How to Build a Habit Tracker in Notion from Scratch

Let's build a habit tracker in Notion - at 5 levels of complexity!
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⏱️ Timestamps:
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00:00 - Intro
00:34 - Level 1
01:17 - Level 2
03:13 - Level 3
06:51 - Add Journaling Prompts
07:23 - Setting a Repeating Template
08:28 - Level 4
13:35 - Level 5
14:01 - Integrate Habit Tracker into Ultimate Brain
17:16 - Build the Streak Tracker
📖 Full Description:
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In this tutorial, I'll show you how to build a habit tracker in Notion at five levels of complexity. We'll start out with a simple, checklist-style habit tracker that uses nothing but to-do blocks. Then we'll move to using Notion Buttons, and finally into building a dedicated habit-tracker database.
At the higher levels, I'll show you how to track stats and streaks by leveraging some powerful Notion formulas. I'll also show you how to integrate your habit tracker into other Notion dashboards.

[@morne.bester]

Level 6: Make all the habit checkboxes get checked automatically. This is basically what I did… - my “workout” habit is a formula that is set to True when there is a page linked in the fitness tracker. - my “Visualize day” habit checked via a button that lets me return to my home page at the end of my morning routine, which ends with visualization - My “read” habit is checked as soon as my book notes database is updated. The idea is that I can “track” my habits (including streaks and just the visual pleasure of viewing those checked boxes) without actually having to manually check the boxes. Having to remember to check you habit tracker shouldn’t have to be an extra habit.

[@travis_approved]

I recently saw people using NFC stickers in their gym lockers to track every time they go, that way they can't cheat! I guess you would need to be able to keep the locker long-term, but still, I wonder if theres a way to make it work with this!

[@just_sadhana]

Mind-blown 🤯 loved the 5 levels to we can try whichever or build on it. Thank you.

[@Ninja_Mittens]

This is awesome. Spent a couple hours yesterday following along and building this into my new system!

[@louattal]

The level 5 is truly brilliant, that is some advanced formula magic 🤯

[@omarsammy]

Needed that a lot. Thanks!

[@zubayraslam5114]

Just when i needed one!

[@thenotionexperience]

🤩 Thank you so much for this video. Really helpful. Love your teaching 👍Wish you all best 🙂

[@itssquishy3364]

you're actually amazing, i didnt think that programming mindsetcan be used in softwares thatll help you organize! I made myself the lvl 4 habit tracker but for lvl 5 i took the free template thank you so much! genuinely! im surprised that there arent more views for this? its great!! its completely free unlike apps thatll only let you track 4 habits and it isnt even as advanced as what you gave us!!!!

[@leandro_80]

Super awesome again. Thank you, Thomas! You're the boss when it comes to Notion

[@Th3L0st0ne]

this is such a good tutorial!

[@Lobstrique]

Thomas, youare my hero :) thank you thank you THANK YOU for this video!!! it's EXACTLY what i was looking for in a habit tracker, the level 5 formula took me a couple of tries, but now everything works, i've been using my tracker for almost a week and i love it :)

[@etgdesignstudio]

THANK YOU!! I've been building this out for myself and you just fast tracked it for me. (also, I'm glad to know I'm not the only one who snickers on the inside when I type "butt" for a new button....)

[@KimzCraftz]

Sometimes when you watch a video here, clicking the thumbs up just isn't good enough. This video would qualify for a 6 out of 5 stars, if there was such a property. This is just what I was attempting to achieve, now I have a better idea of how to go about it. Many thanks.

[@ilmarsrauda]

Very useful divided habit trackers by levels and the last one with building formula for stats additionally was interesting, because this gives some ideas on how to build something 🔥 Thank You! 🙏 Now let's upgrade my habit tracker 💪

[@ilmarsrauda]

I've read the associated article and in the end, there is a bonus Habit tracker which actually is what I would want to build 🤔 Thank You for the template 🙏🔥 Let's explore this one 🧐

[@minimalmomgreece]

the best! Thank you!

