Almost all of our recent PGP work has been on James Clear and his book atomic habits. So I was recently assigned to look at one of his many posts which he frequently uploads about the messages he talks about in atomic Habits. The post I specifically looked at was “the five triggers that make new habits stick” as I have been having issues still with being consistent in my habits.

The blog post mentions 5 different methods to help improve habit tracking. I knew about pretty much all of them as they are all heavily featured in his book. However it is nice to be reminded of them in such a concise form as I have not read the book in a few months and don’t have the best memory of them.

He covers using 5 different cues to increase your success these are: Time, Location, Preceding event, Emotional state and Other people. Ive tried most of these with the habit tracker I made which you can find here:

Goal planner:

Description of goal: I aim to continue with the goal I before spring break and do at least one assignment a day as to not slack on my work.

Means of tracking goal: Streaks worked really well last time as a reminder to do something each day and I wasn’t until I had nothing to do over spring break and stopped making new work for myself that it failed. What I also plan on using is a chart where I can tick off each day whenever I finish a piece of work. I can also add more tasks to the chart and expand my daily routine.

Habit tracker week one, started Monday April 20th

Do work

1 item per day

 Week one Week two Week three Week four Week five Week six
Mon Yes Yes No
Tues Yes Yes Yes
Wed Yes Yes Yes
Thurs Yes Yes
Fri Yes No
Sat No Yes
Sun No Yes

I have been filling this out over the last few weeks and noticed I start really slacking on the weekends which is something I need to work on.

I think these actually work as through being forced to implement them into my daily life and routine I think that I’ve been more consistent with my goal of doing one homework assignment per day. Specifically I used to use location and proceeding event in my strategy but do unintentionally use people quite a bit in the form of my parents constantly reminding me of any mistakes I make. 

The post was a great reminder of the key lessons taught through the book and has some genuinely useful tips summed up in a short, easy to understand read.