- Hello, and welcome back to Thomas Frank Explains.
In this video, I'm gonna teach you
how to build a complete Habit Tracker in Notion.
We're gonna go from a completely blank page
to what you're seeing on screen right now
this nice multi column habit tracker
with this template button
that you can hit to get a habit tracking worksheet
for each and every week.
Over time, as you track your habits using these worksheets
you're gonna get this page
that is essentially a living record
of your habit tracking progress.
I've also made some mobile optimizations
so you can easily track your progress
either from the iOS or Android app for Notion
or do it from the desktop app.
And there's also this nice little toggle
you could open up to go back through different weeks
and see your history of habit tracking.
And for each week,
there's also a Weekly Summarization toggle.
So you can create a little summary
and do some journaling about how that week went.
Now, before we get into the tutorial
I do wanna mention that I've made this a free
and public template that you can duplicate
into your own Notion workspace.
So if you don't wanna go through this entire tutorial
which is admittedly a little lengthy,
you can go over to thomasjfrank.com/templates
to simply get the template for free
and start using it right away.
But if you wanna learn all the inner workings
of this template, if you wanna boost your Notion knowledge
and learn some advanced multi column layout tricks
that we're gonna be employing here
then buckle up and let's get this tutorial started.
(gentle music)
Well, hello there.
And welcome back to another Notion masterclass.
This is gonna be a longer tutorial.
And today we are building ourselves a Habit Tracker.
What you see on the screen right here,
we have a multi column layout, and we have basically just
a weekly worksheet that has check boxes,
where we can check off the habits that we did.
Whenever a new week starts,
you can simply click this little template button here
to get yourself a new week
and then you would type in the date for that week.
So this one was gonna be May 16th, 2021
since we already had May 9th down here.
And this is basically it.
It's a very simple concept
and I wanted to keep it that way
because I remember using
this little goal-tracking notebook in college,
it was called Pick Four,
and I believe it was developed by a Zig Ziglar, his team.
And every week you'd flip to a new weekly worksheet
where you would track your habits and track your goals.
So this is kind of a Notionized version
of that concept here.
And over time,
what you would get is just this long page
where you could scroll through
and in one view see your habit tracking progress,
which is pretty cool.
But there's actually some pretty interesting stuff
going on under the hood of the system.
And in this tutorial, we're gonna build it from scratch.
And you're gonna learn a few tricks along the way.
So a few other little features
about this Habit Tracking System that I wanna point out.
Number one, we have,
well a nice little motivational picture and quote here.
I just figured I'd throw that in there.
Cause I kinda like, (indistinct) is my favorite painting.
So I wanna throw that in there.
And then Bruce Lee quotes are just great.
We also have a Week log.
So you'll notice whenever we create a new version
or new instance of this template here
we get a Heading for the week starting May 16th.
So you can scroll through this,
but there's also a Table of Contents block
that adds a new heading every time we create a new week.
So we can easily jump to a past week if we want to.
We also have a Calendar here.
And literally the only reason that this is here
is so you can see what the date is
for when you're starting a new week.
So I can just go, oh, it's, you know, 16th is next Sunday
23rd is the Sunday after that.
That's the only reason that's here.
And then up here, we have this little
I'm just gonna call it a jump block.
I don't know if that's the correct term.
There's no real correct term for this.
Basically, we just linked these blocks
from here and I'll show this with some B roll.
This is so you can easily jump to these areas
which are gonna be at the bottom of the screen on your phone
instead of having to scroll all the way down there.
So this is very easy to use on a phone
where everything is a single column,
but it's kind of designed to be used
in this multi column view.
So let's start building this and as we build it,
we're gonna learn some interesting tricks
with columns in Notion.
So we're gonna go here.
And this is my template page here, the template database.
So you're gonna have access to this.
If you check out the template link in the description below
and what we're gonna do is create a page
and we'll call it Habit Tracker- From Scratch.
This is another from Scratch Series Video.
So first thing I like to do
when we were creating something from scratch,
it's gonna be a big multi column template.
Like this is to create a full-width page.
There we go.
If we look over at what we have
we have a few different tasks here.
We need to create this column,
which has our picture and our quotes
and our stuff over here.
But the main thing we need to create is this worksheet.
And then we need to create the template block
that has a copy of the worksheet in here.
So let's start by doing this right here.
And if you're following along with me
I'm gonna give you a very useful pro tip here
which is gonna be,
don't create your multi column Habit Tracking worksheet
inside this page, create it inside another page.
And the reason for that is,
Notion has some weird quibbles
when it comes to multi column layouts
and getting them exactly as you want.
There are some limitations
when it comes to simply dragging and dropping blocks
but you can get around those limitations.
If you put things inside a page first
and then transform that page into a block.
So I guess into a different kind of block
a page is a block in Notion.
So transforming it into like a heading or something.
So let's go ahead and create a page
and we'll just do /page and we'll just call it a Worksheet.
And let's do a Heading too, so pound pound.
And we're gonna go Week Starting May 2, 2021.
Doesn't really matter which week it is.
And I wanna give this a green background
so /green find green background.
And there we go.
