How many habits, good or bad, do you have, mama?
It’s been proven that almost 45% of our actions throughout the day are done automatically – our brains automate behaviors into habits in order to save energy.
But before you blame your lazy brain for all of the bad habits you exhibit throughout the day, this is actually good news!
It means that you can train your brain to pick up good habits too.
However, simply deciding to kick a bad habit, pick up a new one or continue current ones is not enough to fully integrate these changes into your life – I should know.
Over the years, I’ve worked hard at creating a habit around my mom business and my life as a stay at home mom.
Thankfully, there’s a handy tool that can simply and effectively help you reshape your habits and it’s called a habit tracker.
It’s not an expensive piece of equipment or technology!
Habit trackers are often found in the form of printables – and a lot of them are free.
In fact, you can even make your own printable habit trackers and sell them!
If you’re looking to give your habits a bit of a shake-up, check out how habit trackers work and where you can find some free ones:
What is a Habit Tracker?
A habit tracker is a way to help you keep track of your habits by visually recording each time that you’ve completed a task.
Although they come in many forms, such as calendars, checklists, wheels and charts, habit trackers are not just to-do lists.
People use habit trackers to break bad habits, build new ones or continue habits they already have.
For instance, you may want to start drinking more water every day, so you could use a habit tracker to record how many glasses you drink per day.
Or, perhaps you want to stop eating past 8 pm – you can record each successful evening in your habit tracker.
And creating new habits doesn’t have to be all about your physical health – you can aim to read more, practice a new language or even get into the habit of performing a blogging task every day!
The possibilities are endless but be careful!
The more habits you try to change, drop or adopt, the more overwhelmed you will be and the more likely you will be to give up.
Try working on no more than three things at a time – as one turns into a habit, you can look at adding another goal.
For me, the three main habits I want to improve are: incorporate exercise three times a week, write down three gratitudes in my bullet journal, and be more consistent with my content strategy.
Do Habit Trackers Really Work?
Now you know how habit trackers work but do they work?
It may not seem like much to throw a checkmark on a piece of paper or color in a box every time you complete a task toward your goal, but doing so actually has a positive psychological effect.
Here are the benefits of using a habit tracker:
- Clarity: When we work toward a goal, we tend to focus on our failures and not our accomplishments – even if there are more of the latter. Habit trackers layout your progress clearly so you can see how you are winning more than you are losing.
- Motivation: This clarity leads to motivation since you can see your victories and work toward creating more of them.
- Accomplishment: By limiting the number of habits you are working on, you end up accomplishing more by doing less.
- Feeling Good: Completion triggers, such as coloring in a little box or making a checkmark next to a task, activates the reward center of the brain and tells your brain to repeat the behavior again.
As beneficial as habit trackers can be, keep in mind that structuring your environment to promote new habits is vital in creating them.
For example, if you want to start drinking more water, make sure water is readily available.
If you want to quit using social media, close your accounts.
Not only should you remove temptation if you’re trying to kick a bad habit but you should set yourself up to easily accommodate new habits too.
All that being said, here are some free printable habit trackers you can use to kick-start your journey toward reaching your goals:
20 Places to Find Free Printable Habit Trackers
1. Bobbi Printables
If your goal is to create a single habit during the year, Bobbi Printables has a free year-long tracker you can download and print.
These easy-to-use sheets can be printed off in multiples if you are looking to change a few habits over the course of a year.
2. The Petite Planner
The Petite Planner has five free printable habit trackers designed using cute little pictograms to help you track your goals.
You can choose from designs such as little calendars or even little roses!
3. Smiling Colors
Smiling Colors offers a free 100-day goal tracking printable that allows you to color in each circle as you complete your goal for that day.
Sometimes the simplest habit trackers are the most motivational!
4. Just Bright Ideas
You can track up to six habits per page on a monthly basis – plus write in a reward for completing each day!
The key to choosing a motivating reward is to use your favorite vices, such as ordering takeout or watching a show on Netflix, to treat yourself for accomplishing your goals.
5. Make Breaks
My favorite thing about free printable habit trackers is that they come in such a variety of beautiful layouts and styles.
This one from Make Breaks uses a mandala to help you track your habits.
6. Morning Motivated Mom
Morning Motivated Mom offers a printable habit tracker that allows you to track your goals monthly for an entire year on one page!
Simply color in the date as you complete your new habit or goal.
7. iMom
Designed specifically with moms in mind, these habit trackers range from simple to floral designs and include habit trackers for children.
There is even a daily tracker printable that includes water intake, fitness and meal planning!
8. Design Class
Speaking of habit trackers for the kiddos, these ones come in a variety of designs that allow your children to choose a new habit and track it for 30 days.
Perhaps your child wants to read more or keep up with their chores – these are perfect for setting your kiddo up for success!
9. Uncluttered Simplicity
They say it takes 66 days to form a new habit, which is why this printable habit tracker is designed for exactly that – 66 days!
I love that this design starts at day 66 and counts down to the last day of developing your new habit.
10. Fun Happy Home
Why track your habit for 66 days when you can go for 90?
That’s the basis of this design, which includes some motivational messages and quotes on each sheet.
11. Clementine Creative
This printable habit tracker from Clementine Creative is set up so that you fill in the boxes each day for the new habits you complete.
This is also a great way to track routines chores, such as mopping the floor, or even blogging tasks! As you fill in the boxes, you can see when the last time each task was completed.
12. Teal Notes
Teal Notes offers habit trackers in a variety of styles, including a weekly tracker, 10-day tracker and monthly tracker.
You can download all seven free habits trackers in one bundle!
13. Happiness is Homemade
This circle-styled habit tracker allows you to keep track of up to eight habits and color in squares as you complete them each day.
There’s also a space at the bottom to make notes, which you can use to jot down a motivation quote or reward for yourself!
14. Country Girl’s Life
Not only does Country Girl’s Life offer a free printable habit tracker, but printable stickers as well!
You can print the stickers on clear or white glassy sticker paper and use them to track your progress.
15. Masha Plans
You can find so many different habit trackers at Masha Plans! There is a whole vault of free printables that you can access just by signing up.
And the designs look totally adorable.
16. The Artisan Life
The Artisan Life offers 11 free habit tracker printables ranging from super simple designs to flowers and mandalas.
The designs include 30-day and 100-day trackers.
17. Hanna Nilsson Designs
This yearly habit tracker is super cute and fits all on one page.
Since you fill in the months yourself, you can start at any point throughout the year. No making excuses and waiting until the new year!
18. Joliecious
I was super excited to find this one – while most free printable habit trackers are designed (beautifully, by the way) as calendars and charts, Joliecious has one shaped like a snail!
Habit trackers can be so unique in their design.
19. Mom Envy
The habit tracker at Mom Envy also has a unique design!
This is one laid out almost like a board game, so you work your way along the squares until you get to the end. It’s a great way to visually track your progress.
20. Life is Messy and Brilliant
This printable habit tracker has space to track two habits per month as well as room to make notes.
You can also print this one both vertically or horizontally.
Ready to Change Some Habits?
You don’t need to be a bullet-journal guru in order to benefit from these free habit tracker printables!
Give them a try – I’m sure you’ll be well on your way to making or breaking some habits in your life. And if you want to try to blog and make some money online, check out my post on how to make printables to sell!
Over to you – have you tried a habit tracker? How did it work for you?
Share your story with us in the comments!
Leave a Reply