How to Build a Habit Tracker in Notion from Scratch

[@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!

[@joshualenguyen2957]

Huge. Can you please give me this template. I am a pleb!

[@NeilHickey]

Um. How?!?!?!? 😲 I'm basically at the "follow along with Thomas and do what he does" stage of Notion setup. Are you saying you link to other trackers in Notion? If so, are you manually updating them or have you set up some sort of connection where this is updated when you have a new entry in your source tool (e.g. a "Goodreads" or "Fitbit")? Inquiring minds want to know! 🤣

[@teresamcvieira]

Can you share your template??? pleasee??

[@恩恩嗯-c4c]

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

[@A-D-I-I-I]

i love you thanks a lot for the free tamplete

[@shattered1060]

Hi, as an ABSOLUTE newbie to coding, it was painful. Though, beneficial video. Cheers

[@samyakjain1508]

really appreciate the tutorial. However i have a query/suggestion/complaint regarding the current streak. it doesnt count @today while counting current streak, this is beneficial if we are yet to doo that in the day. However, it doesnt update when any activity is checked. and will only update until the next day. is there a way we can work around, adding condition to the split function to not count the streak if the check box is unticked, but count it if it is ticked?

[@ThomasFrankExplains]

You could update the formula to conditionally add 1 to each streak if the current day's habit is checked. One way would be to add another variable to the formula - e.g. a variable called "plusOne" with this value, if( prop("Habits").sort(current.prop("Date")).first().prop("Drink Water") == true, 1, 0 ) Then, anywhere you're display a streak count, you could add that variable to it. Example: currentStreak + plusOne That'll add one for the current day if it's checked, or add 0 if it isn't (without breaking the streak).

[@samyakjain1508]

@@ThomasFrankExplains this isnt working, tried some workarounds using add formula, and changing the syntax of current streak, but it is adding one irrespective of the condition added

[@samyakjain1508]

@@ThomasFrankExplains lets( streaks, prop("Habits").sort(current.prop("Date")) .reverse().map(current.prop("Drink water")) .map(current.toNumber()) .slice(1) .join("") .split("0") .map(current.length()), currentStreak, streaks.first(), longestStreak, streaks.max(), plusOnecs, if( prop("Habits").sort(current.prop("Date")).reverse().first().prop("Drink water") == true, add(currentStreak, 1), currentStreak), lsfix, if( currentStreak >= longestStreak, plusOnecs, longestStreak), csFormat, ifs( currentStreak < 1, ["red"," days"], currentStreak == 1, ["blue", " day"], currentStreak > 1, ["green", " days"] ), lsFormat, ifs( longestStreak < 1, ["red"," days"], longestStreak == 1, ["blue", " day"], longestStreak > 1, ["green", " days"] ), "💧 Water: " + ( "Current Streak: " + plusOnecs + csFormat.at(1)).style(csFormat.at(0), csFormat.at(0) + "_background", "c", "b" ) + " " + ( "Longest Streak: " + lsfix + lsFormat.at(1)).style(lsFormat.at(0), lsFormat.at(0) + "_background", "c", "b" ) ) this fix is working for both CS and LS

[@samyakjain1508]

lets( streaks, prop("Habits").sort(current.prop("Date")) .reverse().map(current.prop("Drink water")) .map(current.toNumber()) .slice(1) .join("") .split("0") .map(current.length()), currentStreak, streaks.first(), longestStreak, streaks.max(), plusOnecs, if( prop("Habits").sort(current.prop("Date")).reverse().first().prop("Drink water") == true, add(currentStreak, 1), currentStreak), lsfix, if( currentStreak >= longestStreak, plusOnecs, longestStreak), csFormat, ifs( plusOnecs < 1, ["red"," days"], plusOnecs == 1, ["blue", " day"], plusOnecs > 1, ["green", " days"] ), lsFormat, ifs( longestStreak < 1, ["red"," days"], longestStreak == 1, ["blue", " day"], longestStreak > 1, ["green", " days"] ), "💧 Water: " + ( "Current Streak: " + plusOnecs + csFormat.at(1)).style(csFormat.at(0), csFormat.at(0) + "_background", "c", "b" ) + " " + ( "Longest Streak: " + lsfix + lsFormat.at(1)).style(lsFormat.at(0), lsFormat.at(0) + "_background", "c", "b" ) ) this formula is working for CS, LS and correct colour in CS

