The Weekly Tracker is designed to encourage the creation of positive routines and curtail negative ones. But instead of lofty goals or resolutions that often result in feelings of guilt, the approach is centered around increasing awareness and naturally finding your own new equilibrium. By identifying specific behaviors and tracking them over time, they'll eventually become a natural part of your routine.
Franklin’s system listed 13 abstract virtues along the left and he would put a mark down for each principle he felt he went against during the day. Instead the weekly tracker frames aspirations in a positive way and, like a checklist, you fill it out as you accomplish each item. This provides positive reinforcement along the way.
System
The first step is to identify the behaviors or routines that, if modified, you feel would make the most significant impact on your life. If that feels too big to think about right now, pick something smaller or just commit to tracking it without self-judgement. It’s not about the number of changes. In fact, starting by tracking just two or three is recommended.
Let’s say you want to keep healthy by staying active. The most straightforward way to use the Weekly Tracker to create a routine that supports this would be to come up with a very specific action you could take which supports the desired outcome. For example, you could take the stairs at work. In that case, you would list “stairs" as your activity and simply give yourself a check mark each day you do it. An important distinction is that you are not setting a goal to take the stairs every day or even 3 times a week. You are simply acknowledging to yourself that this is an activity which you would like to engage in. Your commitment to yourself is to track your actual activity everyday rather than to actually do it.
Next, Download a free Weekly Tracker and fill in what you selected into the category where it fits best. Print the card and take a moment to fill it in each day. Include the “Overall” rating where you rate your sense of wellbeing on a scale of 1-5.
If the system sounds simple, that’s because it is. The first step is to develop the routine of filling in the tracker each day. That’s why it’s designed to be extremely straightforward. By starting with just a few items, it should take you less than a minute to do. As this becomes second nature, you’ll soon have your first experience of increased awareness when you encounter the activity in real life and the image of the tracker will suddenly appear. As you do these things throughout the day, you’ll look forward to checking them off on your tracker.
Learn more about the system here or start using the weekly tracker by downloading it here.