · Post by **Bushranger** » Thu Jul 02, 2009 3:47 pm

Nice to have another fellow "newbie"

. I think you are wise to implement things gradually. I only have shovelglove on my habitcal currently. I agree with you that it is a very useful tool and I also find myself thinking of many things I could list on it but I plan to add them over time and only if I continue to deem them important after some futher thought is invested.

kccc · Post by **kccc** » Thu Jul 02, 2009 4:16 pm

I currently do four, but they added over time...

1) Basic NoS - that's where I started

2) Basic Exercise. I had multiple ones for different types of exercise, then decided to just simplify to one, and put details on my Daily Thread.

3) "Idiotic" S-days. This was an idea from LA-Loser. I only mark it for S-days (and failures). Helps me see patterns and distinguish between mild/severe failures. Added after the first two were very habitual.

4) Vino. Fairly recently, I decided to have only four glasses a week (my every night glass of wine was turning into two, and I decided to put the brakes on). It was too hard to remember/count without tracking.

Bushranger · Post by **Bushranger** » Thu Jul 02, 2009 4:22 pm

Good call with the brakes on the wine. I find 1 glass a night is acceptable for myself but 2 feels unhealthy. Although in practice I drink 4 glasses probably once a month as I never have a bottle in the house and only buy for dinner with friends and family.

EDIT: Looking back on what I just said, I really should not do the 4 glasses thing even though it's only once a month. It doesn't feel healthy at all but it sure does feel good.

la_loser · Post by **la_loser** » Thu Jul 02, 2009 4:47 pm

Actually, "they" say that a small glass of wine daily is "supposed" to be healthy for us. . . so it might not be a problem. . . unless it's an "iced tea" or pilser sized glass!

Here is what I posted last year about my multiple Habitcals that KCCC was referring to:

My need has been to keep myself honest with my HabitCal yet wanting to have a clearer record of what I'm really doing. I have a solution that seems to be working for me. First of all, I should clarify that my issues with food have not been "bingeing" as such-like I don't think I've ever sat down with an entire carton of ice cream or eaten a giant bag of chips at one sitting. . . but I do have issues with portion size and unconscious eating/tasting while cooking/finding a "reason" to eat a little more.

I do want to have an honest record of my No S journey. Rather than do it on the daily check-ins. . .takes too long-I get so wordy (obviously!) and I don't have time to do that all the time! So I have made additional HabitCals. . . I created:

Strictly_Speaking_No_S--as per Reinhard's Fence Around the Law line of thought (I went back and copied my original NoSDiet Habitcal and deleted the original)

Not_an_Idiot_S_Day: Reserved for S days whether it's weekends of NWS days. . . to be able to track my habit of not going crazy on those days!

GREEN_Equals_Two_R_Less_S_Slips: My way of keeping track of little slips (ok-failures!) of the strictness of the diet--but so I can note whether this was a biggie or just one extra helping of one item and one healthy type snack, perhaps. . . I give myself a RED if my slip-ups were more massive!

At least by doing it by HabitCal, it's quick to record and a great visual version of my progress. And it tells a more complete story.

This works very well for me. . . although it's not really tracking that many different habits; it just gives me degrees of how I'm staying with a few.

For a short while, I did add one for "getting to work on time" and a couple of other things but it got too cumbersome and I found it wasn't helping much anyway.

Reinhard does have some other excellent "systems" in place--maybe set aside some time to listen to all his podcasts and you'll see what I mean. The man is an amazing "organizer" of life activities.

I do know that it's hard to implement too many changes at once; if you do, you'll get frustrated and want to chuck it all!

Welcome and good luck.

Bushranger · Post by **Bushranger** » Thu Jul 02, 2009 4:49 pm

Oh no, my problem is that the 4 glasses all come within 2 hours of each other. It may only be once a month but technically it's a binge.

Nice info you dropped there too btw.

guadopt1997 · Post by **guadopt1997** » Thu Jul 02, 2009 5:33 pm

I have four:

basic no-S
exercise
getting to bed by 11
15 minutes of organizing

I am only doing well on the first one...

I like the idea of tracking S days separately. Controlling S days is one of my goals this month.

~reneew · Post by **~reneew** » Thu Jul 02, 2009 5:55 pm

Welcome new people!

I track 3 things... any more than that and I don't do any.

I track No S - had many months that were very colorful, now almost all green and yellows.