[@samyakjain1508]

lets( streaks, prop("Habits").sort(current.prop("Date")) .reverse().map(current.prop("Drink water")) .map(current.toNumber()) .slice(1) .join("") .split("0") .map(current.length()), currentStreak, streaks.first(), longestStreak, streaks.max(), plusOnecs, if( prop("Habits").sort(current.prop("Date")).reverse().first().prop("Drink water") == true, add(currentStreak, 1), currentStreak), lsfix, if( currentStreak >= longestStreak, plusOnecs, longestStreak), csFormat, ifs( plusOnecs < 1, ["red"," days"], plusOnecs == 1, ["blue", " day"], plusOnecs > 1, ["green", " days"] ), lsFormat, ifs( longestStreak < 1, ["red"," days"], longestStreak == 1, ["blue", " day"], longestStreak > 1, ["green", " days"] ), "💧 Water: " + ( "Current Streak: " + plusOnecs + csFormat.at(1)).style(csFormat.at(0), csFormat.at(0) + "_background", "c", "b" ) + " " + ( "Longest Streak: " + lsfix + lsFormat.at(1)).style(lsFormat.at(0), lsFormat.at(0) + "_background", "c", "b" ) ) this fix is working for CS, LS, and correct colour for CS

[@TheAzoozhashim]

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

[@dungtrantien1669]

It took me 2 3 hrs to make the level 5💀

[@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.

[@blurabbit6476]

This unexpectedly turns into a coding lesson

[@thenotionexperience]

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

[@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.

[@just_sadhana]

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

[@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?

[@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)

[@thenotionexperience]

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

[@louattal]

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

[@lena_caldwell]

Thank you so much for this! Made organising my Notion so simple. I love how you explained everything, especially the use of formulas, because that had my brain melting before I watched your video haha

[@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?

[@NQwarrior]

@@wEBMedPL did you find a solution

[@wEBMedPL]

@@NQwarrior nope, despite trying my best and visiting Community Support.

[@dreqmy]

Absolutely amazing! Just what I needed! I watched a lot of other tutorials but couldn't really understand what was really going on. Every second I spent watching your video was totally worth it! You explained it all really well. THANK YOU SOOOO MUCHHH!

[@Wolver1n007]

Thanks a lot man I integrated both dynamic graph & Streak tracker into my Habit tracker all thanks to you !

[@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.

[@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 🧐

[@Ninja_Mittens]

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

[@ashutoshroutray6708]

Can you provide the code block so that we can just copy and paste?? I’ve been trying for days now, I just can’t get the formula.

[@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.

[@madhusmitapaul9502]

Hello Thomas Frank, I really enjoy your v ides, by any chance is this template available for download?

[@sebaagarrayua]

Thanks for this super helpful tutorial. I have just one question. Wont the streakcounter reach a max limit because of the days you added to the table? like, if each day it esets, does it actually remember the checkboxes you checked on the day that gets erased with each day passed?

[@ngocmy4003]

Why my streak bar doesnt work?I did all exact same things and the formula property is blank. It didnt tell me errors and i followed each steps. Is it a Bug?

[@gavinostertag1023]

I am stuck at the ifs coding, no matter what it turns out red. I even removed the "red" color property and the number was still output red for some reason. I'm pretty new at this so any help would be huge.

[@Hevygming31]

Bruh.. Good guide.. Looks awsome.. But could you have not just pasted the code in the video desc!?

[@zubayraslam5114]

Just when i needed one!

[@AhmedSahyouni]

something is missing! The date field is not set to any automation. How will it be filled if not manually? The daily log will be created automatically but the date field will remain empty!

[@s.hiessl149]

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

[@ThomasFrankExplains]

Whoopsi

[@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....)

[@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 :)

[@henry5537]

Thank you for yoor answer, but I couldn't find it. Do you mean there where he added the date in 23:18?

[@AhmedSahyouni]

@@airinn777 the date cannot be set to automatically assign in the template! Still confused how to do that

[@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!

[@hindmaurillo282]

bro you didn't explain the journal prompt in level 3.

[@vedantk1623]

hi i have a problem, when i edit habit name it doesnt show in streak how can i fix that

[@leandro_80]

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

[@Th3L0st0ne]

this is such a good tutorial!

[@harelelya]

where can i see the Havit tracker at UB? Thanks!

[@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

[@yvansspace5637]

Thanks Frank for the thorough tutorial. When setting up the streak property I noticed the split function doesn't work on consecutive missed days. For example, say I currently have a 4 day streak but I have had a 6 day streak which ended 3 days before I started my most recent streak (1,1,1,1,0,0,0,1,1,1,1,1,1) with the stats formula I followed I get: 4, 0, 0, 6 rather than 4, 6. Is there a fix for this?

[@Vrinda-e3h]

Thank you for walking us through this whole process!! Now i have added things in my habit tracker which basically gives a percentage or ratio of the habit achieved that day - maybe like a task manager + habit tracker - like 2/3 Litres of water, 4/5 supplements, 10000/12000 steps so some things are not just a check box Is there a way to incorporate this into the stats?

[@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.

[@SebastiaanVaz]

LOL exact same question. Glad you already asked. Thanks :)

[@SebastiaanVaz]

@@wEBMedPL Big thanks for your response

[@simondrozdek6336]

You're truly the best!! Providing free content like this is a gem. Thank you so much for that, you couldn't explain it better! You have a talent for teaching :) wishing you the best

[@Aluttu-A]

Very helpful, thank you!

[@renatalorena]

I just created all of these!!! I am feeling so accomplished :) thank you!

