This Wednesday: One key tip to help you be happier, lose weight, have more fun, be a better parent and spouse, have more friends, be more productive, and more – plus, get something for free!

Every Wednesday is Tip Day.
This Wednesday: One key tip to help you be happier, lose weight, have more fun, be a better parent and spouse, have more friends, be more productive, and more – plus, get something for free!

We’ve all made New Year’s resolutions. But the problem is – how do we actually follow through? Initial enthusiasm and determination so often fade to neglect and guilt.

To help myself stick to my Happiness-Project resolutions, I keep resolution charts.

I borrowed the idea from Ben Franklin. In his Autobiography, he explains that he identified thirteen virtues to cultivate, then made a chart with those virtues plotted against the days of the week. Each day, he’d score himself.

I’ve made a similar scoring chart—a calendar with all my resolutions, in which I can give myself a √ (good) or an X (bad).

Keeping these charts has made a huge difference in helping me stick to my resolutions. Why?

 Studies show that we’re much more likely to make progress on goals that are broken into concrete actions, with some kind of accountability.

 Actually writing down a goal helps to commit to pursuing that goal.

 Research shows that repeating ideas makes them much more “accessible” and therefore more active. As I review my resolutions to score myself, I’m also keeping ideas like “Sing in the morning,” “Show up,” or “Answer the phone with good cheer” uppermost in my mind.

 Visible proof of progress is encouraging. I crave those gold stars! I’ve been trying to get over my need for recognition and praise, but it’s not easy, and that little bit of reinforcement makes a difference.

Although everyone’s Happiness Project would be unique, seeing Benjamin Franklin’s example did help me create my resolution charts.

So, if you’d like to see my resolution charts, just email me at grubin [at] gretchenrubin [.com]. (I wrote the email that way to thwart spammers, but just use the usual email format.) I’ll email you my charts.

I’ve included a blank template at the end, so you can adapt the format to your own particular goals.

In case there’s confusion – each month I concentrate on a particular set of goals, but I do score myself every day on resolutions for all twelve months.

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If you're interested in topics like creativity, productivity, and the occasional just-because-it's interesting-or-funny piece of information, check out LifeDev. It's the blog by the founder of LifeRemix.
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Comments

[Doug Kyle]

I like this idea and have been using an online version at JoesGoals.com. By assigning points to each goal, it also lets me post my daily score on my home page where I get a constant reminder if I've been sliding or improving.

cheers!

[Andrew White]

Great tip, Gretchen, thanks! A solid online tool for doing this is Joe's Goals, http://www.joesgoals.com. You add goals, and every day you mark if you fulfilled them. You can mark goals as negative, or even assign them weights. You can plot your progress.

If you're taking the "30-day trial" -- http://www.stevepavlina.com/blog/2005/04/30-days-to-success/ -- approach, Jerry Seinfeld's advice on not breaking the chain may also work. Its for one goal at a time, and a great way to focus if you're the type who wants to do everything, and so does nothing. Linked at the bottom of that article is a hosted "Seinfeldian Calendar", http://smarterfitter.com/chain . Set that as your home page, and you have a powerful reminder of what you're trying to accomplish!

[almost vegetarian]

Good tips, but it is a lot to remember. I pick a personal goal; just one thing I want to make me happy and satisfied. I add to this one family goal; just one thing to make my family happy and satisfied. And I try to achieve these goals every day.

Cheers!

[Jon Matthias]

This is very similar to the Quality Improvement Checklist concept in Quality Management. Applying the idea to your daily life, you keep track of the number of "defects" in each of your daily activities (a "defect" can be something like sleeping in, spending more than 30 minutes surfing the internet, etc.) and making charts/graphs in Excel that track the defects over time. The idea is that being aware of and counting defects itself helps eliminate them. In practice, I find that SHARING the information with somebody (i.e. your spouse) is key, as it adds the accountability that you mention in your post.

[Gretchen Rubin]

Yes, yes, Joe's Goals! I meant to mention that in my post and utterly forgot. I don't use it myself but I know that a lot of people think it's fantastic.

[AgentSully]

Great idea. I think I would like to have this printed out by my computer to always remind me! Looking forward to seeing your template. Thanks!

[Martin Polley]

I second the excellent Seinfeldian Chain (http://smarterfitter.com/chain).

[Jackie]

I just use Wordpad and I list some personal goals for that month and each week I update them. So far I've only had a few goals that I didn't meet so I moved them to the next month.

[fasteddie]

DIY planner already has the Ben franklin virtues scorecard - suitable for printing on index cards ( hipster pda )

http://www.diyplanner.com/templates/official/hpda/addons/franklin

[CL]

I use Excel for this - it's great because you can add charts, trendlines, etc..

[AA]

If you want an easy way to track Franklin's Virtues check out: http://www.pocketmod.com/

I like this tool much better than a lot of online options b/c it is easy to start fresh each week. This helps keep larger goals broken down into manageable steps.

[Summer]

I use Excel for this--like CL said--you can make graphs and charts to your heart's content. Though, I don't use good or bad--I go binary--1 for on and 0 for off.

I track all kinds of things like that. Sometimes I want to rate something but usually the on/off works really well.

I usually track several things at once--i.e., Eat Breakfast, Energy, Headache, etc. This isn't so much goal tracking as finding relationships between my actions/feelings.

[ParisBreakfasts]

I always have a mess of goals floating around in my head or on scraps of paper.
This is really helpful for me!
THANK YOU,
Carolg

[therapydoc]

Yeah, but what about the idea that most people are way too lazy to chart. I couldn't believe it when a patient told me that her last THERAPIST didn't even chart. Go figure.

[Tom Angelo]

I work at home as a medical transcriber. I find that I am almost obscessive when it comes to checking political stories and/or the news. I stumbled across your site. I realized that this obscessive compulsion of checking politics does not make me happy. I would much rather read enlightening things/discoveries towards the pursuit of happiness.

Thanks for the revelation. Any other things that you stumble (or actually go out and look for) are greatly appreciated.

Tom

[Rajinderpal]

Great Ideal

But does it really work ?
It still all boils down to you taking action and responsibilty for your own life

http://www.constantimprovements.com

[Dorothy]

Hi Gretchen !

I love the charts... but my question for you is... how do you keep yourself accountable ? Do you talk to other people about your goals and they keep you accountable or do you just do it by yourself ? I find it really hard to be accountable to myself just with the charts.
Thanks !

[Dallee]

www.LetterMeLater.com is a free service that lets you set up a schedule of email reminders to yourself -- excellent if you tend to forget to do charting and need a nudge. Set up a daily email for a month or two (put the end date in the text of the message, so you can renew it for another cycle if needed).

Although the spreadsheet program at Google Docs also looks like a good possibility for charting, I use my word processing program for charts. I make a table, often decorated by graphics which appeal to me so I enjoy looking at my chart. Sometimes "wordy" entries are good, especially to give oneself credit for preparation steps or to capture ideas on how to embark about a project or habit.

Nice topic!