Increase Productivity and Consistency with This $3 Visual Habit Tracker

In this episode, Dr. Christine Li shares a simple yet powerful habit-tracking experiment using a $3 pack of star stickers and an old grid notebook. She details how this visual tracking method boosted her productivity, increased consistency, reduced task resistance, and added fun and celebration to her daily routines. Learn how to conquer procrastination, stay organized, and make progress on important habits with this easy, nostalgic tool that you can start using today.

Timestamps

• 00:00:00: Dr. Christine Li introduces the episode and her experiment with a star sticker habit tracker
• 00:01:17: Dr. Christine Li shares her background and approach to productivity
• 00:02:00: Dr. Christine Li describes how she set up her habit tracker and its inspiration
• 00:03:12: Dr. Christine Li explains using the sticker system and its low cost
• 00:03:55: Dr. Christine Li details productivity and time-saving benefits discovered
• 00:05:32: Dr. Christine Li discusses improved consistency and bundling habits
• 00:06:39: Dr. Christine Li highlights immediate celebration and the importance of acknowledging progress
• 00:08:23: Dr. Christine Li suggests adding “hard” tasks to the tracker to increase follow-through
• 00:09:32: Dr. Christine Li recaps what the sticker sheet helps to conquer, like boredom and resistance
• 00:11:20: Dr. Christine Li talks about increasing consistency and reality-based habit tracking
• 00:13:06: Dr. Christine Li encourages using the tracker to reduce self-criticism and free up mental space
• 00:14:25: Dr. Christine Li offers a free worksheet and wraps up the episode

To get the free download that accompanies this episode, go to: https://maketimeforsuccesspodcast.com/stars

To sign up for the Waitlist for the Simply Productive Program, go to: https://maketimeforsuccesspodcast.com/SP

For more information on the Make Time for Success podcast, visit: https://www.maketimeforsuccesspodcast.com

Gain Access to Dr. Christine Li’s Free Resource Library -- 12 downloadable tools and templates to help you bypass the impulse to procrastinate: https://procrastinationcoach.mykajabi.com/freelibrary

To work with Dr. Li on a weekly basis in her coaching and accountability program, register for The Success Lab here: https://www.procrastinationcoach.com/lab

Connect with Dr. Christine Li

Website: https://www.procrastinationcoach.com

Facebook Group: https://www.facebook.com/groups/procrastinationcoach

Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/procrastinationcoach/

TikTok: https://www.tiktok.com/@procrastinationcoach

The Success Lab: https://maketimeforsuccesspodcast.com/lab

Simply Productive: https://maketimeforsuccesspodcast.com/SP

Transcript

Dr. Christine Li [00:00:00]:
Welcome back to the Make Time for Success podcast. This is episode number 288. A couple of weeks ago, I took it upon myself to create a productivity and habit tracker. I had an old grid lined notebook lying around and I had also a package of gold foil multicolored star stickers on hand as well. And I did what we all probably did back in kindergarten. I made a tracking sheet for myself and I listed different habits and tasks that I needed to get done every single day of that week. And the results that came out of this star sheet sticker tracker experiment were really, I think, strong and meaningful, useful and even profound. And so I really wanted to share the joy of tracking your own productivity with stickers in this episode.

Dr. Christine Li [00:01:09]:
I promise you, you're going to get a lot out of this episode.

Dr. Christine Li [00:01:17]:
Hi, I'm Dr. Christine Li and I'm a psychologist and a procrastination coach. I've helped thousands of people move past procrastination and overwhelm so they could begin working to their potential. In this podcast, you're going to learn powerful strategies for getting your mind, body and energy to work together so that you can focus on what's really important and accomplish the goals you want to achieve. When you start living within your full power, you're going to see how being productive can be easy and how you can create success on demand. Welcome to the Make Time for Success podcast.

Dr. Christine Li [00:01:59]:
Hi there. Today I have a fun episode. This one is about a quick productivity exercise that I did in my own life and it was so successful that I shared it with my clients inside the Success Lab, my weekly membership program. And I would love to share it with you here today as well. What I did was I took an old notebook. It was something from many years ago. And I never really figured out how to use the notebook because it had grid lines throughout it. And I figured, let me use this to track some habits that I've been working on, habits that I want to keep consistent with habits that are part of my daily schedule and routine.

