Introducing the Notion Habit Compass 2.0

In this article, I will showcase the most recent updates I have done to the Habit Compass Template. Check it out on my shop page: Habit Compass 2.0

My journey with habit tracking using Notion began in 2021 – after watching the famous August Bradley Notion series. I quickly started tracking 15 daily habits and this process led to substantial improvements in my productivity and general output. However, after some months I became stressed and was close to burnout.

Truth is, I was tracking too much. My life was revolving around inputting data into Notion databases, not about living anymore. This was when I realized that

1. Less is more.
2. Habit tracking is a marathon, not a sprint.

A habit becomes part of your identity after doing it continuously for 66 days on average. The hardest part is to stick to your habit for this time.

After passing this threshold you should do the habit on autopilot.

It’s like brushing your teeth which is something you hopefully do every morning. If you are like me, you would feel pretty bad when not participating in this ritual because it is part of your identity.

Ideally, after building habits, when not doing your daily reading ritual, gym workout or 10.000 steps.

But how can you make sure to stick to your habits for 66 days?

James Clear’s 4 Laws of Behavior Change:

James Clear’s behavior change framework offers a systematic approach to creating good habits and eliminating detrimental ones. The four-step model can be summarized as:

1. Make it Obvious (or Invisible): Clearly define your habit and create prominent cues. For example, if you aim to read daily, keep a book within easy reach. Conversely, if you’re trying to break a bad habit, remove associated cues from your environment.
2. Make it Attractive (or Unattractive): Associate your habit with something you enjoy. On the flip side, make bad habits less appealing by emphasizing their negative consequences.
3. Make it Easy (or Difficult): Start with manageable steps. As your habit forms, you can progressively scale your goal. For bad habits, increase the steps between you and your vice to make indulgence more challenging.
4. Make it Satisfying (or Unsatisfying): Reward yourself upon completing your habit. To discourage bad habits, establish accountability mechanisms that make indulgence unsatisfying.

With some adaptions, this can also work for removing negative habits:

Removing Bad Habits:

1. Make it Invisible: Remove cues of your bad habits from your environment. If you want to cut down on unhealthy snacking, get rid of junk food from your home.
2. Make it Unattractive: Associate your bad habits with negative outcomes. For example, remind yourself of the health problems associated with unhealthy eating.
3. Make it Difficult: Increase the number of steps between you and your bad habits. If you impulsively check social media, delete the apps from your phone, so you have to log in via a web browser.
4. Make it Unsatisfying: Have an accountability partner who will keep you in check when you fall back into your old patterns. It’s much harder to indulge in a bad habit when you know someone is watching.

The challenges I faced when tracking habits in Notion

1. System Flexibility: One significant challenge was the lack of flexibility in my initial tracking system. It worked well as long as nothing changed. However, habit tracking, by its very nature, involves frequent changes as you form new habits and let go of old ones. The system was not built to easily accommodate these changes, making the process cumbersome.
2. Stress and Burnout: Over time, the rigorous process of tracking my daily habits, led to stress and nearly resulted in burnout. This highlighted the need for a system that let me track habits easily without needing to click too many buttons.
3. Data Management: My initial system did not make it easy to stop tracking a habit without disrupting the formulas and relationships in my tracking system. I realized that habits shouldn’t be Notion properties in my system but pages.

I realized that Notion allows me to easily aggregate data from pages in a second analytics database. This approach also allowed me to collect much more data, moreover, I gained flexibility and the ability to save old data forever compared to the old way of tracking data on a property level.

So, I was the first Notion creator to build a habit-tracking template where daily habits were tracked at the page level, shifting away from the conventional property-level model.

If you don’t understand what I am talking about, don’t worry. Take a look at the following screenshot for a visual representation:

In this database, the habits are tracked on a property level.

Each habit is assigned a checkbox property which you check when you have fulfilled the habit on a given day. The advantage of this system is the easiness of setting it up. The disadvantage is that any change is cumbersome to implement. Moreover, it’s not working well, when you don’t want to track certain habits on a daily level.

In this example, every habit is a page that is connected to a corresponding page in a Habit Stats database. If I stop tracking a certain habit, I simply stop creating new pages, the old data is still saved in the database. Any new habit I am tracking is easy to set up, I can also quickly connect it with the Habit Stats Database because Notion allows me to create a new entry there with one click.

2 years ago, I was unable to find a habit tracker template that provided the desired flexibility. Therefore, I created the Habit Compass 1.0 Template for Notion.

And now, I am thrilled to introduce the second iteration of this tool.

The 2023 version of the Habit Tracker Template is the culmination of user feedback and my learnings. Moreover, I implemented tons of new Notion functionalities like Buttons or AI.

Here are some of the key features of the new Habit Compass for Notion:

• 🎯 Notion AI-powered habit suggestions: Let Notion AI recommend the most impactful habits for achieving your visions.
• âš¡ Notion buttons for seamless interaction: Maximize your productivity with Notion buttons that enable easy habit checking and quick creation of new entries in databases.
• 📈 Efficient habit tracking methods: Choose from a variety of tracking methods to suit your preferences and goals, allowing you to monitor an unlimited number of daily or weekly habits.

