With creating better habits or goal setting, it can be difficult to know if you’re making any progress. Sometimes that’s because we aren’t as consistent about things as we think we are. Sometimes it’s just a matter of how we perceive success, or maybe the goal wasn’t reasonable to begin with. That’s why having some sort of measurement and/or tracking for your goals can be so powerful. It’s a tool that lets us objectively evaluate how things are going. That’s why I put together this Sustainable Goals Worksheet and Better Habits Tracking Sheet to help with that tracking. Feel free to print them out for your own personal use.
Sustainable Goals Worksheet Overview
Sustainable Goals Worksheet – printable pdf
If you’ve done SMART goal setting before then this worksheet will look familiar to you, just with an eco-friendly focus. I designed it to help with working out options and priorities for meeting eco-friendly goals. I’ve written more in-depth about this worksheet in another post that also has an example. I’m the type of person who needs to sit down and write stuff out to really process and figure out my game plan. Or sometimes I just need prompt questions to get more insight on how to proceed. If you can relate, I hope these worksheets help you with your goals of creating better habits for yourself and the planet.
Better Habits Tracking Sheet Overview
Better Habits Tracking Sheet – printable pdf
In doing these monthly challenges, I realized I needed to make 2 types of tracking sheets. One needs to be for habits at home and the other needs to be for habits when out-and-about. The one I have here is the Better Habits Tracking Sheet – home version. It’s evolved a bit since I started doing these challenges. I had to rethink how to track alternatives that are reduced plastic options, not just plastic-free.
Turns out, plastic-free alternatives are easier to track than the reduced plastic ones because no real calculations are needed. Either you used a plastic bag/wrapper/container or you didn’t with the plastic-free. But to get a better sense of the impact for the reduced plastic alternatives, I’ve been weighing the conventional and alternative packaging.
Don’t waste time weighing, use this chart instead
You can weigh your own plastic waste if you want to, it will be the most accurate, or you can use this chart for the Better Habits Tracking Sheet. Right now the list isn’t very extensive, but I’ll keep adding weights as I do more PF challenges. Currently, I have weights for the cheeses, deli meat, and bread packaging. There are variations with packaging but these numbers can help you get a general idea of the plastic impact comparison.
Just a reminder, this chart is for figuring out the reduced plastic alternatives. Plastic-free options don’t need to be calculated like this. As with any activity tracking, it’s helpful to know if your efforts actually had an impact. Like with the Deli Meat Challenge, it was nice to know I reduced my plastic by over 60%. It makes me more motivated to continue with my better habits.
Always trying to improve the Better Habits tools
I’ll keep working on this chart, not just to add weights, but to make it more user-friendly. In the meantime, this should help with estimating your plastic usage and reduction. Let me know how your plastic-free habits are going!
I’m constantly trying to improve these printouts. So, if you have any suggestions for what would be most helpful with the chart, or modifications for the worksheets, please let me know by email or in the comment section below.
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