Habit tracking: A simple but effective technique

There are many tools which I offer my clients when their goal is to cultivate good habits and break bad habits. Although I encourage my clients to use as many such tools as possible, one tool is so simple and effective that I typically offer it early in therapy. I have also used this tool successfully when my goal has been to cultivate good habits and break bad habits such as practicing piano for 75 minutes each day.

The tool is called habit tracking and it is discussed in Atomic Habits by James Clear. In the following sections, I will discuss how you can use habit tracking to your advantage.

How to do habit tracking

Habit tracking involves recording details of incidents related to a behaviour which you are trying to make into a good habit or one which you are trying to break as a bad habit. You can record the details in a notebook, on your computer, phone, whiteboard or other locations which work for you.

Each entry typically involves the date and time of day of the incident, the setting and people who were present, along with how well you performed the behaviour which you are trying to cultivate as a habit. For example, in my piano practice habit tracker I record each day how many minutes I practiced along with elements of my practice session such as scales and pieces.

Behaviours for which habit tracking can be used

Habit tracking can be used for a myriad of behaviours in and out of therapy. I have had clients use habit tracking to form good habits like regular exercise. Other clients have used this tool to reduce or eliminate behaviours which are negatively affecting their lives such as alcohol and drug use, binge eating, gambling and pornography.

Clients also use habit tracking for common therapy issues like depression and anxiety. For depression, recording situations in which a person engages in pleasurable activities can help to cultivate this as a habit to enhance their mood. Clients whose goal is to manage anxiety can record situations in which they expose themselves to situations in which they experience strong anxiety.

Why habit tracking works

Habit tracking works to cultivate good habits and break bad habits for several reasons:

(1)    It increases awareness of your behaviours. Being aware of the behaviours you want to perform or avoid by recording them makes it more likely you will cultivate good habits. This reason manifests the first rule of behaviour change mentioned in Atomic Habits—make it obvious.

(2)    It provides immediate positive reinforcement. Writing in your habit tracker when you have performed your goal behaviour effectively gives you immediate positive reinforcement. This makes it more likely you will perform your goal behaviour going forward to form it as a habit. Immediate positive reinforcement is particularly helpful for behaviours in which the goal is to overcome urges to engage in a behaviour such as alcohol or drug use which provides its own form of immediate positive reinforcement.

(3)    It facilitates skills which foster good habits. When clients do habit tracking, they not only record situations in which they are successful in their habit trackers. They also record strategies they used to achieve success in those situations. Doing so facilitates skills which foster good habits. For example, a client who successfully rode out the urge to drink alcohol at an event in which alcohol was present would record strategies they used to help them ‘urge surf’ such as reminding themselves of the benefits of staying on track.

(4)    It helps you rebound from slips. Building good habits and breaking bad habits does not happen instantly. That is, situations in which you are successful will typically occur alongside those in which you have slips. Rebounding from slips is therefore necessary to continue making progress. Doing so is much easier when you record the details of the situation in which the slip occurred in a constructive manner. This entails learning from the slip by identifying what factors led to it along with what you could do differently to prevent a slip in a similar situation.

(5)   It tracks your progress in a helpful way. Many people lose motivation to work toward building good habits because they think of their progress in a perfectionistic manner. That is, they view the absence of slips as the goal on which to focus and, as a result, they become dejected whenever they have slips. Habit tracking entails recording slips alongside successes to counteract this perfectionistic way of measuring progress.

You may find it helpful to work with a psychologist as you implement habit tracking.

May you use habit tracking to build good habits and eliminate bad habits,

-Dr. Pat