So, I turned to my Palm handheld and thought, "There must be a way to track the habits and see which ones I accomplish each day." I was off on my search.

The first place I looked was my good ol' To Do List. I created a category called Daily Habits and listed my ten habits in the To Do List. I then listed the habits as you can see in Figure A.

FIGURE A

Using the standard To Do List was a great place to begin tracking my daily habits.

This was fine if I wanted to make sure that I did them. All I had to do was enter the habits and check them off each day. I even set a daily repeat to make sure that these would reappear the following day.

This worked well, but I wasn't able to look back and see which items were accomplished each day.

I also used ToDo Plus from HandsHigh Software (at http://www.handshigh.com/html/todoplus.html). This is great if you just want to use a piece of software to make sure that you accomplish each habit every day. Figure B shows you how my habits looked in ToDo Plus.

FIGURE B

Here's how my habits looked in ToDo Plus.

This was a lot of fun because I was able to scratch out notes to myself to remind me why I chose that habit. For example, I chose habits like keeping systems updated and making my bed because it's important that my apartment be clean and organized. Making this a habit every day will help me achieve that. Figure C shows a note I drew to remind me why I created a few of my habits.

FIGURE C

Neatness counts!

The only downside to using this software was that I couldn't go back to track which habits were working well for me and which ones were not. I like to be able to go back at the end of the week to see which habits are starting to become a part of my life and which ones need more of my attention.

Then I had a great idea. What if I used something like QuickOffice (at http://www.quickoffice.com) or Documents to Go (at http://www.dataviz.com) to download a spreadsheet to my Palm handheld?

I decided to use QuickOffice, since that came with my HandEra 330. Now that I have the document on my device, I can easily track which habits I do on what day and keep track of them for a week. I can also create a new document for each week and track which habits are working for me and which ones are not over a period of several weeks. If it looks like, for example, I'm not filing my papers, I can ask myself why and come up with a plan to fix it. If you look at Figure D, you can see that I didn't eat five servings of vegetables.

FIGURE D

I need to focus more on eating my veggies.

As you can see, I have my table on the Palm handheld, and while it's not as much fun as coloring a box in with a crayon, I can just mark each completed task with an X. Figure D also shows that I've been a good girl and have taken my vitamins every day.

I'd like to know what works for you, and hear about any other ideas that would help you create a routine. Feel free to contact me at heather@coachheather.com.

Prior to starting her own personal success coaching business dedicated to helping people reach their goals, Heather McDaniel was both a longtime news editor and sales manager for ZATZ, publishers of this magazine. She's widely acknowledged as a leading expert on the handheld industry. Although no longer a ZATZ employee, she's still a member of the ZATZ extended family and now writes for PalmPower on topics about personal growth and development. For a free coaching session, contact Heather at heather@coachheather.com or visit http://www.coachheather.com.