Now let's do a Heading three,
for the first day we're gonna do,
I'm gonna enter Done and do ---four horizontal rule
and then let's just give it one Habit.
So now we have one day here
and I'll go ahead and make this full width as well.
I'm gonna copy these.
And if I go here, this is a cool trick I learned
I don't go to the next line and then paste.
'Cause you always get this blank line here.
I just go to the block that has content and then Paste.
So we could call that Monday.
Now there's something we could do here
where I could literally,
we could copy this and I could take one of these,
bring it over here, Drag and Drop.
And then just take these elements, put them here
take this one, put it here under this column,
take this one put it here under this column.
And if we look at our original one here.
We have Sunday, Monday, Tuesday, Wednesday,
Thursday, Friday.
I built it this way
because when we look at multi column layouts like this,
typically, you know at least in Western cultures
we read left to right?
And this just makes sense.
And if you look at this on a phone,
if you actually look at the demo
or the template version of the phone
it's gonna stack up correct.
You're gonna have Sunday.
Then you're gonna have Monday, Tuesday, Wednesday.
I'll show that on screen with some B roll.
Now you're not gonna get that result.
If you just do it the way we just did it
where we have created two columns here
because what we have now
and you can actually see a self dividing line
that sometimes pops up,
is we have one column and then we have another column.
So if I were to make this Tuesday down here
and Wednesday down here,
what I'm actually gonna end up with
is Sunday, Tuesday, Monday, Wednesday
I don't want that.
So we can't make a column in the column.
We have to make two columns
and then a separator and then two columns, then a separator.
So let's go ahead and delete all this content.
We;ll have Sunday and Monday.
And now let's just create another horizontal row.
We can see that this horizontal row
is only going from here to here.
So I'm gonna drag it down
until we get it to be full width thing.
There we go.
Now we can delete our blocks in here.
So this is basically what we want
to copy this whole structure here.
And if I click on the rule itself and I Paste,
I can get it down here.
Now notice something,
when you Copy multi column things in Notion,
and then you Paste them,
they don't really cooperate.
They stay on a single column layout.
It's kind of a, it's a bug, it's a quibble.
I don't know what it is, but it's kind of annoying.
So we sort of have to go through here,
Drag and Drop a couple of times
and just create our layout from scratch.
So once again, we'll Copy that,
Paste it.
Drag.
Okay, now I'm gonna go through and rename these
and finally, to get the layout we had earlier
we'll add this little toggle for a Weekly Summary
and this will be a nice little block
where you could just add a written summary
of how your week went,
and you could tell yourself, like,
here's why I didn't get certain things done
or here's why it was a great week,
but now we have the layout we want.
So here's something cool.
If you go through here
and delete this full width double column,
spanning horizontal rows like that,
this structure still holds up.
So now when you look at it on a phone,
it's gonna be Sunday, Monday, Tuesday, Wednesday,
Thursday, Friday Saturday,
stacked up in one column correctly.
So a little bit of a pain when you're building it
but now you have it.
So the next thing we wanna do,
is go back to our actual from scratch thing.
And let's go ahead and Drag in our picture.
I just have a copy to my clipboard.
So what we can do is drag this to the left of worksheet.
Now we have two columns,
and let's just go ahead and resize these.
So this isn't as big.
And why don't I go bring in my quote?
Obviously you can use whatever kind of quote you want
but I like Bruce Lee quotes, for Habit Trackers at least
put that there, and then we might wanna create our week log
and our calendar.
Well, let's create these a little later.
I'm just gonna keep these toggles here
and we'll make them in a bit.
For now, we wanna figure out how to get this, right here.
Like we had it earlier.
So all we have to do, is turn this page into something else.
What should you turn it into?
Well, you can pretty much turn it into anything you want
and you're going to get all the content from that page
sitting on the page.
And interestingly, if there is a multi column layout
sitting in this page, it's gonna be replicated in here.
And that's very, very useful.
Let me show you why this is useful.
If I created Heading one and you know, we have it here.
So this is one column, two column.
And then I create two toggles
and this is, you know for anything,
if I want this to be nested next to this.
So two columns underneath this column, I can't do it.
It won't let me do it.
I can only create three columns and that is not what I want
But, just going to delete this.
If I turn this, into a text block, I get that.
I get that multi column layout nested under a column,
which is itself part of a multi column layout.
It's column inception here.
One interesting thing about turning it
into a text block specifically,
this does not work for other kinds of blocks,
but if you turn a page into a text block,
you're going to get the text here
and then you're gonna get all the content
nested inside the text block.
And that is useful because you can then drag this
anywhere you want and retain that multi column layout.
You can also duplicate it.
And remember how earlier
when I duplicated my multi column layout
and it all went to single column
because it's all in this nested text block.
I don't have that problem.
It actually works.
So that can be pretty cool
but actually I'm gonna keep it as text for now
but let's go ahead and duplicate it.
What I really want in the end, is for this to be turned
into a heading and I'll use Heading 2.
So that way I can actually delete the word Worksheet
and just be working with this right here.
This looks exactly like it did in our demo version.
