What Gets Measured, Gets Managed

“What gets measured, gets managed.” – Peter Drucker

There is so much power in this quote. If you’ve never tracked yourself, you don’t even know how much power there is in tracking. I couldn’t even explain it adequately. You wouldn’t believe me. You’d think I was exaggerating. The simple act of paying attention to something will cause you to make connections you never did before, and you’ll improve the those areas – almost without any extra effort.

I’m not a believer in “free lunch” and I don’t think the universe vibrates things to you just by thinking about them. But the closest thing to a free lunch getting vibrated to you by the universe is writing things down as they happen.

Before I go any further, I need to give you one piece of advice – start small and build up, so you don’t overwhelm yourself. This is just being pragmatic. You want to scale up gradually, as I wrote up in “The Evolution of My Time/Habit/Life Tracking.” You want to build small wins, lock them so they become automatic, and then expand.

I’d have a hard time convincing you of the power of tracking, so I’ll just show you. I fill this out every single day.

My Current Daily Tracking Template:

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START OF DAY ROUTINE:
Time awake:
Total sleep:
Vitamin C and Fish oil:
Stretching:
Situps:
Exercise (walk/run/other):
Brush/floss:
Listen to audio:
Food:
Breathe:
Borderlands:
Calendar, anything interesting/time sensitive?
What is my most key objective for the day?
Planning:
Pray before meals:
——————————————-
REMEMBER:
*Intelligent internet usage
*Be decisive. Look at it once, make a decision, done.
*Stop and reflect periodically
——————————————-
PEOPLE:
Blog post:
New People:
Current people:
Help someone:
Consorting:
Emails in box, start:
Emails in box, finish (and – why they there?):
——————————————-
TIME TRACKING:

——————————————-
CHALLENGES:
Did I start the day in my planner instead of online?
Did I only check email when I was ready to write back immediately?
Did I clear my active to do list before any screwing around?
Did I avoid getting into arguments with idiots online?
Did I only check a site once, then done with it?
Did I prioritize books/good learning instead of mindless surfing?
Did I avoid sugary food?
——————————————-
END OF DAY:
What are my key life goals? Spend 5 minutes on this.
Expenses for the day (estimate)?
Cash gotten or worked towards today:
What did I do right to move me towards my goals?
What would I do differently if I had the day to live over?
Plan tomorrow:
Make a request of my subconscious:
Set alarm:

Note before going further: I don’t recommend you start with a whole big thing like that. Start much smaller and scale up, as written in the evolution post.

Okay, that’s my version 4 tracking template. I wrote in the Evolution post about versions 1-3. This one’s a little more experimental – I streamlined and eliminated a few things, moved them around, and I added “pray before meals” and “make a request of my subconscious” – I should explain those two for people paying attention to me. When I say pray before meals, it’s a very secular sort of praying, I don’t belong to an organized religion. I just think about all the people who farmed, harvested, shipped, prepared, and either served or stocked/sold whatever I’m about to eat. It helps me connect with people a little and be grateful and makes me happy. Second, “make a request of my subconscious” – I’m not into mumbo-jumbo, but I heard Thomas Jefferson did something like that. Really what it means is “think of something I want to do tomorrow as I fall asleep.” Everything else in there is self-explanatory or was explained in the Evolution post.

I also jot down the results every week (I use “week” very loosely, sometimes it’s 5 days or 9 days, depending on what’s going on). For instance:

Weekly review: 28 August to 5 September (9 days)

Basic Health:
How many days this week did I take a vitamin? 9/9
How many days this week did I stretch? 9/9
How many days this week did I exercise? 4/9
How many days this week did I do situps? 6/9
How many days this week did I sleep eight hours or less? 1/9 – damn, that’s bad.
What was my hours per sleep on average this week? 8.9 hours per night. 80 hours/9 days = 8.9 hours per night. 9, 9, 11, 7.5, 10.5, 9.5, 9.5, 7.5, 6.5
How many days did I brush/floss this week? 7/9 and 4/9
What was my diet like this week? It was okay – high in carbs, but that’s okay. I ate pizza, but still had high energy levels/felt good afterwards. I had a slightly sugary drink and popcorn one day, and felt bad after that. Ate some chicken/rice/duck/rice type meals a few times which were good. Next week I’d like to incorporate more vegetables.
How many times did I eat sweets this week? Physical sweets, zero. Slightly sugar drinks, 1 or 2.

Look where I wrote “How many days this week did I sleep eight hours or less? 1/9 – damn, that’s bad.” As you can see, just by tracking I realize what’s wrong. I was sleeping more than I want to this week, and I also had lower productivity and energy. Honestly, oversleeping seems to drain me. Just by writing this down, I notice that and adjust.

I realized a while back that I wanted to actively pay attention to how often I help someone. How much I reach out to people, give advice, do little nice things, take care of people, help them make money, help them do strategy, things like that. In July, I decided to track it. I added to my weekly review, “How many times did I help someone this week?” Observe how tracking it changes things.

