How to Build a Habit Tracker in Notion (from Scratch)

[@ThomasFrankExplains]

Hey all! Hope you enjoy this tutorial and template. I've been contemplating how to create a habit tracker in Notion for a LONG time, and without using the API, this is the cleanest solution I've come up with so far that still works smoothly on mobile phones (though I am learning JavaScript and definitely want to build a more complex one along the lines of Habitica using the API in the future 😎) If you're following along with the tutorial, be aware that I made a couple changes to the template due to some changes Notion made recently. 1. My day headings (Monday, Tuesday, etc) are now Text instead of H3 in order to keep them out of the Week Log's table of contents block. Previously, these headings didn't show up there for some reason, which was advantageous for this build. 2. The Jump Block links I create in this tutorial aren't in the template. Why? I found out that when you duplicate a template, Notion has a bug that breaks any links to specific blocks. The links change and just point to the page itself, rendering them useless. So you'll have to create them yourself, which only takes a few seconds.

[@sagnickbhowmick6191]

Learning JavaScript? Only JavaScript, or some library like React or framework?

[@ThomasFrankExplains]

@@sagnickbhowmick6191 just vanilla JavaScript right now - that's all you need to connect up APIs and build integrations. I'll see where I go from there! TypeScript seems like an interesting progression

[@sagnickbhowmick6191]

@@ThomasFrankExplains yeah Vanilla JS is enough to get the work done, you'd only need the frameworks to do fancy staffs, and TypeScript is awesome, it is converts the weakly-typed JS to strongly-typed JS, surely give it a try!

[@WeiStyer]

Would it also work to have each week be toggle-able? That way you could condense each week as you finish it? I don't know if that breaks anything... I just started getting into using Notion, but was wondering if that would work?

[@sanscraints]

Hi Thomas, I tried from scratch, when I created week log on the right hand side, it appeared with sunday Monday and Tuesday etc... as well.. probably because its kept as Heading 2? how to solve this?

[@EstebanBalderasVideos]

The best part of this template: Its simplicity

[@ThomasFrankExplains]

That was the idea! I've experimented with more complicated habit trackers, but I never came up with a viable build. I think a more full-featured one is possible with the API now, but it'll involve some significant coding. What I have in mind can't currently be done easily with Zapier or similar tools.

[@ethemenesaskn4403]

@@ThomasFrankExplains I agree. If you show us a template, please keep it simple. I like this one. Thank you. :)

[@EstebanBalderasVideos]

@@ThomasFrankExplains That could easily become an app haha

[@ksmith1964]

Yes! 👏 His instructions too are always easy to follow and learn from.

[@Slytherwise]

This is an EXCELLENT tutorial!! My only point of contention was that each new tracker could not be collapsed and after a few weeks of tracking habits, thus adding new weekly templates, the page becomes overwhelming. One minor change I made was to make the template a toggle rather than a heading! It allows you to collapse each tracker. The one draw back is you can't have a table of contents, but since you can collapse them the table of contents isn't super necessary. Hope this helps anyone who is overwhelmed by how much it fills the page after a few weeks of adding new weeks!

[@faruqbakre9532]

A new feature has been added that allows you to convert the template into a TOGGLE HEADING. This way, you can collapse each week into the toggle and also add the 'toggle heading' to the table of content.

[@Slytherwise]

@@faruqbakre9532 oh sweet!

[@prateekbhardwaj9943]

thank u i scrolled down comment to actually find your comment. it helps..

[@arnettmoriahnicdao514]

I really applaud and admire your dedication to teaching these kinds of things to people. It's tremendously helpful and I can't thank you enough. I hope you the best! Btw, I've been a follower since I was in grade 9. I'm a first-year in college now and I still love your content.🙈

[@pacetronartgallery6382]

This was the first tutorial that followed along and completed successfully. Thanks Thomas

[@fernandogalas3867]

Thanks Frank, I was going to quit Notion but when started viewing your videos, everything changed!!!! You really explain thoroughly and simple, you're the best!!!

[@jannipantelakos8589]

I think you might be able to read my mind. I was just about to build my own habit tracker and then this video pops up. I'm definitely gonna try this one. Thanks Thomas!

[@irekzo]

This is exactly what i have been looking !

[@miprofetic]

Yes!! I am building my life hub on notion and I am loving it coz of u. Greetings from Colombia . You have made this teacher happy!

[@SeymourClearly2]

So much Notion tuition in this video, unexpected but pure genius. Thank you.

