How Many Habits Should You Track?
Call me a nerd if you want, but I think changing habits is fun. Like super fun. How cool is it that you can tweak something so minor in your life in just five or ten minutes a day and have it compound and create massive change over time? It’s SO COOL, I know!!
But if you’re like me, getting excited about habit change also means you want to do everything at once. And if I’m gonna do something, I’m gonna do it all the way.
Why only commit to meditating for 5 minutes a day when I could also start oil pulling and getting to the gym for a group class 3 days a week and read for 30 minutes a day and stop eating sweets and stop drinking alcohol and text a friend every morning and, and, and….
Admittedly, that’s a quick path to burnout. And I’ve done that to myself. I’ve tried to stack so many habits on top of one another that it feels like I’ve created another part-time job for myself just trying to manage the things I want to do differently in my life.
So how many habits should you track (and still be effective with your changes)?
But now that I’m older and wiser (and have read pretty much every book on self-help, habit change, and goal setting), I know better. And I’ve found the secret number to answer the question of how many habits you should track is 3.
The power of tracking three habits
With the Sticker the Habit system, you focus on only three things.
🟢 One habit you want to start doing
🔵 One habit you want to keep doing
🔴 One habit you want to stop doing
That’s it. Every month, you commit to tracking only three habits. In the process, you save yourself from the rabbit hole of wanting to make sweeping changes to your entire life all at once.
So what does it do for you to tackle changing only three habits at a time?
It’s realistic. Nobody has time to devote an hour a day to implementing habit change; they just don’t. By tracking three small habits each day, you can make the time and actually do the darn thing, no matter what season of life you’re in.
It builds momentum. You can start to see progress after only a few weeks of tracking, which inspires you to think differently about how your habits impact your life and what you’re truly capable of.
It works. Three habits is the secret number of habit change because it’s a manageable amount that makes you feel like you’re doing something without the overwhelm or analysis paralysis of having too long of a list of things to do.
What happens when you track more than three habits
Tracking more than three habits can put you in a state of perpetual overwhelm where, instead of doing something, you do exactly nothing. Tracking fewer than three habits can put you in a state where you feel like you’re not doing enough. Plus, focusing on one habit to start and one habit to stop helps create balance. Instead of piling on three new things you want to do, you’re trading out time by ceasing to do one thing and picking up another.
Life can feel a lot more balanced when you decide to stop watching TV after 9 pm and start reading a book for 15 minutes before bed. These activities can offset each other from a time demand perspective, which allows you to make two habit changes using the same window of time. Talk about a win/win!
Have you had experience with tracking too many habits or feeling overwhelmed by all the things in your life you’d like to change if only you had the time? Tell me about it in the comments.
And remember, whenever you’re ready to make a change, just Sticker the Habit!
