The spreadsheet showed me that on days when I’d slept less than eight hours, I was much more likely to buy lunch instead of bring it, eat dinner out instead of cook it at home, or skip a workout. While correlation =/= causation, seeing that I took shortcuts with eating and exercise when I had less sleep under my belt made me even more determined to prioritize sleep.

It made me more mindful of my alcohol intake.

I used to think about my days in two ways: days when I didn’t drink any alcohol, and days when I drank some. But keeping myself accountable for every single unit of alcohol I consumed was pretty sobering (pun intended). In fact, it made me feel pretty crappy about my drinking habits, because it’s so easy to get carried away at a boozy brunch or a dinner party where someone is refilling your glass for you.

Tracking my alcohol intake has made me more careful about drinking water or seltzer in between drinks, swapping out hard liquor for wine or gluten-free beer, and saying no a bit more often. I am also working on not feeling guilty if I don’t finish a whole drink; better to pour it out than consume something I don’t want or need.

That said, I also tried to keep things in perspective. A single glass of champagne at a work event isn’t going to make or break my week, nor is having a beer with my fiancé when he comes home. What I’m determined to focus on is being mindful about what I consume and how it makes me feel.

Nina Bahadur

It made me consider branching out to different workouts.

Generally speaking, over two thirds of my workouts are barre classes. I love barre workouts because the music is good and I don't have to wear shoes—which is crucial since the bag I lug around all day is already heavy AF without an added pair of sneakers. But seeing just how much I do one type of workout has pushed me to try some new things and get in some more cardio-heavy sessions. Guys, I'm into Zumba now. And I walked a 5K!

Much as I tried not to, I ended up classifying days as “good” or “bad.”

When I reviewed the spreadsheet, I’d always feel great about a day when I worked out, packed a lunch, ate dinner at home, and slept eight hours. But that’s not possible every single day—something I logically knew but nonetheless felt super guilty about. I am constantly reminding myself that it’s OK to take days off or occasionally indulge and that the world is not going to fall apart if I don’t have a shiny-perfect spreadsheet at the end of any given month. Life happens, and that’s a good thing.

It gave me an idea of what I want to track going forward.

I don’t drink enough water, and maybe keeping that info in the spreadsheet or using an app could help with that. I’m also thinking about tracking how many days a week I eat meat.

Ultimately, this experiment has given me a few things to work on, like meal planning and sticking to a workout schedule. But my two main goals are actually about self-care: being more mindful and feeling less guilty.

I’m in good health and decently good shape, and I feel good in my body most of the time. Of course there are areas for improvement, but it's easy to get caught up in the idea of perfection. Being harsh with myself for no discernable reason doesn't make any sense, and carrying around lots of needless guilt is probably worse for my health than the fact I skipped Pilates one time because it was raining.

Ultimately, my lazy bullet journal has been a quick, easy, and relatively painless way to keep track of things that matter to me. And because of that, I'll keep going with it.

Want to try this for yourself? Here's a template for February 2017 with some of the formatting I used!

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