[@bestfinds3729]

You are the best one on KZbin making notion tutorials. Thanks for the great work

[@ShirelShalom]

Okay so the craziest thing just happened. I was feeling frustrated about my habits and decided it's time for a change, so I searched for a habit tracker (and here I am). Once I'm opening my Notion I see The Wanderer About The Sea of Fog which is my lock screen background that always keeps me motivated! Plus it's just the template that I've been looking for! Thank you Thomas! 🗻

[@tooleko]

super helpful thank you, have you thought about adding a streak Feature, wich could maybe include the Days you did your Habit without a Pause

[@MysteryViv]

Thank you for this lesson. I learned so much information that I can apply to my other created databases.

[@shriharir619]

Note to my noob self : 5:20 creation starts here 7:28 stacking up adj columns ( divider trick ) ( del the divider atlast still holds the structure ) 8:00 the bug 9:26 adding pic, quote, log(12:14) nd calendar(14:26) 10:00 - 13:22 Multi-Column Layout Trick new page - multi column - turn page into text block ( can stack up 2 columns adjacent to each other , can drag nd duplicate whilst preserving structure ) once duplicated enuf, - drag nd drop the main text block, into the created template block nd turn in into a heading block - turn all the remaining text blocks into heading blocks and delete the heading (useful for table of contents) 13:49 nice one ! ( can change the routine anytime u want using this ) 15:48 why not database strategy where seperate page for every week

[@maxmdamm]

this is a great Video Thomas! I love how you use Notion

[@jpc9700]

Bro has some good hard work and effort putting quality in his vids, subbed👍👍👍

[@kaylaliquori1892]

the multi column layout trick saved my life thank u!!!!

[@fauzia2157]

This was extremely helpful! thanks Thomas

[@phanideepnarra582]

You are awesome, this is the first ever tutorial that when followed along and did it myself turned out exactly how I wanted it to look like by the end of it in the very first attempt. I love your tutorials, and became a big fan of notion after learning from you how to use it.

[@Sushil2k4]

you explanations are quite satisfactory... learned a lot from it💪

[@venjaminschuster2797]

Thank you very much for sharing your template! Very appriciate that!

[@simonjones4797]

This was SO good. I learned how to create my habit tracker but, more than that, I learned so many new things about Notion just by watching the whole tutorial. Thank you from a grateful bloke in England 🙏🏻

[@wisdombro316]

You came to us like a savior.

[@AlexandreFeres]

Sooo useful!!! Thanks Thomas Frank!!! The template is great

[@zavidmohideen6722]

I jumped on this video as a year-end crunch, spent 1Hr 30 mins and created the weekly daily habit tracker. Thank you for this video @ThomasFrankExplains ; this will change my habit for 2023. 😀😃🤣

[@adambrant7357]

Never used notion before but want to become more productive at home and work. I was really impressed that I managed to complete this using your steps, really helped me learn notion, thanks.

[@nik5340]

Great Stuff man. Started from scratch with you and learnt a ton !!!

[@vivekprasad5669]

Built it from scratch and it was fun and informational. Thanks

[@liviaoliveira8841]

Thank you SO MUCH!!! I will be implementing that right now!

[@murugarajg2571]

Loved it, Thomas 😍

[@zizibs]

Thanks for the class, man! It was very enlightening.

[@root2588]

Thank you Thomas, this is really helpful!

[@miadon906]

this was the most helpful video I have seen so far especially as notion is hard to use when you first begin

[@mauriciojcYT]

Thanks Thomas! This tutorial is great.

[@jeanlucas2592]

Thank you so much for all your help!

[@conradovicente8814]

Dude this is perfect, in this video I learned so many things, I learn how to use the template button, thanks man

[@santiagotha2290]

Hey! I´ve just loved the video, I started using Notion for life-managing since last year (after you reviewed it) and find it amazing. I didnt´t have a Habit tracker so far but I think this is going to be the next step on my Notion-Journey! Thank you very much for making this content, cheers!!

[@podcast_braincast]

I don't usually comment on videos, but this is an exception ! Thanks for the amazing notion tips, thomas !

[@xristinaribka]

Thanks for this template, its awesome and really useful in daily life

[@sikauf92]

great explanation, thanks man

[@katiechan8689]

Nice, very details. Thanks for sharing.

[@patronuseyes]

Thank you so much for providing this awesome template! Appreciate how you have given some thought to the daily checking off routine on phone!!

[@seyrra]

I really enjoy the minimalistic and simple habit trackers adopted into Notion and thank you for the great explanation I LOVE ITT

[@katerinap.5662]

This is wonderful, thank you so much.