[@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?

[@jaspersomaek]

Is that a paid Notion user feature?

[@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...

[@ridharafiqa9155]

Ga bisaaaaa (mentok sampe 4) ㅠㅠ

[@OkayDr.]

Hey I love all your videos, you've already helped me enormously with setting up my own Habit Tracker and are helping me with creating my uni course planner. I will say though for some of your other videos you have 10 billion pages and templates and are showing things going through them so quickly it's a bit overwhelming sometimes. You're still way better than any other notion tutorial youtubers I've found so far so thank you! Would love to see a video how you plan your pages as when I try start my own pages from scratch I never have any idea where to start, what pages to link to which, what properties I should have and so on. I'm not sure how you do it, for me it helped setting up a few callouts just to get an idea of what I actually need and want in each page to help me create the ultimately finished page. Anyways, thanks for explaining notion to me u've definitely made it way easier to learn!

[@naomori4262]

And the template is even free!! I can't thank you enough this has really helped me as a beginner. You've earned a new subscriber through this video alone and I've also bookmarked your site, it was very neatly done and extremely useful, thank you!

[@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

[@altheammontes]

I just wanna say you're awesome and very helpful!!! Subscribed!

[@hectordsd]

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.

[@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?

[@dinoblob26]

I noticed that I have to change the slice number at level 5 at the top lines everyday ").reverse().slice(1).toNumber()" To maintain the streak count? What did I do wrong or is this how it's supposed to be?

[@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.

[@joemamajams]

This video could not have come at a better time for me.....THANK YOU!

[@tiredboy4096]

does anyone know how to change the script, so that the day/moment you check your habits the streak continues? With my script it only counts the streak from yesterday and not today

[@chauquynhle]

Maybe this is a more simple question to the others, but can anyone tell me how to add the journaling prompt box? Is it a box? Hmm

[@ThomasFrankExplains]

Try "/callout" without the quotes :)

[@kyfisher3662]

i have some habits that are daily, some that are weekly and some that are monthly. how would you go about tracking these?

[@ThomasFrankExplains]

It's pretty hard to do this kind of tracking in Notion, as you need a record for each habit, on each day. I cover how you could set it up here: thomasjfrank.com/5-ways-to-build-a-habit-tracker-in-notion-free-template-included/#true-habit-tracker IMO, Notion needs a few more features and improvements before this kind of database setup is viable.

[@jerry-w7s]

This is the video i was waiting for you to demonstrate, Live longer sir. thank you so much

[@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

[@muhammedendesutku2714]

amazing work , thank you

[@Laterverse]

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

[@ameliesekula]

hey, loved your video can you maybe show how we can get an monthly overview?

[@NQwarrior]

Is there a way to make the streak not break for a specific box if that box isnt checked off on the weekends?

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

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

[@priyankakumari3277]

Loved the video. Can you also make a video that can tell us how to get the aggregate progress in a year

[@omarsammy]

Needed that a lot. Thanks!

[@dhairya3746]

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

[@saito_kaoru_]

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

[@nattewaditep]

LV4 is what I am looking for. Thanksss❤

[@yousryayman5827]

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

[@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 :)

[@olliebluemama]

Thomas knew what the people needed

[@anandmagar6132]

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

[@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

[@sagnikdas1780]

Awesome 🤩

[@Marcuscamargo]

Really fantastic explanation!!!! Thanks

[@zairovazahra]

I'm stuck at level 5, HELP!

[@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.

[@leonahoffmeier7494]

amazing job. Thank you so much!

[@itstolgs]

This was insanely helpful. Do you know how we could add a frequency logic to the streaks? As in as long as we are doing 4 times of something every week, the streak does not reset?

[@ThomasFrankExplains]

To do that, you'd need a different architecture. It's technically possible in Notion, but quite clunky: thomasjfrank.com/5-ways-to-build-a-habit-tracker-in-notion-free-template-included/#true-habit-tracker

[@Mirthe_]

Waw, that’s really next level! Nice work!

[@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!!!!

[@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.

[@AhmedSahyouni]

I am obsessed with this tracker now, the best ever!

[@arantxaangelinaperez8451]

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

[@alyssawible]

Is there a way to automate the Date field with the correct date? This was such a great tutorial! I combed through this video several times looking for it but it's possible I missed it.

[@ThomasFrankExplains]

As long as the date is "today" (e.g. the current date when created), then yes! I may have forgotten to film it, but you can do the same trick I show around 06:05 with the Date property. When you're editing your database template, you can set its value to "Today (Date when duplicated)". Hope that helps!

[@NativeSonsCoffee]

Is there a way to integrate weekly habits?

[@ThomasFrankExplains]

There is, but it makes the system clunky. Here's more detail on that: thomasjfrank.com/5-ways-to-build-a-habit-tracker-in-notion-free-template-included/#true-habit-tracker

[@abdogoes]

1:40 hahaha

[@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!

[@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.

[@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

[@AnalJhala]

THANKS!

[@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.