Not tracking habits is the best habit

I’ve always been a big fan of habit tracking. When I stopped smoking and abusing technology in 2018 after reading Easyway to Stop Smoking and How to break up with your phone, the method I used to snowball my habits streak was to download a beautiful app called Habitify from the App Store, and to start tracking every single day I stuck with them (as of today, I still believe it’s one of the best habit-tracking apps ever made).

But life is made of ups just as much as it’s made of downs, and I wasn’t prepared for that.

It first started with a day when I didn’t feel like meditating. Then came another, when I just couldn’t wake up at 5 AM like I used to, and simply needed more sleep. I felt guilty for not being able to mark my habits as “complete”, then inadequate, then a failure. Eventually, I stopped doing it altogether and slowly relapsed into old, negative habits.

I've repeated this same mistake several times over the years. I would start with a positive change, stack up many more, then begin tracking them — only to see my castle fall as soon as I couldn’t tick a daily entry.

A big part of this feeling of inadequacy probably stemmed from self-help literature. I’ve always been an avid reader, and personal development books have played a pivotal role in my growth. But it’s very easy to underestimate the effects of these resources when they only talk about the pros, and never the cons.

What happens if sometimes I want to break free from my diet and have a cheat meal? What’s wrong if I hate journaling and find it the most boring thing in the world? And what about if I wake up later than usual for two days straight? I used to think my habits were gone forever because that’s what videos and books taught me. Turns out, I was just taking things way too seriously.

Fast forward to today, I now understand that not tracking habits is by far my favourite habit. I don’t care about streaks anymore, and I simply trust my gut when it comes to whether I’m neglecting a positive routine or just taking a break. It took me a very long time to get here, and I occasionally still have to resist the temptation of downloading yet another habit-tracking app, but this approach has worked best for me.

And that doesn’t mean I don’t track stuff. I track what I eat, my daily caffeine intake, my meditations, the exercises I do, the movies I watch, and the websites I find interesting. I love tracking things. But I’ll never let another third-party tool dictate the frequency with which I decide to do something.

That is now entirely up to me, and if you’re having trouble making your habits stick, I strongly encourage you to try the same. You may actually find the peace you’ve been so eagerly longing for.