My 2026 Habit Tracker: Simple, No-Judgment Bullet Journal Setup

What Is Measured Improves.

If I let them, habit trackers freak me out. But a few quick mental adjustments and I flip from self-judgment to curiosity and reflection.

One: Track what’s really important to me.

Books, mood, yoga, Bible-reading — I track what matters to me, especially the things that relate most to the values I hold. It really helps if I do a check-in with myself about who I want to be and what I want to accomplish in life. I write more about this in the blog post, “How To Set Goals You Can Achieve By Mapping Your Life.”

It’s a good place to begin before choosing the habit or habits for your habit tracker.

In my pursuit of the One Book or Life Book and Everything Being In One Place, I used to go all out. As you can probably imagine, I would mostly not get through a month. Then I read Atomic Habits by James Clear, who recommended starting with only one new habit a month. Being an overachiever, I didn’t just track the first habit for a month — I tracked it for a full year before adding others.

Today, I like tracking my Bible-reading, my SoulSpace app habit, my exercise, and taking my medicine.

Sometimes you receive new information that changes what you track. I used to feel guilty if I only read the Bible a few times a week. Then I heard from my pastor that reading the Bible four times a week is proven to change your life for the better, according to the Center for Bible Engagement. That’s the magic number — not three, but four. Now I crave it, track it, and am determined to read the Bible at least that many times a week. Knowledge is power.

The benefits are worth looking at: less loneliness, less anxiety, more feelings of encouragement. Four days of Bible reading a week results in less lashing out in anger, less engagement in destructive behaviors (like pornography or over-eating), more giving to others, a better chance of positively influencing others, and more positive thoughts about yourself.

Two: Using The Habit Tracking System That Is The Most Fun

I tried tracking with a phone once. Finding it unhelpful, I turned to analog systems. A notebook habit tracker can help you remember to align your little daily habits with your most longed-for goals and dreams.

Little dinging notifications or opening and closing apps isn’t the most fun for me (especially when I’m trying to get away from my phone), but maybe it is for you.

If your habit tracker feels too complicated, simplify it. If it’s boring, make it artsy — like this one from Archer and Olive.

What has worked best for me so far is a simple one with pre-drawn lines, like in my A5 and B6 planners. Drawing the boxes never worked out for me — it took too much time and was too messy. So if I didn’t have a preprinted tracker already set up each month, I’d do something creative to stay away from boxes.

I’ve also found that dots look neater than colored-in squares. You can use dot markers like Zig’s Clean Dot markers, but just coloring a circle with the pointy end of a Mildliner works well too.

(This habit tracker makes me incredibly happy).

Three: Track something other than habits.

You will see in the image that I don’t just track habits now. I also track states and patterns like my mood and cycle.

I’m also really loving tracking my reading. I read more books in January and February than in March. In March I’ve hit a snag. I want to find out what happened to the favorite characters in the series, but the author is losing me for a reason I never thought I’d drop a series over: too much flatulence. Yes, Mick Herron, I’ve reached my limit. I’m not 5. It’s not funny, and you need to come up with more for Jackson Lamb to do.

Time to dive back into Kate Quinn, Ignatius, Nita Prose, Andy Weir, and perhaps McCloskey. I read some seriously good books in February, and I need another good lineup. (Suggestions?)

But still, I’ve read 11 books so far this year and I’m proud of that.

Four: Inspire Yourself.

The mind map or values map you create in step one may have been the first step in inspiring myself, but I like to keep inspiring myself by looking at my mind map, envisioning my end goals, and soaking in the wisdom of better people than myself.

If you are using the B6 Dated planner (instead of the A5 undated), you will have these awesome Spanish/English quotes to inspire you.

“Goals are good for setting a direction, but systems are best for making progress.” —James Clear

“Los objetivos son buenos para marcar una dirección, pero los sistemas son mejores para progresar.” —James Clear

If you don’t have a journal with built-in quotes, it’s easy enough to grab inspo from a quick Google search or books like Soundtracks by Jon Acuff, Atomic Habits by James Clear, Never Split the Difference by Chris Voss, or (a much overlooked place) the Bible.

Five: Don’t Track With Checkboxes. Use Progress Bar Trackers Instead.

But you don’t have to track with checkboxes, and you don’t even have to track habits at all. Some people find checkboxes overwhelming or simply not helpful. Some people are sprinters rather than steady marathon runners. And despite what you may have heard, that’s okay.

I’ve found that some of us — especially polymaths, polyhyphenates, or anyone who works feverishly on one goal and then needs a break to avoid burnout — do much better with progress bars. I do this with my reading, as shown above. But you can progress bar anything. (Progress bar all the things!!!)

One area where the progress bar has been far more successful for me than a traditional habit tracker is reading. I love filling in how much further I am in a book. I love seeing the list of finished books. I love seeing whether I read more books this month than last month.

I can clearly see how it would be worth exploring progress bars for other values in my life. After all, they tend to feel far less judgmental and much more progress-inspiring. I thought the internet would be overflowing with progress bar examples, but I couldn’t really find that many, which surprised me. So here’s my reading progress bar again.

Six: No Judgment

I’m 100% with Anja when she says, “Definitely, [a habit tracker] is not a place to break any kind of record like building 10 new habits at the same time, feeling the pressure, or punishing yourself.” (AnjaHome)

Ditto, Anja. That which is measured seems to improve automatically, so let’s just start with measuring. I believe 80% of journaling and planning is reflecting, and this reflection turns you into a thoughtful person who makes better choices. Habit tracking is one way you can reflect at the end of the month on how you spend your time and what you do the most often.

James Clear’s message in Atomic Habits is that you can always go smaller. Break goals into steps, steps into habits, habits into micro-habits, and then into atomic habits. If going to the gym is too overwhelming, try two minutes of stretching. Or a walk around the block at lunch. But track it. Small baby victories over time are worth more than one catch-up day every two months.

I am still working on this in my life. I’ll keep up with a habit for two weeks and then get overwhelmed. To be fair, my life is fairly overwhelming. But remembering that the habit tracker is for tracking, not for judging, is a healthy mindset that helps me reset each week or month.

Sometimes I decide I’m not ready to track a habit. Other times, I adjust it. When my one hour of quiet time was overwhelming, I started with just listening to a 5-minute SoulSpace app. It was healing. Then I got the premium version and began tracking my 15-minute SoulSpace meditation and scripture. Then I started adding in reading the Bible with an actual plan (I’m currently using the Passion Translation plan).

Yes, I get it. I need to exercise more. That’s why I have the habit tracker — to gently tell me I’m only intentionally exercising once a week in March. So I can measure and improve.

What about you? What’s one habit, state, or progress area you’re gently tracking (or thinking about tracking) in 2026? I’d love to hear — and I’m still happily taking book recommendations to get me through the rest of March!

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