How I Track Exercise in My Bullet Journal

Let’s face it, it can be HARD to make and stick to an exercise routine. Even if I manage to start exercising for a couple days, something inevitably comes up that makes me miss a day or two (or ten….). So this month I set out to try a new exercise tracker in my journal to help keep myself accountable.

Reflecting on previous times I have tried to follow an exercise routine, I decided to focus on two areas:

1. Planning out the exercises in advance.
2. Returning to the plan after missed days.

Overview of the Tracker

The base of the tracker is a series of boxes, one for each day of the month. In each box, I write the date in the top left corner and schedule a specific type of exercise in the center.

Planning out the exercises in advance is one of the key features of this tracker. This makes it so when the day comes, you know exactly what you are going to be doing. The exercises I write are usually pretty simple with categories like: HIIT, Yoga, Abs, Arms, etc.

Tracker Elements

With the exercises planned out, filling in the tracker over the course of the month is the fun part.

After each workout, I add the length of the workout above the text in the middle of the box. Some days when I am feeling extra ambitious, I do a “catchup” exercise or yoga session. The vertical text on the right side of the box records these extras.

My favorite part of the tracker is when I break out my Zebra Mildliner high-lighters to annotate the box:

• A gray mark on the date for a completed workout
• A red mark on the date for a missed workout
• A blue mark in the lower left corner for drinking 8 cups of water

To keep track of exercise “streaks”, I add a black arrow between consecutive days of exercise. When I complete a day’s workout, an arrow joins that day to the next day. I like how the arrows form a visual chain and help to encourage consistency in the routine.

Table Format of the Tracker

An adaptation of this spread is to use the same concept except instead of using boxes for each day, use a table. This can save time in the setup while still providing a useful tracker for your exercise routine. The table is also nice in that it is easier to scan down the page and see progress linearly.

Final Thoughts

This method of tracking exercise has made a huge difference in my ability to keep up with an exercise plan. I noticed that even if I missed a day or two, I was coming back to the routine (and even doing “catchup” exercises). In the end, that’s one of the biggest things I learned:

It isn’t about being perfect and exercising every day. It is more important to keep returning to the routine and not letting small setbacks derail the whole month.