[@olliebluemama]

Thomas knew what the people needed

[@arantxaangelinaperez8451]

Thank you is not enough, your videos are so helpful!

[@emmanuelihim776]

Absolute. Genius.

[@UBraveNG]

Yes, he is.

[@warriormentality6166]

Man I was literally struggling from maintaining streak with my habits, it will really help me to erase my bad habits and build new habits

[@privet671poka]

it won't

[@warriormentality6166]

@@privet671poka why do you think so?

[@Hadassah124]

I appreciate you being so thorough because I have tried at least four tutorials to do the formulas and all of them did not work properly on my end

[@user-ej4kl3uq1m]

that's amazing...i am a student,and this video help me a lot

[@jurajbulava4622]

Thank you for that brother! Can you or anybode else tell me how to do these journaling prompts? I like it that way as you have them! Thank you, keep doing what you re doing.

[@thenotionexperience]

I add [ "habitName: ".style("b") + (Current: "... ] just for visual effect, especially on dark background☺

[@theBrianChannel_]

It's like Christmas!

[@D3RKDUDE]

level 5 is another level fr

[@TheLexikitty]

Really hoping one of these days Notion allows a fully dark/AMOLED theme and font size changes on mobile. I use it a lot for library-ish stuff but I can’t use it for daily things like this because it’s not super friendly to legally blind people on mobile. (IOS)

[@SamMacmillan]

This is a great tutorial! I'm curious if you have any suggestions on how to manage habits that you don't want to track daily but instead track them on a weekly basis? For example, I don't want to do weights every day but I'd like to hit 3 days a week and have that factor into my streak.

[@wEBMedPL]

Have you found some solution? I am in the same place - I try to track some habits only 1/2/3 times a week, or on specific week days, would like that to still count as "streak" :)

[@SamMacmillan]

@@wEBMedPL Nothing yet unfortunately.

[@seiv16]

bro im dreaming with creating my own habit tracker starting today! Great video. I would like to add points to each daily task and points required to level up style solo leveling. Thank you great video.

[@sisulfahanwar120]

Hi, thanks for the video!! Especially for the progressbar formula . Your is the easiest! One question, can we add other random task in the same calendar that already have automated daily habits trackers? If yes, how?

[@yousryayman5827]

Can you please create an updated tasks management system with all-new features of calendar, buttons and automations.

[@guillaumeferber9223]

Great job ! And, as always, very clear and simple to implement. I’m not sure I agree about the slice(1) because I want to see a streak for a specific habit, not the whole day of habits and I don't want to wait for the next day to see how I'm doing with my habit streaks. I understand that as long as I don’t check the box, my current streak is still 0 without slice(1) but with slice(1), my current and longest streaks don't change when I check a box, which isn't very motivating...

[@emmanuelihim776]

Thomas, how long did it take you to come up with this solution? This is actually so brilliant.

[@ThomasFrankExplains]

I've been trying to make a habit tracker work in Notion for years. Formulas 2.0 is what finally enabled streak tracking. Hard to say how long it actually took - the actual streak tracking formula didn't take too long to design, but I spent a lot of time learning formulas in general before that.

[@yvettemagat]

Can I ask in your Personal Dashboard, how did you make your quick links horizontally ? I used table of contents but its always diagonally. Please help me. Thankyou

[@brantadornato9627]

I really enjoyed building this into my Notion Application. Thank you so much. Like doing a puzzle with a great tool as an outcome! The ONLY thing I couldn't quite catch in the video was how to add the emoji in the formula?

[@wEBMedPL]

Tip: You can add any emoji in-line on a Notion page by typing : followed by the name of the emoji, like :apple for 🍎 or :clapping for 👏 You can also bring up your computer's emoji picker with the shortcut ctrl + cmd + space on Mac and windows key + .or windows key + ; on Windows.

[@jamesgrossi]

Really great habit tracker! It ran for the first time today and for whatever reason, the template (Level 5) didn't set the date to today... is that something that needs to be added? Thanks!