Dr. Christine Li [00:02:52]:
So I put about 12 of these habits on the left hand column of this old grid notebook. And then what I did is I took a pack of star stickers, star stickers that I picked up from my local pharmacy. The whole pack of multiple pages of stickers cost me less than $3. And I went day by day, starting from Monday of that week, and I put a star next to each item on the list of habits. As soon as I accomplished the habit, as soon as I performed the task, the sticker would go on the habit tracker sheet. I think you know what I'm talking about because we've all done this. Maybe from kindergarten or first grade or. Or perhaps with your own children or at some point in your life, you have made some sort of tracking sheet.

Dr. Christine Li [00:03:55]:
The reason why I am making an episode out of this recent experiment of mine is that we need these experimental productivity exercises in our adult lives too. I found this experiment to be so helpful in that short week that I was amazed and I thought I would share with you what I found happened. So the first thing was I just had so much more fun getting things done because I had this star tracking sheet to come back to every hour and after I completed any particular task. So overall, I just felt like I was getting more done because I could see what was happening. I also found that over the course of the week that because I had this routine that was starting with the stickers and the habits being completed, that I didn't spend so much time gearing up for each of the tasks. So I reduced my startup time for each of the tasks on the list. I found myself moving more quickly throughout the day and throughout the tasks and just piling on the star stickers really early on in the day as the week progressed. So I really felt like this was making an impact.

Dr. Christine Li [00:05:32]:
The other benefit that I saw right away was that I stopped forgetting to do things like taking my supplements. So I take omega 3 and vitamin D and pre and probiotics, and I think of myself as being consistent with those supplements. But, you know, there are days when you're tired or days when you're not passing by that cabinet or the refrigerator for the pre and probiotics and you're going to forget. And I found that I didn't forget anything during the week of this starsheet experiment. So that's another benefit. Another benefit was that I found that on the third or fourth day, by the third or fourth day of doing this, I was lumping different tasks together. So not only was I doing all of them more quickly, but they were all taking shape in a certain way that I found that I could do one through five in the morning really quickly, like one fell swoop. And of course, that is a time saver as well.

Dr. Christine Li [00:06:39]:
And if you know me, you know that I enjoy saving a minute at a time. If you tell me I can save a minute by doing this one thing, I'm going to try it. And I found this was happening without strain, without stress, and it was just coming together so much more easily. And I had all these stars to look at. And that was fun, too. There are two more benefits that I would like to share with you. One was that sticking the star on the sheet was like an immediate celebration moment for me. So often I teach my clients, the thing that is missing in your work style is you forget to celebrate your successes.

Dr. Christine Li [00:07:24]:
We go on throughout the day, we do really hard things, we do really simple things that are just regular chores, but we forget to stop and say, wow, that was great. Wow, I'm so glad that is done. Wow, that didn't take any time at all. I'm so glad that that was completed. And these stars do the trick of implementing the joy, of implementing the pride that might be missing in the way that you work. And when we forget to input the pride, the joy, and the celebration, we tend to get tired, we tend to get bored, we tend to get forgetful, we tend to feel like we're not making any progress even though we are well on our way towards our goals. So the star sheet is really great for injecting celebration. And the final benefit that I saw was that I was doing, quote, hard things just because they were on the list.

Dr. Christine Li [00:08:23]:
So I'm going to suggest that. That if you're inclined to make a starsheet tracker form for yourself, that you decide once you get started, that I'm going to add one or two things onto this list that I have found to be relatively daunting or important or hard to get to. And I think you're going to find that the resistance is a little bit less because you put it on this sheet that works so well for you. You're going to put it on the sheet that makes your tasks really clear, front and center, written down. You know you've done this for yourself and you know you're going good places with it. So enjoy expanding your plan for the week because you're going to save time by tracking, you're going to increase your consistency by tracking, and then you're going to practice the habit of doing things that you once felt were really hard. And you're going to make that whole process a bit easier. So I hope that list of benefits really helps you to say, let me dig up an old notebook, let me go to the pharmacy and get a pack of sticker stars.

