Okay, so I got fixated on this idea of tracking consistency lately. Not just knowing if I did something, but seeing the pattern, the flow. That’s where this whole “stripes score” thing started for me.
Getting Started
First off, I needed to figure out what I was even tracking. For me, it was daily writing. Just putting words down, anything. The goal wasn’t word count perfection, but showing up. I looked around, you know, apps, spreadsheets, whatever. Found a lot of complicated stuff, charts going everywhere, stats I didn’t care about. All I really wanted was a simple visual. Like, did I do the thing today? Yes or no? Show me the streak.
The Messy Middle Part
Spreadsheets were my first thought. Seemed easy. Columns for dates, rows for… well, just a mark. But man, it looked ugly. And updating it felt like a chore. I needed something glanceable, something that just showed the rhythm.
I remembered seeing those contribution graphs people have for coding. Little squares, different colors based on activity. That was closer to what I envisioned. Stripes, really. A long stripe of ‘did it’ days, broken by ‘didn’t do it’ days. My own personal activity stripes.
So, I decided to make my own thing. Nothing fancy. Forget code, forget apps for a minute. I actually grabbed some grid paper first. Seriously. Old school. Each day got a square. If I wrote, I colored it green. If I missed a day, I colored it grey, or just left it blank. Simple.
- Day 1: Wrote. Colored a square green.
- Day 2: Wrote again. Another green square next to it. Starting a stripe!
- Day 3: Life happened. Missed it. Grey square. Stripe broken.
- Day 4: Back at it. Green square.
It was manual, sure, but seeing those colored blocks build up, or seeing a grey block interrupt a nice green stripe? That actually worked. It was visual feedback, right there.
Making it Stick (Sort Of)
Eventually, I moved it off paper. Put together a super basic digital version. Still just a grid of colored squares. No fancy calculations, no complex logic. It’s basically a digital version of that grid paper. I call it my “stripes score” because that’s what it looks like – a series of stripes showing my effort.
It ain’t pretty by professional standards. It’s crude. But it does the one job I needed it to do: show me the damn stripes. Show me the consistency, or lack thereof. When I see a long green stripe, I feel good. When I see too much grey, it’s a kick in the pants.
Final Thoughts
So yeah, that’s my journey with this “stripes score”. It wasn’t about finding the perfect tool, it was about finding a visual that actually motivated me. Sometimes the simplest, roughest thing you hack together yourself works better than all the polished stuff out there. It works for me, anyway. Gives me a clear picture without the noise.
