The Atomic Habits Scorecard, Explained

Where the habit scorecard comes from

The Habits Scorecard is an exercise in Atomic Habits by James Clear (2018). It sits in the part of the book about making habits obvious. His argument is that most of what you do each day runs on autopilot, so you can't change a habit until you actually see it.

Clear sets it up with a story from Japan's railways, where train staff point at signals and say out loud what they see. It sounds silly but it cuts mistakes. The scorecard does the same thing for your day: you name each habit, one line at a time, instead of letting it slide past.

How to make a habit scorecard

1. Pick a normal weekday. Yesterday is usually fine, as long as nothing unusual happened.
2. Write it down in order. Start when you wake up and stop when you fall asleep. Include the small stuff, like the snooze button, the second coffee and the phone check at the traffic lights. Those are the habits you stopped seeing.
3. Mark each line. + if it helps you, - if it works against you, = if it's neither.
4. Don't fix anything yet. The first pass is just looking. Changing things comes after.

Write the day you actually had, not the one you wish you'd had. A scorecard full of +s that isn't true won't tell you anything.

How do you decide if a habit is good, bad or neutral?

Ask one question: does this help me become the person I want to be? That idea, building habits around who you want to become, runs through the whole book. A + habit moves you toward that person. A - habit pulls you away. A = habit is just part of getting through the day.

That means the same habit can score differently for different people. Two hours of TV might be a - for someone trying to write a novel and a = for someone who spent the day on their feet. Coffee at 4pm is fine for one person and a - for someone who can't sleep.

If you can't decide, mark it = and move on. The lines that matter usually jump out.

A habit scorecard example

Here's a made-up weekday for someone with an office job and a train commute. Sixteen lines, nothing dramatic.

The tally comes out at 5 plus, 7 neutral and 4 minus. That's not a grade. A 5 to 4 split doesn't mean this person is doing badly. What's useful is where the marks land.

All five + habits happen before 6:30pm and most of them involve walking. Two of the four - habits start at 9:30pm or later. And the snooze at 6:45 is probably the phone at 11:30 the night before. So one change in the evening could fix two lines on the card.

The change: “After I switch off the TV, I will plug my phone in to charge in the kitchen.” Watching TV happens every night so it's a reliable cue. A phone in the kitchen is also much harder to scroll in bed. That's the only change for now. The lunch at the desk and the cupboard snack can wait.

What is habit stacking?

Habit stacking means pinning a new habit onto one you already do, using a simple line: “After I [current habit], I will [new habit].” The format comes from BJ Fogg's Tiny Habits research at Stanford, where he calls the existing habit an anchor and the line a recipe. Atomic Habits borrows the idea and calls it habit stacking.

This is where the scorecard pays off. Every + and = line that happens daily, at the same point in the day, is a possible anchor. Making tea, locking the front door, sitting down on the train. You already do them without thinking, so they carry the new habit along.

Two things make a stack work. The anchor has to happen every day, and the new habit has to be small. “After I make tea, I will read one page” sticks. “After I make tea, I will read for an hour” usually doesn't. Make it bigger once it feels automatic.

Common mistakes

• Trying to fix every minus. You'll quit by Thursday. Pick one line.
• Leaving out the small habits. The 30-second phone checks add up and they're often the best clues.
• Treating = as wasted time. Neutral habits are often the best anchors for a stack.
• Scoring a weekend day. Saturdays are usually too different. Start with a weekday and do a second card later if you want.
• Filling it in and filing it away. The scorecard only helps if one thing changes afterwards.

Where to get a habit scorecard template

James Clear offers his own printable version with the Atomic Habits bonus material on his website, which you get by signing up with your email.

If you'd rather skip the signup, our free habit scorecard works in the browser. It saves on your device, counts your marks, has a habit stacking section and prints to a one-page PDF.

Or use the back of an envelope. Three columns: time, habit, mark. That's all it needs.

Frequently asked questions