How to track habits: paper, spreadsheet, Notion or app

Tracking a habit is simple: each day, you mark whether you did it. What's less simple is picking a way of marking it that you'll still be using in March. Here's every common option, what each is good and bad at, and how to set up tracking so it helps rather than becoming one more thing to keep up.

Why track habits at all?

Tracking doesn't make a habit easier to do. It makes it easier to keep doing. An empty box for today is a reminder at the right moment. A row of filled-in days is proof of progress long before results show. And a record is honest in a way memory isn't — it shows which days actually slip and whether a habit is sticking or quietly fading.

The catch is that tracking only works while you're doing it, so the method matters.

The options

A paper journal or bullet journal

The classic: a grid in a notebook, habits down the side, days across the top, a mark in each box.

Good at: it's satisfying, it's visible if you leave it open, and drawing the grid is a small monthly ritual people genuinely enjoy. No battery, no notifications, nothing to learn.

Not so good at: it lives in one place. If you do a habit at work or on holiday, you have to remember to mark it later. Drawing a new grid every month is also where many journals quietly stop. And it won't count your streaks for you.

Best for: people who already keep a journal and open it every day.

A printable habit tracker

A ready-made sheet you print once a month and stick somewhere you'll see it — the fridge, the bathroom mirror, next to the desk.

Good at: being impossible to ignore. A sheet on the fridge is in front of you every time you open it. There's no setup beyond writing your habits in.

Not so good at: the same things as paper: it stays at home, and you'll need a new one each month.

Best for: habits done at home, and anyone who likes a physical tick. You can make one in a minute with the printable habit tracker — monthly or weekly, A4 or Letter, print it or save it as a PDF.

A spreadsheet (Google Sheets or Excel)

A grid again, but with formulas: tick a cell and the totals update.

Good at: flexibility. You can add columns for notes, count days done, work out percentages, colour cells, chart a year. It's free, and your data is yours in a format that will open in twenty years.

Not so good at: phones. Tapping tiny cells in a spreadsheet app is fiddly enough that many people end up filling a week in at once from memory — which rather defeats the point. Streaks take some formula work to count.

Best for: people who live on a laptop and like to tinker. The free habit tracker template for Google Sheets and Excel opens on the current month, ticks off from a dropdown and counts each habit's days.

Notion

A habit database in Notion — one row per day, a checkbox property per habit — sits nicely alongside everything else if Notion is where you already plan your life.

Good at: fitting into an existing system. You can link habits to journal entries, projects or goals, and build whatever views you like.

Not so good at: speed. Opening a database on your phone and finding today's row is several taps where a tracker needs one. Setting it up takes a while, and it's easy to spend more time designing the tracker than using it. Streaks need formulas or rollups.

Best for: existing Notion users who want everything in one place and don't mind a bit of setup.

A habit tracker app or website

A tracker built for the job: add a habit, tap to mark it done, and it counts your streaks.

Good at: being with you. Your phone is there at the moment you do the habit, wherever you are. Streaks and history are counted for you, and ticking takes a second. Most handle habits that aren't daily — three times a week, once a month — without you having to work out the maths.

Not so good at: focus, sometimes. Some apps bury the tracking under badges, points and feeds. Some limit how many habits you can have for free. And an app you have to install is one more app — which is part of why browser-based trackers exist.

Best for: most people, most of the time, especially for habits done away from home.

What to track

Did it or didn't — start here

For almost every habit, a single yes or no per day is enough. Did you read? Did you walk? The simpler the mark, the more likely you are to keep making it.

Amounts, only where they matter

Some habits benefit from a number — distance run, pages read, minutes practised. If you want to log amounts, do it for one or two habits, not all of them. Or keep the yes/no and set the bar in the habit's name: "Read 20 pages" is ticked when you've read 20.

Track the action, not the result

"Walk every day" is something you can tick. "Lose five kilos" isn't, and a tracker full of results you can't tick yet is just discouraging. Track what you control; the results take care of themselves.

Be honest in both directions

If you skipped it, leave the box empty. If you did it and forgot to tick, fill it in. The record is only useful if it's true.

When to tick

Tick straight after you've done the habit, ideally in the same place. That way the tick becomes the last step of the habit rather than a separate job to remember at bedtime. If you use paper, keep the sheet where the habit happens. If you use your phone, tick before you put it down.

How often to review

• Daily: a glance when you tick. That's all.
• Weekly: five minutes, on the same day each week. Look for patterns — the same weekday missing every week usually means that day is different, and the habit needs a different moment on it.
• Monthly: decide what's next for each habit. Keep it the same, make it a little bigger, make it smaller, or stop tracking it. A habit that's been automatic for a month may not need tracking at all any more.

Common mistakes

• Tracking too many habits. Start with one to three. Add another once those run by themselves.
• Making tracking a project. A perfect Notion setup or a colour-coded spreadsheet you stop opening in week two tracks nothing.
• Tracking in the wrong place. If the tracker isn't where you are when you do the habit, you'll forget to use it.
• Treating a missed day as failure. You will miss days. The useful rule is to never miss twice in a row. (There's more on this in how long it takes to form a habit.)

So which should you pick?

Pick the one that's closest to the moment you do the habit.

• Habits at home, and you like paper: a printable on the fridge.
• You're on a laptop all day and like spreadsheets: the Google Sheets or Excel template.
• You already run your life in Notion: a Notion database.
• Everything else — and especially habits done out of the house: an app or a web tracker on your phone.

You can mix, too: a printable at home for the monthly overview, and your phone for the day to day.

If you want to try the last option without installing anything, the free habit tracker on Crek runs in any browser — add a habit, tick off today and watch the streak grow, no signup. With a free account it handles weekly and monthly habits too, lets you fill in days you forgot, and keeps your to-do list and notes beside your habits. Not sure what to track first? Start with habit tracker ideas, or read how to build a habit that actually sticks.