Monthly dashboards are a big topic in the planner world.
Every week someone asks, “what do you do with your monthly dashboard? I need ideas!”. No one quite seems to know what to do with them at first. The dashboards can be a bit of a mystery to work out.
There is no right or wrong way to complete a monthly dashboard.
It can take months or even years to perfect your dashboard. With a lot of trial and error. You may not even refer back to it throughout the month. And that’s ok! We’ve all been there and we’ve all had the struggle of figuring out the blasted monthly dashboard.
Erin Condren dashboard a few years ago titled the blocks and it didn’t seem to work for anyone. Everyone either ignored the headings or put stickers over them. Since then EC has removed the titles. It’s better to not have those headings but it also makes it harder.
No one knows what to do with the blank spaces!
Blank spaces are great but they can be a struggle if you have no direction. It’s like a painter staring at a blank canvas or a writer at a blinking cursor.
Starting is the hardest part.
If you want to focus on one area to improve, like fitness, the dashboard can be a great place to track goals, weight, workouts, and many other health or fitness-related items. I’ve been working on my dashboards in my running binder all year and I’ve finally got a good groove going!
My focus is running and weight loss but you could also use the dashboard for steps, weight training, whatever your main focus is. You could track almost anything on the dashboard. The dashboard has a large blank square, and two smaller boxes (one with four bullet points and one with lines), and a dot-grid rectangle.
As you can see in the photo above, I used the large box for a quote this month. I’ve varies what I use this space for each month. I’ve used it to track races (in-person and virtual) and I’ve also put reminders for the month (like marathon training starts). This space is a bit flexible for me.
I use the four bullet points for goals. Obviously, I don’t write the entire goal but a quick note to remind me of my goals. I use the lined box to track weight fluctuations. I weigh in on Saturdays and record weight, body fat, and BMI. I’m thinking of dropping BMI as I know it doesn’t mean much on an individual level.
Lastly, I use the dot grid to visualize the miles I have ran. I don’t do anything fancy but you could definitely get creative with tracking miles. Highlighting each mile after I finish a run helps me track my monthly miles.
You could use the lined box for tracking weight-lifting PRs for the month. Write out bench press, deadlift, squat, etc where I have the date and then track each week’s weight. You could track steps, water, weight changes in the dot grid area as well. I’ve seen graphs with weight changes on dashboards.
Get creative and start using your monthly dashboard to reach your health and fitness goals!
Let me know, how do you use the monthly dashboard? What health and fitness ideas do you have for the different boxes? Drop them in the comments below.
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