What is a challenge tracker?
A challenge tracker is a sheet with one box for each day of your challenge. You color in a box each day you do the thing.
It works because you can see the whole challenge at once. You see how far you have come and how far is left, without doing any maths. Gaps are easy to spot too, which is the point.
Any daily goal fits: a walk, ten pages, no sugar, a drawing a day. Need an idea? Try these 30 day challenge ideas.
How to use the printable tracker
Four steps, and the last one happens every day.
Pick the length
Choose 7, 21, 30, 75, 100 or 365 days, or type any number up to 400.
Name it and add a start date
The name goes at the top. The start date prints every day's date under its number, for challenges up to 120 days.
Print it and put it where you will see it
The fridge, the bathroom mirror, next to your bed. A tracker in a drawer tracks nothing.
Color in one box each day you do it
Do it right after, not at night from memory. Use one color, or a new one each week.
How many days should your challenge be?
Short enough to finish, long enough to matter. Most people pick one of these.
- 7 days: a test run. Good for trying something new with little to lose.
- 21 or 30 days: the classic. One sheet, one month, a clear finish line.
- 75 days: the length of 75 Hard and its softer versions.
- 100 days: long enough to change a skill. 100 days of code or drawing are common.
- 365 days: a full year on one page, with smaller circles.
Why a paper tracker works
Writing progress down helps. A review of 138 studies found that tracking progress made people more likely to reach their goal. The effect was bigger when the progress was physically recorded.
A paper sheet on the wall is also hard to ignore. You walk past it every day, and a row of colored boxes is something you do not want to break. That is the whole idea behind the don't break the chain method.
Planning a 75 day or 100 day run? The rules and the pitfalls are in our 75 Hard guide and our 100 day challenge guide.
When paper stops being enough
Paper is great for counting days. It struggles when a challenge is about amounts, like kilometers or money, because then you have to add things up.
It also stays on the fridge. You cannot check it at work, and you cannot share it without taking a photo. Paper and apps each win at different things, and plenty of people use both. Saving money instead? The savings challenge calculator prints a chart of amounts.
Frequently asked questions
- Is this challenge tracker free to print?
- Yes. It needs no account and no email. Make as many as you like.
- Can I make a tracker for any number of days?
- Yes. Pick 7, 21, 30, 75, 100 or 365 days, or type any number from 1 to 400.
- Can I save it as a PDF instead of printing?
- Yes. Press Print the tracker, then pick Save as PDF as the printer.
- Does it fit on one page?
- Yes, always, on A4 or Letter. The circles grow to fill the page, so a 30 day sheet gets big ones and a 365 day sheet gets small ones. Space left over becomes lines for notes.
- What should I do if I miss a day?
- Leave that box empty and color in the next one tomorrow. A gap costs you the run, not the days you already did. Only strict rules, like 75 Hard, send you back to day one.