Behaviour Grid!

[starlike]

This is just a little something I came up with when thinking about my bad habits and how to avoid them, and how to monitor them. And of course, how to monitor good habits I'm trying to create. The idea is that you'll make the box red if you failed to meet your standards (for example I consider it a "failure" if I've slept less than 5.5 hours one night) and green if you succeeded (if I've learnt 30 word in French then that is definately a success in language studies). The hypothesis is that raised awareness leads to change.

What do you think about it? The purpose is to get a lot of data through simple observation which I can then use to see correlations between different habits and to become aware of what is exactly going on. You could develop it by adding "mood" or by making notes when important personal events occur and so on. Hopefully all boxes will be green in the future! The intention is that this will be a really easy and viable way to keep some sort of checklist of what you are doing.

Main question: Is this "good stuff" or just "stuff"?

http://member.webforum.nu/3319/scoring.html

[A.K.Light]

Good question. I thought of doing some similar once - I was going to keep a small notebook by my bed. Each page would have two columns, one for things that I did that day that I was proud of myself for, and one of the things that I did (or didn't do) that day that I was ashamed of myself for.

I figured that just looking at the pages each night would motivate me to get more on the good side the next day. I only did it for one day, though, lol. I think it could be useful, your chart or my notebook entries. There's probably a few different ways to achieve the same results, but maybe we should try this one and see how it works?

What sounds like a stupid idea to one person might work really well for the next. The only thing I'd be afraid of is wasting too much time keeping track of everything when you could be using that time to just go ahead and do the right thing. Sometimes things like this help, and sometimes they are an unnecessary complication.

[JiriNovotny]

I have been using exactly the same system for two months with spectacular results. Without this system I always had feeling that I should be doing something else, whatever I was doing at the moment

I have column for running, excercising, working, eating a big salad, getting up before 6:40 (I sometimes get up even at 4, but the key is consistency), etc.

This system can be improved with a nice twist: If you omit some "daily goal", you not only mark the square red, but write "Debt: 1" in that column, and the next day you have to do it two times.

Excel spreadsheet with horizontal columns is more convenient for me, because I can write details in each box. That can be really helpful, it's like some kind of journal then.

[InJoy]

Good idea!

[Xin]

I think this site could be of some use to you. =]

Joe's Goals - Free Online Habit Tracker

Just check it. Make your own habits and behaviour grids.