And now has the benefit if we come into Week Log
and we create a Table of Contents block,
as the benefit of adding this heading here
we could do it with that test block
but it's just gonna look a little messy.
The reason we wanna do a text block first though
is because we are gonna be able to duplicate this
into our template block.
So that's what we're gonna do next.
We're going to hit slash
and create a template block or a template button.
Let's call this,
Add New Weekly Worksheet.
And then if we just take this, and drag it here
you get your multi column layout inside the template block.
This is something that a lot of people who get into Notion
find to be a frustrating limitation with the template block.
You can't create multi column layouts
inside this template block.
Except you can, if you use this trick.
So to summarize,
Create your content in a sub page.
Turn that sub page into a text block,
Drag it in to your template block area.
From there, we can go ahead and turn this
into a heading and get rid of the heading itself.
And now we have exactly the content we want
retained in a multi column layout.
So we're gonna hit Close.
And I do notice that this template block
is actually sitting as a single column.
So I'm gonna drag it here, to make sure it's in this column.
And now when we hit the button, we get a new worksheet.
So I'm gonna change this to May 9, 2021.
And actually one thing I might wanna do
is come in here and configure this to just be date.
So, you know, to change it when you create it.
So this functions pretty much
like those paper gold tracking notebooks,
where if you want to change up your weekly routine,
then you would come in here to the template block
and actually change it.
So let me go ahead and do that now.
And now we have the Weekly schedule
that we're committing to for the foreseeable future.
This seems like a lot of manual work
but if you're tracking habits over a long period of time
you really shouldn't have to tweak this all that often.
But if you have to,
you can just come into this template block
and you can do it.
So now if I click it, boom
I've got a worksheet and I can change the date.
Let's say, this is for next week, May 16th, 2021.
Now I've got a worksheet that I can go through
and I can just check things off every single day.
Last couple of things we've got to do here
is we'll add our calendar, very easy, just type calendar
and we'll do an inline calendar, call it calendar.
And this just basically gives us a tool
where we can reference.
All right, what is the date of next Sunday
when we're creating our new worksheet?
Keep that tucked in there, close that up if we want to.
And the last thing we'll do is create our jump block.
So let's go here, and literally just type Week Log.
I like to do three spaces
and one of these vertical lines and calendar
there's nothing special about what I'm typing right now.
It's just easy links for me to use when I'm on my phone.
Let's do a purple background.
And I'm gonna go ahead and hold this.
And then all we're gonna do is come down here
Click the block handle,
Copy the link to the block
Highlight that, link to it.
There it is.
And then do the exact same thing for Calendar.
Copy the link,
go to calendar, link, and there.
And why don't we give it an icon as well?
Let's give it that beefy arm for habits.
And we have essentially recreated this Habit Tracker
from scratch.
So now, if you can commit to using this over time
you're going to get, like I said before
this page that you can scroll through
and see at a glance all of your progress on your habits.
The other nice thing about using this strategy
instead of using a database strategy
where you're going into a special page for every week,
is this gives you a single page that you can Favorite,
have right at the top of your Favorites bar if you want
and easily click into.
Put it on the front of your iOS home screen
put it on, you know, your Android widget,
wherever you get to your Habit Tracker
you can just come into it with one click.
And because we're using this template button
your current week is always going to be at the top.
So it makes checking off your habits,
a very very quick process every single day.
But you have this ability to jump to your Week Log,
come in here and review past weeks if you want.
You can come in here and you can write up a weekly summary.
So it's just this nice one page that gives you a record
of your habit tracking activities.
That is gonna be it for this video tutorial.
Like I said, in the intro
you can go over to thomasjfrank.com/templates
to get the template version that I've made public
of this Habit Tracker for free.
So if you've watched this far, I'm guessing you did
because you wanted to build this yourself
and you know, more power to you,
but hey, if you watched it
just because you were wanting to be entertained
and this is what you watch for entertainment
but you don't want to build yourself.
The public template is available for you.
You can get it for free
and I'll have that link in a description down below.
If you like clicking links
instead of typing things into your browser.
If you have questions
let me know in the comments down below.
And I also have Twitter, @TomFrankly
you can ask me questions over there.
I try my best to answer Notion questions
as long as I'm able to answer them.
And honestly, a lot of times people's Notion questions
are the thing that pushes me to learn more about Notion,
pushing things,
learning how to do these multicolored tricks,
things like that.
So feel, you know, no shyness about asking me questions.
I will do my best to answer them when I can.
Beyond that, I've got a whole Basics Course.
If you wanna learn all the Fundamentals of Notion
I have a course called Notion Fundamentals.
You can find that over at thomasjfrank.com/fundamentals
going through all of Notion's main features
basically in the most logical order that I can think of.
So if you wanna really master this software
then you can go through that
and pair that with tutorials like these,
I've got an advanced course coming up.
And if you want to learn more about that
and also get updates when I create new Notion content
I have a Notion tips email list
and you'll find that link, that description down below.
Other than that, I've got no more things to pitch you
or talk about or self-promote or whatever.
So ask me questions if you have them
otherwise have yourself a lovely day
and start tracking some habits.
(upbeat music)