Dr. Christine Li [00:09:32]:
This sounds really fun, and I promise you it really is. Now, I want to also give you a quick list of the things that I think this sticker sheet helped me to conquer. It helped me to conquer getting bored with just the mundane tasks like the supplements so taking supplements is good for your health, we hope. But it's also kind of on the boring side, right? It takes some time, but when I added that sticker, it was no longer so boring. This sticker sheet also helps you to conquer resistance. Like I've mentioned throughout this episode, it helps you to just say, oh, let me get a full column of star stickers today. Because that's the goal, because it's fun, because it makes me feel accomplished, and because it means that everything is taken care of. You no longer have to use your precious brain to keep track of these individual items or whether you did things or not.

Dr. Christine Li [00:10:31]:
You don't have to do that back and forth with yourself anymore. And that is a big plus in your day. The other thing that this sheet helps you conquer is the belief that you're going to do something and then you don't. I think it really heals that part of you that might be in the habit of procrastinating and then finding yourself wanting and intending to do something, but then never finding the time or never getting around to it over the day. And we've all been there. This is the busy season, this is springtime, summertime season. We're all incredibly busy. So give yourself a leg up and give yourself a reason not to neglect yourself, not to ignore what you intend to do.

Dr. Christine Li [00:11:20]:
It's a really wonderful habit to practice. The other thing that I have on my list of things you can conquer with this star sheet is you can remove the denial that happens when you're trying to be consistent. This sticker sheet will show you whether you're being consistent or not. It is very much reality based and I think that can be really helpful when you're trying to improve on your consistency because when left to our own devices, we might think, oh, this is good enough, when really you haven't been doing it consistently and consistently doesn't need to mean you're doing something every single day, but it does mean that you need to be conscious and mindful of how often you're getting to the task. It does mean that you're going to be doing the task at least every second or third day. And again, this star sheet really helps you to just bring reality into your habit forming picture so you stay on track so you don't let a week go by without getting back to that core habit. It is really very strength building and that is a lovely thing. The final thing I'm going to share with you is that it helps you to remember that you are moving forward and I believe that is a very important thing to remember and I think it is so easy to slip into I'm so bored, I am so slow, I am so inefficient.

Dr. Christine Li [00:13:06]:
I am such a slacker. You can slip into those old self critical tones and voices and you can waste time that way. Or you can bring out the Starsheet. I'm going to for those of you who are watching the video on YouTube, I'm going to show you a quick view of what the pretty star sheet looks like. It's all colored with the different colored stars and it really is fun because it's tactile, it doesn't involve your computer. It is a reminder that you've got things handled and I hope you pick up this habit at least for a week. Just get in the habit of saying, you know what? I'm going to try anything that is going to help me do better with the things that I care about, with the things that are better for my body, with my sleep pattern, with my games that I want to stay consistent with, with the podcasts that I want to make sure I don't forget. Anything that is on your mind that's floating around taking up your brain space, put it on the Star Tracker and save your brain space for the better work.

Dr. Christine Li [00:14:17]:
The higher level work the work that is creative practice, problem solving things that you're really meant to do, not the to do list items. We don't want your brain space taken up by those things. So try this for yourself. If you'd like a free worksheet to help you get started with the Star sheet in your own life and in your own home, go to maketimeforsuccesspodcast.com/stars with an S or two S's. Again, it's maketimeforsuccesspodcast.com/stars and that is it. And that's it for this episode. I'm so glad I was able to tell you about this fun experiment. Go try it for yourself and I'll see you back here for another episode next week.

Dr. Christine Li [00:15:05]:
Thanks so much for listening to the Make Time for Success podcast.

Dr. Christine Li [00:15:09]:
Bye. Thank you for listening to this episode of the Make Time for Success Podcast. If you enjoyed what you've heard, you can subscribe to to make sure you get notified of upcoming episodes, you can also Visit our website maketimeforsuccesspodcast.com for past episodes, show notes and all the resources we mention on the show. Feel free to connect with me over on Instagram too. You can find me there under the name procrastination coach. Send me a DM and let me know what your thoughts are about the episodes you've been listening to. And let me know any topic topics that you might like me to talk about on the show. I'd love to hear all about how you're making time for success.

Dr. Christine Li [00:15:50]:
Talk to you soon.