How to build a Habit Tracker in Notion with its new feature: Notion Charts!
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Description
Learn how to build a Habit Tracker in Notion using the new Notion Charts feature! This tutorial will show you step-by-step how to create and customize your own habit tracking system within Notion. Keep track of your habits in a visually appealing and organized way!
What is this video about?
Success is the result of small efforts repeated day after day. In this video, we will create a functional habit tracker in Notion. We will use buttons and a progress bar to make habit tracking more enjoyable and help us better visualize our progress. At the end of this video, you'll have a habit tracker to assist you in cultivating, managing, and tracking your daily habits together. Now let's start building the habit tracker in Notion.
Let's begin by opening two empty pages in Notion. One is for the dashboard, and one is for the database. By providing dashboards and databases separately, it allows for better data management and prevents overlap. First let's navigate to the dashboard page.
Turn it to full width and enter the page name & icon. Next, open the database page. As with the dashboard give it a name and an icon. Use the inline database command to create a habit tracker database, then hide the database title and delete the default properties.
Next, we'll add a checkbox property for each habit we want to track. To keep the dashboard neat and tidy, label each checkbox property with the title of our habit and choose an icon to represent each habit. Next let's create a progress bar to track our daily completion. We'll need to add a Formula property and name it 'Total Progress'.
Then select an icon to represent it. Next open the Notion Formula editing page and input the 'toNumber' formula. Inside the "toNumber" brackets, add your habit. Repeat this until you have added all the habits you have to your formula and add plus signs between them.
Then add the parentheses at the beginning and end of the formula. Divide by the number of habits you have and multiply by 100. Again put parentheses at the beginning and end of the formula. At the beginning of the formula, use the 'round' formula.
Finally, divide by 100 at the end of the formula. Returning to the Habit Tracker database, right-click on this property and choose 'Edit property.' Change the Number Format to 'percent.' Select 'Bar' as the display format & choose a color to create a beautiful progress bar. Once done, we can try out this progress bar to ensure it works properly. Finally, add a date to this database to better track our habits over time.
After confirming that all functions are working properly, let's add some data to this database. Next, we'll create a repeat task for this page so we don't have to manually add today's habit card every day. Click the down arrow in the upper right corner of the database and click on the new template button. Set the template page title & select today in the date field. After that, close the page and re-open our database template list.
Here we will see the template page we just created. Click on the three-dot icon next to it and select this template as default. In the repeat tab select repeat daily and set the time you want to automatically create. Then, Notion will automatically add today's habit card to the database at a set time every day. Next, let's move to the dashboard page, which is the page we'll be facing every day.
So let's make it as clean and aesthetic as possible. First use the two-column command to split the screen into two parts. We'll leave the left part to the other function blocks for now. In the right part, I want to set up our Habit Tracker section.
We will use the slash view command to call our Habit Tracker database. Select 'Calendar View' & choose the database we just created. Hide the database title. Next, click on the three dots at the top right of this Calendar view to access Properties.
Select to display all habits and the progress bar. Now we've completed the first view on the dashboard.Here is the text rewritten with factual and easy to understand vocabulary, using only English: To make the dashboard even better, we can create a weekly view. Right-click on the view we just made and select 'Duplicate.' Then, click on the three dots in the top right corner and go to the Layout tab. Under the 'Show calendar as' option, select 'Week.' In this case, we'll have two views. Let's give each of these views a title.
You can choose the 'Weekly view' if you prefer a tidy dashboard look. You can also select a monthly view if you want a more detailed view of the month's performance. After this step, all the basic functions of the Habit Tracker have been completed. However, during your daily habit check-in you may have an issue.
Finding today's date in the weekly or monthly view is not hard, but it's not efficient and can feel clunky. To fix this let's create a new view on the left & call it Current Cycle which shows the checking status for today. Use the gallery view command to create a new view which displays all data in Card form. Name this view 'Today' & hide the database title.
Find the filter option at the top to filter out all data except for today. This way, only today's check-in cards will remain. Click on the three dots at the top to access the properties tab and select all habits and progress bar. This allows us to directly check in for today in the Current Cycle section and see the completion progress. At this point, you'll notice that checking in on our phones often leads to accidental taps, so to be more efficient, we want to make it easy to check in our daily habits no matter what device we are on.
Add a 'Check-in' section above the 'Current Cycle.' In this section, we'll use buttons for quick check-ins of today's habits.Here is the text rewritten with factual and easy to understand vocabulary, using only English: First, open the Notion app and click the 'Build your first chart' button. Select 'Habit Tracker' as your database. For the vertical axis (Y Axis), choose 'Total Progress', and for the horizontal axis (X Axis), select 'Date'. Choose to display the data as a line graph. Set the sorting order to 'Date'.
On the right side of the screen, you will see various customization options. Adjust the style settings according to your preferences. When you are finished, click the 'Export' button in the top right corner. Copy the link that appears and go back to Notion. Paste the link wherever you want the chart to appear.
Also, while I was creating this video, Notion had already announced the upcoming release of their official Chart feature. I got early access to the official beta version which I'm excited to share with you. To create a line chart using Notion's official feature, use the /chart command and select 'Habit Tracker' as your database. For the X Axis, select 'Date', and for the Y Axis, choose 'Total Progress'. Under the style category you can customize the display style of your chart.
The process of using Notion's official charts is incredibly straightforward with one of the biggest advantages being its real-time updates. If you're using charts from third-party sources, you'd need to hit the refresh button to update your chart. I hope you found this video helpful, and you can now effectively use Notion to manage and track your habits. You can start right away with the Notion template provided below.
If you want a more advanced Habit Tracker with Quote Management and a reward system, check out our previous video. Thank you & enjoy your habit-building journey.
Summary
In the article, we take you through the creation of Notion database plus a dashboard with database features to make the use of the space for data management better. There is a customizable checkbox property of habits, an automated progress bar with Notion's formula feature and multiple ways of viewing (daily, weekly and monthly calendar views). As the tracker catches automatically any daily task and efficient method of check in through buttons on the desktop or on mobiles. Additionally, the system embeds Notion's new Charts feature for visualizing habit progress over time in a real time manner as well as customizing how they're displayed.
Frequently Asked Questions
Q: How does the habit tracker calculate their progress bar?
A: The progress bar is a Notion Formula that counts completed habits, divides by total number of habits, and times by 100 to calculate a percentage. It’s then shown on a visual bar, that will automatically update as habits are ticked off.
Q: Can the tracker make daily habit cards automatically?
A: Yes! With daily repetition at a specified time, you can set up a template and Notion will automatically create a new habit card every day, so you don’t have to manually create it.
Q: What different views are available in the habit tracker?
A: It presents multiple view options including: 'current cycle' daily view for check ins, calendar views for longer term tracking and chart views for visualizing progress over time.
Q: So, how exactly does the habit tracker work with the Charts feature?
A: In Terms of line graphs showing the progress of the habit completion over time which can be obtained from an habit tracker database using the Notion's official Charts feature which you can set to have it show X axis in (Date) and Y(axis in Total Progress). As you complete habits in real-time, the charts update.
Q: What’s the most efficient way to make habit tracking across different devices?
A: Built within the 'Check in' section, these allow for fast habit completion marking, making it easier to have a habit recorded on the desktop or mobile and prevent accidental taps.
Albert
Notion Creator & Ambassador
Notion Recommended Creator, Productivity Expert, Youtuber, Founder of a Video Production & Marketing Company
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