[@lemaivien5516]

Thank you so much for your sharing, it's wonderful video about Notion skills.

[@siddhantrawle]

You are definitely a Notion Guru !!! Thank you for this super helpful tutorial.

[@aashimagupta5276]

To be honest , this is something that fascinates me about your videos "SIMPLICITY". The most amazing thing is it's my first time that I have ever made something on computer from scratch like this habit tracker page. I was so excited that how you have explained such a complicated task in much a simpler way. Moreover, can you pls make a tutorial like this for how to make a to-do-list in notion? It would be of great help. Thanks for this amazing video!!

[@absoluthi8570]

Nice trick with columns!!!

[@MichaelNealeYT]

Thank you for this tutorial Thomas! I have been using habitica to track these sorts of things and, although the concept of gamifying it is cool, I find actually using it a bit clunky. Creating this and having a widget seems a bit more frictionless

[@RaeesKhann]

Hi Thomas, thank you for posting this video. 👍 On top of what you explained, I just changed the simple Heading 1 to Toggle Heading 1. This really helps as I can easily Toggle UP all my previous Weeks instead of just filling up the whole page.

[@dolphingin7424]

Thank you this tutorial!! very helpful for me!!

[@KanagawaMarcos]

Awesome content man!

[@chloekoh9662]

Thank you so much for this and the so many cool tricks to circumvent limitations. Effectively blew my mind. 🤯

[@rjvidalt1]

Excellent, as usual 👍

[@emadhameid9881]

I really enjoy How to Do it Thank you Thomas 🙌🏾

[@stop-the-war-in-zimbabweca4610]

Thanks Thomas. I really enjoyed and learnt a lot in this tutorial👏👏

[@petrostz.5022]

Your intros are always great and very usefull for viewers keep it up!!!

[@ahamedsalim9338]

Thanks a lot Thomas!!

[@karensequeira176]

Thanks Thomas!!

[@aliounet7009]

Thanks for what you do✨

[@juliaperes2183]

Amazing video! Thank you so much! ☺️

[@ndro_tb]

This is insane... Thanks! this great tutorial

[@siljeborgan4531]

I have built my weekly template thanks to this video :D

[@eelyntoh2648]

Thank you fo much for this step-by-step tutorial. Very helpful for newbie like myself to learn while doing. Thank you!

[@cliffordouma8996]

Simple and efficient. Love the habit tracker.

[@HamidSaifi]

Amazing video, I did it, Habit tracker upgraded. Thanks. 💪

[@HiMotionAndDesign]

Great work! Thank you so much. The only thing I struggle to wrap my head around is why some people think the week starts on Sunday. That is something I cannot fathom. Other than that, you are great Thomas! Been following you for years :)

[@davud7525]

Great tutorial. Thanks.

[@NazariiYovenko]

It's Amazing!!! Thank you a lot!

[@pedrohenriquemoraessilva5724]

thank you so much, helped me a lot.

[@Nisah98]

I enjoy how flexible this tracker is. Problem I find with using the database is that it’s challenging to insert how many habits you want smoothly. But for this one can’t really count or calculate your progress or streaks

[@JohnSmith-zs1bf]

You could always add a habit to the list to count it manually :P

[@juanca7880]

Thanks! this video actually helped me to create an habit tracker.

[@daniah7746]

love ur videooooo thanks

[@djennykalifaite]

Thank you so much for this video 😊

[@cassidyeinsley2314]

thank you for making this i hope it works for me too in the future

[@VivianRonaldoTV]

Forever grateful to you. You're a BIG help. Thank you. 💯

[@Marshall.crypto-e5b]

Hi Thomas, You are very cool and I admire your work and thank you so much for the template. I started using it today.

[@sharinasalim2876]

Thank You God bless... Need this so much...

[@ClearBlueSky1]

Thoroughly enjoyed this ! figuring out all this on your own is not very !! So thank you so much for All your tutorials ima huge fan of your content and notion 😁

[@rosebud8222]

Hey Thomas I was following along with the tutorial, and when I added my table of contents it also showed all my heading 3 elements. Any way to fix that?

[@mohammedal-rashdan3668]

I have also faced the same issue. Please let me know if you find any solutions. Thanks.

[@mohammedal-rashdan3668]

One way I found to stop that from happening is to turn the extra elements into Texts or Bulleted lists. They do still look as good and I found no problem in doing that. Hopefully this is helpful to you.

