Day 3012 – When Does A Habit Become A Habit?

This morning, Bret and I were discussing habits. He’s started a few checklists because he was inspired by my checklists. As I’ve mentioned before, I’ve flossed pretty much every day (minus about 3-5 days) for a year. Bret has flossed almost every day since June. We have a “Floss Journey” checklist next to our sink to keep track. He’s started a “habits checklist” that he keeps above his computer. On there, he included flossing. I said, “well, why include that? Isn’t it already a habit? Don’t we track it elsewhere?”

It got us thinking, when can you call something a habit? When is it ok to stop tracking it?

For me, I HAVE to track everything I want to grow in. I can’t stop. Even though I do devotions in the morning, and it’s almost always the first thing I do, I still keep it on my to do list. Even though I am in the habit of blogging every day, I still keep it on my to do list. Ha ha, it helps to have to number of days too!

I think that the things on my morning checklist are finally habits. I am so thankful for that! Writing and working out have been completed since 9/4, but it wasn’t until 9/17 that I added in reading through two books, and working on building my pinterest account. I do feel like those are now habits. So, that’s almost a month.

This weekend, I created two new checklists – an afternoon slump checklist (including things like laugh for 5 minutes, have a dance party, and go for a walk) and an evening winding down checklist (prepping for the next day, doing the dishes, etc). I’m looking forward to seeing how they will increase my productivity and energy throughout the day.

When do you think a habit becomes a habit? When do you think it’s ok to stop tracking something because you’ll do it no matter what? Do you have a video that makes you laugh out loud every time? (I’m building a playlist on YouTube!) Let me know in the comments below!