Habit Compass 2.0 Tutorial

Let me explain how the Habit Compass 2.0 template works in the following sections:

Setting up the Visions Board

1. Enter your visions, goals, and aspiration in the vision database: Start by brainstorming and identifying your goals, dreams, and aspirations.
2. For each vision, you can create a new entry in the gallery or table view. Include a title for each entry that represents your vision. I have prefilled the database with 3 popular topics: Fitness & Health, Mindfulness and Happiness plus Money & Wealth
3. Add visual elements: If you’re using a gallery view, you can add visual images to represent your goals. To do this, click on a page, then choose to add an icon and cover image. You can attach an image file from your computer or from the web.
4. Search for habits that support your visions with AI. This works only if you have AI-enabled in your Notion plan. Go to the view Habit Ideas (AI) click on the property with the same name and click on the Update button**.** Notion AI will provide you with an actionable list of up to 10 habits that will help make your vision become a reality.
5. If you don’t want to use AI for finding fitting visions or habits, you can always go to the brainstorming page and use the journaling prompts to get more clarity about the course of your life.

Tracking habits with the Habit Compass 2.0

In theory, this template allows you to track unlimited habits every day. In practice, I don’t recommend tracking more than 3 per day.

This template allows you to create and track your daily habits in 4 different ways. Everybody’s brain works differently, therefore it’s up to you which approach you to choose.

1. Create a new entry in the Habit Tracking Database and fill it out manually
   1. Enter the name of the habit you are tracking, connect it with the corresponding Visions, and to the corresponding habit in the Habit Stats Database.
2. Create a new entry in the Habit Tracking Database and use a filtered view
   1. For Example, rename the filtered view Habit 1 into something you want to track like Morning Yoga. Now use the advanced filter and enter Jogging as the name, connect it with a corresponding vision and to the corresponding habit in the Habit Stats Database. Every time you create a new entry in this view, all the necessary data will be prefilled.
   2. Locate the view in your habit tracking database labeled “Habit 1, 2, or 3” and rename it to a specific habit you want to track, such as “Morning Yoga.” This will make it easier to identify and manage your habits effectively.
   3. To filter and display specific habits, use the advanced filter option in your habit-tracking database. Enter “Morning Yoga” as the name in the filter settings to create a view specifically for tracking your Morning Yoga habit.
   4. Connect your Morning Yoga habit to a corresponding vision and to the corresponding habit in the “Habit Stats Database.” This ensures that your jogging habit is aligned with your larger vision and allows you to track and analyze its statistics accurately.
   5. When you create a new entry in the “Jogging” view, all the necessary data will be prefilled automatically. This saves you time and ensures that essential information, such as the habit name, vision connection, and habit statistics, is already populated.
3. Use recurring templates
   1. Locate the “New” button in the interface. You can find it as a blue button with a downward-pointing arrow on the right side. Click on this button to proceed.
   2. A drop down menu will appear when you click the “New” button. From this menu, either select one of the existing entries or create a new one.
   3. After selecting or creating the entry, ensure that all the necessary data is filled in for the habit. Make sure to include relevant the name and connect the habit to the corresponding vision and statistics.
   4. Next, click on the three dots (ellipsis) to access additional options for making it recurrent. From the menu that appears, select the option to turn on the “repeat” feature.
   5. Once the “repeat” feature is enabled, you will be prompted to specify the interval at which the habit should be created in the database: Daily, weekly, monthly, or annually. Choose the desired interval that aligns with your habit-tracking needs.
   6. If you select the “weekly” interval, you will have the option to further customize the habit’s appearance in the database. You can choose specific days of the week when the habit should be included.
4. Use the Notion Buttons
   1. When you click on the button labeled “Add Habit 1,” a new entry called habit 1 will be automatically created in the Habit-tracking database. When you click on the button labeled “Check Habit 1,” the entry called habit 1 will be automatically marked as checked. To customize it according to the habits you are tracking, feel free to change the name and make it more specific, such as “Morning Yoga” or any other habit you are tracking.
   2. How to customize it? Hover over the button and click on the edit symbol that appears. Update the name to align with the habit you are tracking. Remember to ensure that the habit entry within the button is correctly connected to the associated vision and statistics.
   3. Similarly, make the same changes with the “Check Habit 1” button.
   4. Now, when you click on the “Add” button, a new habit entry will automatically appear in the database. This allows you to conveniently add new habits without manual data entry. Additionally, when you click on the “Check” button, the habit entry will be marked as done for the current day, providing a streamlined way to track your progress.

Rating your Day

This is a simple database for rating your day from 1 (best) to 5 (worst). Simply click on the corresponding button to apply your rating to today’s entry. Important: You need to create an entry for today first.

Habit Stats Database

When your habits are properly connected to the stats database, you will be able to view your weekly, monthly, and annual performance statistics in this section. It is important to note that if you change the name of a habit, for example, from “Habit 1” to “Morning Yoga,” you should also update the corresponding name in this database to maintain consistency.

By ensuring that the habit names are consistent between the Habit-tracking database and the vision database, you can accurately track and analyze your performance over different timeframes. This consistency helps you gain insights into your progress, identify patterns, and align your habits with your overall vision and goals.

Remember to update the habit names in both databases when making any changes to maintain accurate and meaningful statistics.

Conclusion

The Habit Compass 2.0 is one of the most powerful habit tracker templates for Notion. It allows you to:

✅ Track unlimited habits every day or on specific days of the week

✅ Link your habits to your life visions and goals

✅ Visualize your habit-forming progress

Plus, it is also working for habits you are not doing daily (e.g. jogging, going to the gym) and fully customizable to your needs

Interested?

Check it out here: Habit Compass 2.0