279: Apple Notes: Monthly Habit Tracker
Tutorial: How To Create Checklists in Apple Notes
I struggle with note-taking and organization of ideas. I have tried every productivity and note-taking app on the planet. I always go back to Apple Notes. Simple. Always with me on my iOS devices. I use Notes for more and more for business and life stuff.
Apple Notes
- Note-taking app for Macs & iOS Devices
- Syncs across all devices (iMac, MacBook, iPhone, iPad, Watch…)
- Notes back up to iCloud
- Create and edit notes on all devices
- To learn more visit the Apple Notes User Guide by Apple
What You Will Learn
- How To Set Up & Create a Checklist in Apple Notes to track habits (or for to-do lists, shopping lists, etc).
- How To Clear the Monthly Checklist & Start Over
The Background
I tend to experiment with health and wellness on my eternal quest for health, happiness, and creating the life I want, so I decided to try a 30-day plank challenge about 8 months ago.
Each day you increase the number of seconds to do a plank. First, I took a photo of the 30-day challenge graphic, but I kept forgetting what day I was on. So then I decided to turn the graphic into a list in Apple Notes.
I discovered the checklist was a great option so I could tick off the day as I completed each day. At the end of the 30-days, I wanted to go another month, so I unchecked everything and started over. It’s really simple, but it clicked with me and now I do it whenever I want to start a 30-day challenge or to just keep track of habits that I want to maintain.
Lifehacks work for me. This simple habit tracker is kind of fun and seeing all the checklists makes me never want to skip a day.
My Workflow for Habit Tracking Using Apple Notes
- I have one folder for ‘Habits’
- I create new Notes for each habit
- Every day that I complete a habit I tick the radio button circle
- At the end of the month, I uncheck all the circles and re-use the note and start over
How I Set Up My Monthly Habit Tracker:
The Setup
The screenshots and tutorial were done on my iMac, but you can create folders, notes, and checklists on iOS Devices.
- Open Apple Notes (I am using iMac for this tutorial)
- Create a New Folder (3 different ways)
…File>New Folder
…Right-click and choose ‘New Folder’
…Keyboard Shortcut: Cmd + Shift + N - Name the Folder (Tip: I use 00_Folder to control order as Notes will sort alphabetically otherwise)
- Create a New Note (3 different ways)
…File>New Note
…Right-click ‘New Note’
…Keyboard Shortcut: Cmd + N - Add a Title to the Note (Exercise, Writing, e.g.)
-The first line of any note will be the title - Type in Day 01: — Day 31:
- Select all of the days
- Click the circle with check mark at the top to ‘Make a Checklist’
- Click each circle to fill in and click to uncheck
The Reset for New Month
You have successfully checked all of the days (yeah!) and it’s time for a new month. Rather than unchecking all one by one, you can clear all at once.
- Select all of the days by dragging.
- Click the ‘Make a Checklist Button’ to convert to a basic list.
- Click the ‘Make a Checklist’ button again to create a blank checklist.
- Start checking the list and building new habits!
Video Tutorial
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