Functional Planning: How to Create Your Own Habit Tracker

Hi Everyone! It’s the first day of the month and I am so excited to share with you today a part of a bullet journal that I really love-Trackers.

Trackers from the word itself track anything. They are updated regularly for the purpose of tracking. In order to reach someone’s goal, one must be able to know the current status he has and improve continually. To represent progress, there should be ample data to have.

Trackers help a person be aware of his/her progress. Trackers range from sleeping trackers, savings tracker, and a lot more. For this particular month, I am going to feature a Habit Tracker. A Habit Tracker tracks the habits that the person who is planning/journaling wants to. This month, I chose exercising, reading, crafting, skin care, and doing business as the habits I want to develop.

First, I write the word, “April” by using my dark blue brush pen in the shade of 565. I just wrote it in a cursive style and kept it really simple.

You can also use a different color of brushpen if you want, it is up to you, use your creativity and let your imagination run through.

Since I am planning on adding a shadow later, I used a very dark shade to compliment the lighter shade which is shown in the photo below.

Next, I added a bit of a light purple shadow. It is not really clear but it gives the writing dimension. By using the Tombow Brushpen in the shade 603, I was able to add depth to the lettering.

There are lots of posts on how to add shadows if you are a beginner and are confused which particular area to add it. I am also planning to write a blog post regarding this so that my readers will also have an idea how to shadow lettering.

One tip I would like to share is to use the proper color for shadows, since I used a dark blue for my main letters, for the shadows, I will use a lighter shade which would match the color blue. The color purple is a good choice for this particular color.

Using my white pen, I added few details to my lettering. This will help make it look like it is in 3D. I love how it adds dimension to the plain lettering.

Tip: When adding white details, make sure that the blue ink is dry, our foundation for this lettering so that the white ink will look more vibrant. There are times when we need to go over the white ink twice to add intensity to the white color. Using white colored pens are very tricky, find good quality white pens. Mine is from the brand, "Touch Mark" which I bought in Shopee. It is very cheap and has a really good quality.

Step 2: Use a pencil to draft the monthly layout.

Take a look at the calendar of the month you specifically want to make a tracker of. Layout using a pencil, the month. Now you will have cute little calendars for each habit you want to track. Since I am tracking six habits, I will have six small calendars which look like the ones in the picture above.

Step 3: Ink the calendars and erase the pencil marks.

Be careful when using your ruler. Wipe the ruler regularly because the ink might stay on the edge of your ruler and may cause unwanted pen marks on your work to avoid the mistake I did.

Step 4: You are now ready to put label on your mini calendars.

There are lots of habits you can track. I specifically wanted to track the habit of reading, skin care, exercise, journaling, crafting and doing business.

Step 5: Add designs to your tracker depending on your preferences.

I have decided to add colorful flowers using my pens to add on the word “April”. I have also put some flowers at the bottom page to fill up the vacant space in order for it not to look so bare.

Now your tracker is done and I am going to give you an example on how to use it!

Since the calendar is patterned on the month of April, for every day that you will do the habit, you are going to shade a particular square on that box because each box represents a day.

Tada! Now you know how to make a tracker for your habits. What do you think of my tracker? Please let me know in the comments below. I hope you have learned something and you enjoyed reading this blog post as much as I enjoyed making this.

After making an example, time to make a new one for myself! :) If you are also in bullet journaling like me, share your artworks below and stay creative!