This is very helpful in seeing how greens= loss and red = gains.

I track exercise - yellow for more than 15 minutes and green for more than 30 minutes. White if I don't. I hate reds.

I track Bible reading or devotions - I color green if I do any. This is always green because I allow myself to catch up when I miss.

It looks gread on the calendar!

Bushranger · Post by **Bushranger** » Thu Jul 02, 2009 5:58 pm

Bible devotions and times of meditation with God is a wonderful idea. I don't do that as often as I want so I think it'll be adorning my habitcal soon too.

sophiasapientia · Post by **sophiasapientia** » Fri Jul 03, 2009 12:16 am

I'm tracking 3:
Atleast 30 minutes of exercise (I allow myself 1 yellow a week unless I'm sick ... but shoot for 7 greens)
No S
Shovelglove

My exercise habit has been pretty well ingrained for a number of years now but it is interesting to track it. No S and Shovelglove are the habits I'm working on getting down. No reds so far since I restarted No S last month. I think Habitcal helps. I don't want to mark my chart red.

Bushranger · Post by **Bushranger** » Fri Jul 03, 2009 1:47 am

^ Those reds sure are incentive aren't they?

I am finding that already with regards to my first and only habitcal entry, Shovelglove. I just DON'T want a fail there.

Reinhard came up with a very powerful, simple and effective tracker. Kudos to him. I think it's brilliant.

bluebunny27 · Post by **bluebunny27** » Fri Jul 03, 2009 6:49 am

I track 3 ...

I usually plan a few days in advance too and then sometimes I have to change a color but I try to stick with my original plan when possible. Very useful tool to keep track of what's going on of course.

Nutrition and Exercise are my two main habits. The other one is more personal and not related to 'The master diet plan' ... so it remains in the shadows.

Hey, 4 glasses / once a month, are you sure you're really from Australia ?? Awesome wines down there ! Coonawarra region, I saw a tv show on the wines there, Southern Australia wineries.

Nah, you shouldn't have 4 glasses once a month, you should really have 4 glasses FOUR times per month instead, mate ! Who wants to live to be 100 anyway ? Might as well enjoy life too, even if that means passing on a few years early, at least you will have had a good time before that, I mean come on. Rejoice, aussies !

Cheers !

Marc

Disclaimer : I am following a more extreme version of the 'No-S' diet.
I made my own personal modifications to the original plan (Diet & Exercise)
What I am doing should not be misinterpreted as being a typical 'No-S' diet experience.
11/01/2008 : 280.0 pounds
07/01/2009 : 208.2 pounds
( 8 months / -71.8 pounds )
---------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------
Goal : 11/01/2009 : 193.0 pounds ( 1 year / -87.0 pounds )

bonnieUK · Post by **bonnieUK** » Fri Jul 03, 2009 10:10 am

My ones are:

Diet - No S, protein with meals, lots of veggies

Exercise - T-tapp at least 4 times per week, urban rangering most days, 1 extra workout e.g yoga DVD

FLYlady routines - these are basic daily quick routines to keep one's home in order (and out of CHAOS = Cant Have Anyone Over Syndrome

) the most useful one for me is the before bed routine, which includes general tidy up, kitchen clean up and getting clothes ready for next day - this last one is a real time saver.

FLYlady zone cleaning - each day and week the FLYlady website posts reminders about which zone we're supposed to be cleaning (15 mins a day) it means that in a month your whole house has had more detailed attention than just regular surface cleaning

I keep a spreadsheet and log my successes (or lack thereof!) each week. I find that trying to track more than 4 habits gets too complicated and leads to failure (at least in my case).

For exercise, I don't track daily success but how successful the week was (e.g. if I met my absolute minimum goals) it fits my rather sporadic energy levels, some days I do hardly anything then I may have 3 days where I can barely keep still

Bushranger · Post by **Bushranger** » Fri Jul 03, 2009 10:25 am

Yes Marc I can assure you I am from Australia. We aren't all boozers, although it definitely seems to be a well followed national obsession here unfortunately. I did all my drinking at TAFE and got it pretty much out of my system. Plus I'm a devout Christian now and while a nice drop is great I am strongly against drunkenness and any other form of impaired self control. I'd rather get myself into the habit of one glass a few nights a week then saving up for the binge occasions; it just seems much healthier and wholesome.

Everyday Systems

how many habits are you tracking?

how many habits are you tracking?

My multiple Habitcals