The “Core Four” Daily Habit Tracker for the Bullet Journal

I’ve seen a lot of incredibly creative bullet journal habit trackers for weekly and monthly spreads. Since the daily spread is my absolute favorite, I’ve gone a different direction and created a simple daily habit tracker. I’m calling it the “core four” because I think tracking just four habits each day is enough to help motivate me without being overwhelming.

Okay – sometimes tracking even ONE habit is overwhelming, but we all have bad days! 🙂

While a weekly or monthly habit tracker is fantastic for seeing how you’re doing over time, I use this daily tracker to simply be mindful each night about my habits and then give them a large space in the spread to signify their importance.

Simply put, it keeps those four habits top-of-mind, which in turn helps motivate me to strive to do better each day.

Choosing the “Core Four” Habits to Track

I’ll admit, I have a lot of habits I’d love to improve and I could (and probably will, eventually) make a big table tracker full of all that stuff. But for this tracker, I sat and thought about the most important habits I need to really lock down to have a happier, healthier life right now.

For me, those habits are simply:

• Drink more water
• Eat more nutritious foods
• Be more active
• Sleep better

My ultimate goal here is to get those four habits to be so ingrained into my daily life that I can start replacing them with new habits to improve! I’ll probably be able to knock out “drink more water” in the next couple of months, which will open that slot for a new “core” habit!

The Daily Habit Tracker Layout

This cadent pattern is something I picked up a few years ago when learning more about zentangle. It’s one of the simplest and I just love the dimension it adds to my daily spread. Best of all, it’s super easy to make and needs just a minimal amount of shading. Here’s how I learned to do it:

Note: It’s easiest to make if you’re using a dot or grid paper.

1. Starting on the left, draw a small open circle around a dot or in the intersection of the square grid.
2. Count out 4 to 6 dots/squares depending on how big you want the tracker to be, and draw the next circle.
3. Continue counting and drawing your circles until you have a grid of three across and three down, for a total of nine circles.
4. Starting on the left top, you’ll be connecting the circles with a curved line. To do this, start at the bottom of the top left circle and end the line above the first circle to the right.
5. Draw all of your horizontal lines in the same way for the three rows of circles.
6. Turn your page 90 degrees and repeat the lines in the same way.
7. Lastly, shade the circles to give depth to the drawing.

Once your cadent sections are drawn, you can enter your labels and leave space for your tracking!

Interested in more layouts and ideas? Sign up for the newsletter and you’ll get regular emails from me, including a printable guide for the Core Four!

Variations for the “Core Four” Daily Habit Tracker

If you don’t want to track four habits, it’s easy to modify this layout into a single row (for two or three habits) or expand it into two columns and three or four rows to track even more! The possibilities are fun to consider!

Labeling and tracking are also fun to experiment with! It really depends on how much time you want to spend drawing, lettering and coloring. Each day can be completely different, if that fuels your creativity!

I hope this daily habit tracker inspires you and I’d love to hear more about what “core” habits you like to track! <a href=”mailto:jess@pineconepapers.com”>Feel free to email me</a>.