[@ThomasFrankExplains]

Ah, if I didn't add "Today - Date when Duplicated" to the Date property in the template, then yes, you'd want to add that!

[@JamesHacker]

This is great! What if we wanted to compare this week/this month to last week/last month? Is that possible without creating relational week and month databases?

[@ThomasFrankExplains]

I believe so, yes. You'd create a couple of linked views: - One with a filter that only shows entries from this week - One with a filter that only shows entries from last week I think you could also create comparisons between the aggregated Day Scores in the Stats database with some additional formulas. You could use the filter() function to get only the related pages within your desired date range, then extract the Day Score values from each with map() and run an average calculation on them!

[@wumpascott]

Thanks for the post. A lot of work went into this. Sorry if this has been covered, but does your tracker allow for habits that aren't dailies? For example, if I only want to hit the gym 3x/week, I don't want to make it look like I missed it 4 days/week, when I really hit my target. Thanks.

[@wEBMedPL]

Have you found some solution?

[@DanishKhan10]

This is great, thanks for sharing. Is it possible to link the level 5 to another table that can act as the habit repository, and based on the user selection/config, the habits to get tracked get picked when creating an entry for a new day?

[@serbandinu406]

I was thinking about the same and also have the option to set reminders for habits

[@ThomasFrankExplains]

You could do this, but it'd be a different design pattern altogether. Levels 3-5 here use actual properties to track each habit; I believe what you're asking about would use a specific entry in a Log database for tracking each habit on each day. This is actually how most habit tracking apps are built, but there are some big drawbacks to using this pattern in Notion. I detailed them here: thomasjfrank.com/5-ways-to-build-a-habit-tracker-in-notion-free-template-included/#true-habit-tracker

[@rogergranquist]

@@ThomasFrankExplainsthanks for that bonus explanation! That would make a lot more sense, but alas, notion can’t do it all! …yet lol

[@Laterverse]

Question, how much of this requires the paid notion version? Can you do level 5 with the free version

[@sarralev]

Hi Thomas, didn't know where to post this request so figured the latest video was a good place - any chance you could rename old videos that are now obsolete for those of us who are watching everything you do? Maybe even point us to the video that explains the newer/better way of doing that.

[@rogergranquist]

Great tutorial! I set up the level 5 tracker and since I want to use it mostly on my mobile, I'm trying to find a way to view a simplified version of the tables so that it doesn't show all the filters and such on the mobile. Do you know if that's possible? Thanks for all the hard work!

[@ThomasFrankExplains]

Do you just mean the filter button? If so, I wish! Notion's mobile apps currently don't give us a way of hiding those buttons.

[@rogergranquist]

@@ThomasFrankExplainsyes! I’m thinking of more of a “view only” mode to just see and check off on the phone. I think that’d be ideal. Thanks for the reply.

[@anandmagar6132]

When i check the check box on top it is not showing me on database how to connect them

[@CeibeProyecto]

Do you think there will be an update in SB soon? I am about to migrate a very large system to second brain, (it may take me about 1 month to do it) and I want to avoid finishing it, modifying and changing my template in a thousand ways and then it turns out that there is a big update and I have to do it again. If you are going to update significantly in less than 2-3 months, I would like to know to avoid problems.

[@ThomasFrankExplains]

We launched a major update in November of last year, so there aren't any major updates planned right now! Notion also hasn't released or announced any new features since then that would warrant big changes. What we are doing is adding new tutorials to our help center on how to customize Ultimate Brain. We're publishing one today that shows customers how to integrate this habit-tracking system into Ultimate Brain if they want (in more detail than this video shows), for example.

[@LisahinesCoach]

I'd love to see how long since the last time I did something was. For example, I like to track how often I get into my pottery studio which isn't every day, but if I can see that it's been a couple weeks since i've been in there, that would spur me to get in there more often. Instead of max streak, I wonder if it could be the opposite, like max days since I've done it?

