Free 75 Soft tracker: a printable PDF and how to use it
Here is a free 75 Soft tracker. One page, 75 rows, four boxes a day. Print it, tape it up, tick it off.
Download the 75 Soft tracker (PDF, one page)
Below: what each box means, how to use the page, and how to handle the day you miss. Because you will miss one, and that day decides the rest.
What are the four boxes on the 75 Soft tracker?
75 Soft is a community version of 75 Hard. It has no official rulebook. The tracker uses the four rules most people follow:
- Eat well. Mostly whole food. Alcohol only at social events.
- Train 45 minutes. One day a week can be active recovery, like a walk or a stretch.
- Water: 3 litres. About 101 ounces.
- Read 10 pages. Any book.
Each row also has a small box for the date and a column marked R for your recovery day. If you want the rules in full first, read the 75 Soft challenge rules.
How do I track 75 Soft day by day?
- Fill in all 75 dates on day one. Seeing day 75 on the page makes it real.
- Mark your recovery days with an R in advance. One a week. Most people choose Sunday.
- Tick each box as you finish it. Not at bedtime from memory.
- Look at the row at 8 pm. If a box is empty, you still have time to read 10 pages or drink one more bottle.
- Never fill a box you did not earn. The page only works if it is true.
Should I track a streak or a count?
This is the question that sinks most trackers:
“Do you track streaks, or does that make things worse?”
A streak is the number of days in a row. A count is the number of days done. On a strict 75 Soft, they are the same thing: miss a day and you start over. On a keep-going 75 Soft, they split. You might be on day 75 with 71 days done.
The tracker works for both. Write your rule at the top of the page before you start: strict or keep going.
What do I do when I miss a day?
Missing a day is not what ends a challenge. Giving up for a week afterwards is. People who have been through it describe the slide exactly:
“I fell into old habits for a few weeks because I was SO discouraged.”
Here is a plan for the day after a miss. Save it.
- Strict rule: write the date of the miss at the top, start a fresh row 1 the same day, and keep the old page. It shows how far you got last time.
- Keep-going rule: draw a dash in the empty boxes, and do the next day in full. Do not try to make up the missed day. Just do today.
- Either way: do the smallest box first. Ten pages, or one bottle of water. Tick it within an hour of noticing the miss.
The aim is to never miss two days in a row. One miss is a bad day. Two is how a month off starts. More on that in how to restart a workout habit.
How do I restart 75 Soft without waiting for a perfect day?
“How do you restart without waiting for a “perfect” day?”
Start on the day you read this. Not Monday, not the first of the month. A 75-day challenge that starts on a Thursday ends on a Monday, about 11 weeks later. Nobody will ever ask what day of the week you began.
Is a paper tracker or an app better for 75 Soft?
Paper is free, visible and hard to ignore on the fridge. An app is in your pocket at work, can remind you, and keeps your history when you restart. Many people use both: paper for the house, phone for the day. We looked at the options in 75 Hard apps and trackers compared.
Doing the stricter version? Use the 75 Hard checklist and tracker instead.
Fit75 is an iPhone app for 75-day challenges. You can set its daily list to the four 75 Soft rules, and it keeps count of your restarts.
Fit75 is a 75-day challenge app and is not affiliated with 75 Hard.
If you want a plan behind the ticks, with workouts set for each day, the quiz below is where it starts.