Tracking progress helped people reach goals, by a small to medium amount

The review

1. 01

   Who took part

   19,951 adults took part in 138 trials, including university students and people with health problems. The goal results covered 18,398 of them.

2. 02

   What they did

   Each trial asked people to track their progress toward a goal, such as steps, weight or blood sugar. The other groups got no prompt, or a weaker one. The tracking lasted about 179 days on average.

3. 03

   What happened

   Tracking made people track far more often than the other groups did. Goals improved by a small to medium amount, and reporting progress or tracking in public helped more than tracking in private. Allowing for possible missing studies gave a much smaller gain, and the review found signs that some were missing.

What the review found

1. HelpedGoals

   Asking people to track their progress toward a goal helped them reach it more than the other group did.

   • Action: Track your progresstested

   Pooled analysis of 138 studies with 18,398 people · vs people who got no prompt, or a weaker one · ⚠ signs that small negative studies went unpublished; the studies disagreed a lot; whole programmes were tested, so no single part can be credited

2. HelpedOther outcomes

   Prompts to track progress made people track far more often than the other group did.

   • Action: Track your progresstested

   Pooled analysis of 138 studies with 19,951 people · vs people who got no prompt, or a weaker one · ⚠ signs that small negative studies went unpublished; results look too good to be true; the studies disagreed a lot; whole programmes were tested, so no single part can be credited

3. HelpedGoals

   Telling someone your progress, or tracking in public, helped reach goals more than tracking in private did.

   • Rule: Share your progress with someonetested
   • Action: Track your progressused

   Pooled analysis of 0 studies · vs people who tracked in private · ⚠ whole programmes were tested, so no single part can be credited

Source