The House of Sparkles Bullet Journal Circle, Post 3. Routine Tracker

In the first two posts of this Coaching Circle you were tasked with starting a Journal and documenting your Skincare Snapshot. We will now move on to aspects of skincare that are changeable over time, starting with your routine.

There are two main goals to this task:

- to document your routine, obviously.

- to get you thinking about your routine and the factors that make up a great routine

First Things First - write down your routine

Writing down your routine isn't always as easy at it sounds. That's why I created my Skincare Heidi Routine Tracker (with some help from the lovely and talented Dana Carter). Over the course of the week you will fill in your tracker day by day, in real time.

The idea here isn't to try and guess your routine, or to create an ideal routine. With this week's tracker you should simply document exactly what you use for a week. There's no judgment! It's more important to accurately reflect your actual routine than to try and *fix* it or improve it as you go through the week.

Upload your Skincare Heidi Routine Tracker here:

SH Weekly Tracker.pdf

Download PDF • 506KB

Filling in Your Tracker

The reason that this post is part of a Coaching Circle, rather than simply just an article, is that documenting your routine is not necessarily a straightforward process. Very few of us have a set routine that we do in exactly the same way every day. I tend to look at how my skincare and actives are distributed over the course of a week, because not every product needs to be used every day. For the next week we will go step by step filling in your tracker each day.

If you're involved in any kind of Skincare community you've seen that routines are generally divided into AM and PM. Most people simply list the products that they use and the order in which they use them. This is called the Routine Sequence. This is a great start, but your sequence doesn't show the whole picture.

The three variables of Skincare Routine Tracking are: Quantity, Frequency and Sequencing (or HOW MUCH, HOW OFTEN, and WHAT ORDER). You will, of course, list the the product. Additionally, we will consider if you also want to take note of other factors, like technique. This may seem like a lot to consider for EACH STEP of your routine. But actually you are already making these decisions every time you do your routine. Each time you open a dropper bottle you decide whether to drop into your hand or directly on your face. Each time you apply a serum you choose whether to swipe or pat. These decisions may be automatic for you but they ARE decisions.

That's A Lot to Track!

Don't worry, I'm not suggesting that you document every drop of serum or each spritz of mist every time you do a routine! The level of detail that you include in your Journal will depend on what you're trying to achieve. For this Circle we will look at tracking in great detail, so that you are comfortable with exactly what you are doing.

Once you are familiar with your routine and all its components, you can use your Journal to accomplish specific goals in your Routine Planning. If you're introducing a new strong active you will want to track much more closely than if you're in maintenance mode. You may need to pay closer attention during seasonal changes. You may have a specific issue that you're looking at and need to pay close attention to the state of your skin on a day to day basis. Start by documenting one specific routine, don't try and capture a general routine that you're *supposed* to do. Start by writing down a specific routine that you *did* do (ie: this is my routine from last night).

But my routine changes all the time!

Realistically your routine isn't a static phenomenon.

Even if you documented one specific routine you will also want to document variations that occur daily, weekly, occasionally etc. Even if your list of products is relatively static you are probably making little adjustments each time you do your routine - hopefully you are because that means you are paying attention to your skin's needs every day and each step of the way. And there are times when your routine won't be the same two days in a row, for example when you are in a trial or introduction phase. Don't worry, we'll explore this over the course of this Challenge.