[@s.hiessl149]

"and we'll call this button new day" *calls the button new button*

[@ThomasFrankExplains]

Whoopsi

[@saito_kaoru_]

In 10:50-10:52, how did you add commands? (the /2c)

[@Blck40]

Many thanks for that again Thomas. But I have a question. Suppose you want to track new habits, then you would have to add new columns and add them manually in the code. is there a way to do this automatically?

[@ThomasFrankExplains]

Unfortunately no - that's one of the downsides to using Notion as a habit tracker. For that reason, in the free template I've also linked to several other good habit tracking apps. That said, adding a new habit only takes 90 seconds (I timed myself and recorded it).

[@Blck40]

@@ThomasFrankExplainsthank you for your answer :)

[@EnzoPineyro]

Does anyone know a way to make the text output in the gallery view look larger? I mean what it says (current and longest), in streaks

[@henryrosie]

Thank you for the excellent video! Has anyone found a good solution for building something similar that allows for habits which aren't daily but repeat 3x or 4x a week on certain days?

[@ThomasFrankExplains]

I didn't cover it in this video, but you can achieve that by building a "true" habit tracker: thomasjfrank.com/5-ways-to-build-a-habit-tracker-in-notion-free-template-included/#true-habit-tracker However, that has some downsides in Notion that I think outweigh the benefits at this point, which I cover in that section as well.

[@henry5537]

Great tutorial, but I have a question about the date property. I've been using the Habit Tracker for a week, and I realized it doesn't just show today and yesterday, but all days, even though I had the filter rule set. After I examined the date property, I realized that there were no dates created when the new day begins. How can I fix this, or do I have to manually select the right date?

[@airinn777]

Hi :) when you create template click on date property and select Today - date when duplicated :)

[@Henri09]

How would you account for a goal streak if the goal is to go for a run 4 times a week (or anything other than doing it every day)?

[@ThomasFrankExplains]

In that case, you'd need to build what I'll call a "true habit tracker". It's the actual set of database tables you'd use in a real habit tracking app, if you were coding one from scratch. Notion is missing some features to make this work really well, which is why I didn't cover it in the video - but if you're curious, I wrote up an explanation of it in the article: thomasjfrank.com/5-ways-to-build-a-habit-tracker-in-notion-free-template-included/#true-habit-tracker

[@Sword05...............]

My Notion App Full Level 3 in this Full Width option is No Showing

[@benjaminlloveras8060]

What do you think about click up? I just end my all-in one environment in notion but now i see there is another one in the menu named Click up, with more functions and something else

[@ThomasFrankExplains]

I personally am not a huge fan of ClickUp; we tried moving our team from Asana to it several years ago, but no one in my team enjoyed using it. That was actually one of the reasons we eventually stumbled across Notion. For me, ClickUp just doesn't feel as nice to use. That said, ClickUp does have more dedicated task and project management features. ClickUp is more like a bunch of traditional productivity tools rolled into one, where Notion is much more like a set of building blocks that let users create their own tools.

[@UBraveNG]

I built my new habit (level 4) and social media posts trackers out of this awesome tutorial. Not yet as polished as your final product, I'll be working on it. Definitely preferable to my 7 years old (no longer supported) Android habit tracker app. I also gained some new Notion skills. Can't thank you enough. 🙏

[@Fun-masti-jb8wh]

@Thomas i tried the level 5 tracker but there's some issue with the current day counting how do I correct that

[@FaariaFarooq]

yeah, im having the same issue. Did you find a solution?

[@Fun-masti-jb8wh]

@@FaariaFarooq no found no solution yet

[@seancurrie-chicago]

Hey, I promise i've tried finding out whats going on on my own but for the life of me I can't. When you work in the formula editor i'm seeing that output preview bar starting with an '='. I don't seem to see that in mine. Anyone run into this?

[@ThomasFrankExplains]

Hmm; that might be a bug! I always see that little equals sign in my workspace.

[@andreavitale3956]

Yes. I don't see it either.

[@dhairya3746]

Heyyy Please help !!! My today's Page doesnt add up to the streak !!1

[@zairovazahra]

I'm stuck at level 5, HELP!

[@rorydunne8261]

Can someone send me this?

