Writing down your progress helps you reach goals
Across 138 studies, keeping track of progress helped people reach goals, especially when they physically recorded it.
Keeping track of progress helped people reach their goals, especially when they wrote it down or otherwise recorded it.
The study
This meta-analysis gathered 138 experiments that randomly assigned people to an approach encouraging them to monitor their progress toward a goal, or to a comparison group. Monitoring increased how often people checked their progress, and it helped them reach their goals. The effect was larger when the progress was reported to others or made public, and when it was physically recorded.
Starting small
A record can be as simple as a check mark on a calendar or a short log entry each day. Seeing the progress in one place makes it easier to notice and keep going.