[@jameshart7939]

If you re-adjust the size of your picture on your page it can help make the days of the week look as big as they would be if you left them as headings

[@shagi1604]

I just want to say thank you for showing me on how to create multi-column in the template block 🙏

[@damilolaowolabi9148]

This was amazing to watch and thanks for the free template. One thing I feel notion has to do is to adopt a design methodology that allows them to create dynamic dashboards like you see in excel. What do you guys think about this?

[@nitsdelbem]

Thank you soooo much! This helped me a lot.

[@whirlwolf369]

Nice, thank you !

[@makersdiyers2842]

Man you are a legend

[@boujeedagoat8397]

This is amazing

[@itsdevgarg]

Thank you so much!

[@kdrcvk4018]

Thx, best wishes from germany

[@eamonian]

the audio quality on this video is INSANE!! what audio setup do you use?!

[@eamonian]

and is that a Bonobos shirt!?! my favorite shirt in the world

[@ThomasFrankExplains]

Thanks! I use a Shure SM7B. I go through my whole setup, gear, and process here: kzbin.info/www/bejne/Z6W9ZmCknrangtk Shirt is from Barbell Apparel! I love Bonobos chino shorts, but I haven't tried any of their shirts yet.

[@eamonian]

@@ThomasFrankExplains THANK YOU!! that really is a very popular mic I see for KZbinrs

[@jeremygolez1866]

I'm from your newsletter gang, not gonna lie that "Hello" at the start almost gave me a heart attack and I'm only 23 lol

[@officialavanoel]

havent even watched but ive BEEN hoping for this video

[@MrIcetiger93]

Hi Thomas this is great content, i tried to build the same page as you, but I am failing at two key points : Calendar: My Notions doesn't give me the option for the linear calendar, is this an external source? Week log : The list gives me the H2 but also all the weekdays that are in H3 what should I do ? Thanks for your work again !

[@danieldimov2452]

for me the week log as well.. would be nice to get to know how to fix it

[@toushiri9476]

Thank you sir I have learned a few tips

[@madisonblanding]

love this! going to recreate it and try to incorporate the martin system-ever since i watched that video, it revolutionized my habit tracking!

[@ThomasFrankExplains]

Glad you like it! Martin system is mostly possible with this, although checkboxes are binary so you can't use the three-state system. But it'd be pretty easy to italicize a habit or turn it a different color if you had to skip it due to forces beyond your control.

[@trashAndNoStar]

@@ThomasFrankExplains I actually implemented the "Martin tracker" on Notion! Each week is a table; the rows are the habits and the columns are the weekdays (Mon, Tue, etc). The columns are select fields with three values. I have to tally the results manually at the end of the week but I don't mind.

[@abulferr]

I’ve been creating complicated pages on Notion and had this problem of the columns within columns thing not working… Thanks Thomas, you’re a savior!!! 🙏🏻

[@leogama4808]

Hi Thomas, I have been watching a lot of your tutorials lately. Thank you for all you share with us! Just so you know, I'll be one of your students on the upcoming course NOTION FOR CREATORS (AND TEAMS). I noticed you are even better at creating screencasting videos lately. So I have two questions about that. One, what is the screen recording tool you use? And two, do you make the circle with your image bigger using the screen recording tool or with Adobe Premiere Pro when you edit it? Thanks again for all you share with us!

[@ThomasFrankExplains]

Great questions! I'm always trying to make my screencasts better. Right now I record them using OBS Studio, and I use a free Windows tool called MouseHighlighter to create the blue circle around my mouse. For my face cam, I record with a separate camera, import the footage, and put it in a pre-made nested sequence in Premiere that has a circular mask and size/position properties already applied. I'm also experimenting with Camtasia, which has some really cool features for cursors, zooming, etc. Still trying to figure out how to fit it into my workflow.

[@leogama4808]

@@ThomasFrankExplains Thank you for the response Thomas!

[@norrisjanoudi6771]

@@ThomasFrankExplains You might want to look into Microsoft PowerToys, it has a Mouse Utilities feature that you might find useful. I think It's a great community app because they're continuously adding new productivity features to it. They also have a Github page if you want to suggest new features.

[@ThomasFrankExplains]

@@norrisjanoudi6771 I've checked it out, but I like Flow Launcher because it has community plugin support so I can do things like controlling Spotify. I've heard PowerToys is planning on including community plugins as well, but it seems that hasn't come to pass yet!

[@Kitze]

I use all sorts of apps to track my habits and what worked for me is printing a habit template and keeping it on my table. I’ve been consistent for 8 days, usually doesn’t happen with apps.

[@saldi21]

Awesome!!! Thank you for sharing, you're a great teacher! I use Notion only because of your videos :)

[@ifammuseen3366]

Thank you very much.