The Points System (Part 4): The System Is Working, Even When I’m Not
Six Things I’ve Learned in Six Months of Tracking My Daily Habits (Okay, technically I stopped tracking—but the lessons didn’t stop.)
I started tracking my habits to create more structure in a season that felt completely unpredictable. I built a spreadsheet, gave myself points, and turned “vibes” into data. It worked—until I needed a break.
And then something weird happened: I kept learning, even without the spreadsheet.
This is not a “just trust your intuition” piece. I love systems. But the real point of tracking wasn’t perfection. It was noticing. And that noticing? It stuck.
Here are six things I’ve learned—some obvious, some sneaky—from six months of watching my days a little more closely.
A Quick Review, If You're New Here
Part 1: I created a spreadsheet to track daily habits, effort over outcomes, and bring some structure to an otherwise unpredictable season.
Part 2: I refined it. Built in bonus points. Realized that tracking gave me confidence and broke my all-or-nothing thinking.
Part 3: I got behavioral. Realized I can’t trust vibes, cut out sugar (farewell, coffee creamer), and embraced 80% adherence as a sustainable rhythm.
Which brings us here.
The Obvious Ones (aka the stuff I already knew, but now finally believe)
1. Less input = higher output
When my brain feels scrambled or overloaded, I strip everything down. No lyrics. No email tabs. No open-ended timelines. Music without words calms my brain. Audiobooks (long ones, no ads) help me settle into tasks. My attention span improves when I stop feeding it sugar.
2. My phone is better in another room
I’ve always had a love/hate relationship with my phone, but this year made it even clearer: I don’t want to doomscroll, but my brain will. I started keeping my phone out of reach during focused work—and the shift in clarity is wild. I don't need to be stronger. I just need fewer temptations in reach.
3. My brain craves routine, not pressure
When I took two weeks off lifting, I came back to the gym and restarted my old program, just to reacclimate. That reset felt incredible. My brain didn’t want a challenge—it wanted familiarity. Once it had that, I was ready for a new cycle. Structure helps me feel strong. The confidence follows.
4. Walks fix almost everything
This isn’t new, but it’s more true than ever. When I walk, I get ideas. I calm down. I stop ruminating. It’s not a productivity hack. It’s a nervous system tool. If I’m stuck or tired or overstimulated, walking helps me come back to myself. Every time.
5. Timers are tiny miracles
When I don’t set timers, I don’t come back. Making lunch turns into reorganizing the pantry, answering texts, doing laundry, and suddenly it’s 4pm. A timer is not a productivity flex. It’s a boundary. I started treating 12-minute breaks like sacred resets—clear beginning, clear end.
6. I don’t remember anything unless I repeat it
If it’s not in my weekly rhythm, it doesn’t happen. Not because I don’t care—but because my brain genuinely doesn’t flag it as important. I've stopped pretending I'll remember to follow up, stretch, call someone back, or book that thing. If it matters, it needs a place to land
There are more. I could talk about drink routines (juicer gang), or how I’ve stopped pretending I like making decisions every day. I could write a love letter to chicken tender Caesar salads. But these are the ones that shaped how I move through time. The ones that still echo, even when the tracker is closed.
Some of the practices that stuck:
I stopped tracking my work hours because neither time nor deadlines were reliable indicators of progress. They told me how long something took, not what it meant.
Even when I paused the spreadsheet, I kept journaling and meditating daily. Twenty-nine days straight. It wasn’t about logging. It was about anchoring.
I hit my walking goal three out of the last four weeks. I only missed two lifts. Those habits held—even when I wasn’t watching. That’s the point.
I now treat habits as a soft place to land when I forget—or rebel—against structure. They catch me.
I like checking boxes more than I like making lists. So I stopped romanticizing the planning phase and started building systems that begin after the resistance.
I’m sketching out a weekly strategy session for myself—not a full-on “Sunday reset,” but a standing meeting to look at the week ahead, ask what worked, and make one or two gentle adjustments. That feels more human than overhauling everything.
The truth is: I didn’t need a perfect system. I needed one that helped me see.
And once I did? I couldn’t unsee it.
What’s next?
Now that I’ve seen what sticks, I’m paring things down. The goal isn’t to start from scratch or rebuild the spreadsheet empire—it’s to integrate what I’ve learned in a way that feels light, sustainable, and actually useful.
I’ll test a simpler version. Fewer habits, more intention. Less noise, more noticing.
And I’ll report back.
Because the system might not look the same anymore—but the conversation continues.