[@ThomasFrankExplains]

I'm not sure why you'd need someone else to send it to you; the template is linked in the description!

[@orange_district]

Really nice workaround. Only UX has a hard time…

[@wolficeir]

Will you make Level 5 in a template to copy?

[@ThomasFrankExplains]

I already did! It's in the description - the template contains all five levels.

[@spartanmod3]

This is really cool, but it also shows the biggest drawback of using notion in my opinion. Yes, we have the ability to customize and set everything up the way we want, but you need to be an expert to do that. Even building a simple habit tracker at level 5 requires an expert level of understanding of how notion works. Why bother, when you can download a simple habit tracker, that would probably take weeks to replicate on Notion? And that's just one app. The formulas might not be that complicated to write once you understand them, but it would take a lot of time to actually get to that level. You could say "just use templates bro". But that kind of defeats the purpose of using Notion in the first place, doesn't it? We want ability to customize and adapt the tools we use to our needs.

[@ThomasFrankExplains]

What I'm reading here is that you want the ability to customize your tools, but the learning curve is frustrating. I totally get that - but it's worth noting that's Notion's entire mission! "Democratize toolmaking". Yes, there's certainly a learning curve - especially for a use case like this, which is a bit beyond what most people use Notion for. But before Notion existed, if you wanted a habit tracker that you could fully adapt and customize, you'd need to either build it in Excel (where it'd be horrible or impossible to use on mobile) or code it from scratch. There's always been a trade-off between convenience and customizability in any category of tool. The more convenient and quick to set up it is, the fewer options you get. But many tools have been changing that trade-off by building sets of tools that put more power into the hands of the user while being easier to learn than what came before. That's why Notion inspires me so much. Sure, we can't just sit down and wish for our dream habit tracker to come into existance in an instant. But we can build tools that work well, and we can do it without the expertise that used to be required. If I tried to make a video teaching people how to code and deploy a true habit-tracking app from scratch, it would probably be a 3-4 hour video. Here, it's just 40 minutes. That's a big improvement.

[@spartanmod3]

​@@ThomasFrankExplains thanks for the reply, didn't expect that to be honest. I get your point. It's awesome that tools like these exist and we have this kind of capability now. But for me personally the problem is that Notion is a potential rabbit hole I don't want to go down. It's so easy to fall into "optimization trap" and feeling the need to build the perfect tool in Notion is the ultimate expression of that IMO. Also, your level 5 habit tracker is a very simple example of a habit tracker. Any decent standalone habit tracker app will have far more advanced functionality out-of-the-box that most users would be happy with. But to be able to build just level 5 habit tracker, like you show in the video, on your own could take weeks to learn. If you look at some of the formulas, there are paragraphs written to change simple things like color or some other detail. I don't want to deal with that. For me it's not worth it to sit for hours and figure out all that when there are already tools build for what I want to do that are just good enough. That being said I find Notion valuable tool for simpler use cases like keeping track of books workout tracking.

[@TheAzoozhashim]

its really very annoying that there is no easy way to do such a progress bar, this is manual work

[@Ali-ew9gv]

I don’t believe anyone sticks to these systems… just a way to procrastinate and make yourself feel better in the moment

[@DrinkMagicBrew]

Limiting belief...

[@fourlokouva]

False. If you feel hopeless try reading Atomic Habits by James Clear. It will change your life

[@dummybugstudios6450]

The first step always is going to be the tough job of actually wanting to do it. Only then do these systems help. I spent ages making productivity systems only to realise at some point I had to actually do the task and I didn't want to. Now I'm at a point where there are a lot of things I genuinely want to do but am struggling to keep track of it all and that's when a system is helpful.

[@sebviscerate]

​@@dummybugstudios6450Exactly, balance is key. If you're already taking action but your life is a mess, HEAVILY consider making a system that works for you.

[@jonddeleon]

I think it depends where you are in life. Habits can also go in and out of importance for you. I’ve had phases where I don’t follow the system at all, and long stretches where I’m vigilant as hell. You have to want to do the work though.