Review of four days: 6 July to 9 July (done on 10 July) – How many times did I help someone this week? Once online, maybe. Offered a few more times.

Weekly review 10 July to 17 July (8 days) – How many times did I help someone this week? Track in checklists [ie, I wasn't tracking it daily, so I added it to my daily checklist after the end of that week]

Weekly review 18 July to 26 July (8 days) – How many times did I help someone this week? At least 6, maybe more.

Weekly review: 27 July to 5 August (10 days) – How many times did I help someone this week? Hmm… 2 or 3?

Weekly review: 6 August to 13 August (8 days) – How many times did I help someone this week? 3: Chase with writing, Chris with a few little things, David with business

Weekly review: 14 August to 20 August (7 days) – How many times did I help someone this week? 7

Weekly review: 21 August to 27 August (7 days) – How many times did I help someone this week? 7 :)

I knew I wanted to help at least one person per day, and you see it go from “I don’t know” to six the first week I start tracking it, then it settles in around 3 for a little while, now it’s back to 7. Just noticing it and trying to work on, I look for opportunities to reach out to people that are doing something in an area I’m experienced. I also write all over the place, “Drop me a line, I’m friendly” and try to get back with people promptly (note – massive email surge from a couple days ago, but I’ll get the inbox to 0 shortly, and thank you for writing me. New emails are always welcome as well).

Please don’t mistake for an altruist, though. Oh, not at all. I figure doing good and right by people is necessary for the kind of life I want and the kind of world I want to live in, and actively doing right everywhere you go means you walk into any room and feel like you belong there. Honestly, I help people as much for myself as for the world.

Want to see the evolution of how I’m quitting sugar? These are direct from my notes unedited:

Review of four days: 6 July to 9 July (done on 10 July) – How many times did I eat sweets this week? 5 solid, 2 sugary drinks times, pretty bad stuff. Three were in transit – on the train, in the airport, and on the airplane. The fourth was ordering an ice cream at McDonald’s for God knows why… just a blatant mistake there. Also had an ice tea at McDonalds, damn those sugary drinks. Maybe iced coffee instead if I go back there? Also bought a sweet on the streets for no good reason just because I was a little hungry, which was no good. I suppose I just need to be aware of it and reduce it.

Weekly review 10 July to 17 July (8 days) – How many times did I eat sweets this week? Maybe six?

Weekly review 18 July to 26 July (8 days) – How many times did I eat sweets this week? Wasn’t tracking this, but maybe 5 to 8? Which is really too much, no good.

Weekly review: 27 July to 5 August (10 days) – How many times did I eat sweets this week? Zero, maybe? Wow! Maybe once or twice, but yeah, not much. Doing well here.

Weekly review: 6 August to 13 August (8 days) – How many times did I eat sweets this week? 0 I think?

Weekly review: 14 August to 20 August (7 days) – How many times did I eat sweets this week? Zero? Awesome. I’m starting to turn sweets down automatically.

Weekly review: 21 August to 27 August (7 days) – How many times did I eat sweets this week? 1

I slid backwards a little bit and had two semi-sweet drinks this week. The Vietnamese like to put sugar in all kinds of things that don’t normally have it, and twice I finished the drink (a coffee and kiwi juice, respectively). But as you can see, just the act of writing it down makes me aware of it, and the sugar is fading away.

Want to see the brutality that is my (not) getting of cash lately?

Review of four days: 6 July to 9 July (done on 10 July)
How many hours did I put into getting cash this week? 0
How much active cash did I get this week? 0
How much passive cash did I get this week? 0

Weekly review 10 July to 17 July (8 days)
How many hours did I put into getting cash this week? Four or five
How much active cash did I get this week? 0
How much passive cash did I get this week? 0

Weekly review 18 July to 26 July (8 days)
How many hours did I put into getting cash this week? Directly, zero. Indirectly, 10-20.
How much active cash did I get this week? Zero.
How much passive cash did I get this week? Zero.

Weekly review: 27 July to 5 August (10 days)
How many hours did I put into getting cash this week? Talking with [company] to get them onboard, 2-3 hours. That’s cash. Rest of time was indirect.
How much active cash did I get this week? 0
How much passive cash did I get this week? 0

Weekly review: 6 August to 13 August (8 days)
How many hours did I put into getting cash this week? 0 directly, 3-5 hours indirectly
How much active cash did I get this week? 0
How much passive cash did I get this week? 0

Weekly review: 14 August to 20 August (7 days)
How many hours did I put into getting cash this week? 0 directly, a fair bit indirectly
How much active cash did I get this week? 0
How much passive cash did I get this week? 0

Weekly review: 21 August to 27 August (7 days)
How many hours did I put into getting cash this week? 0 directly
How much active cash did I get this week? 0
How much passive cash did I get this week? 0

Forcing yourself to write down areas where you’re not taking action and want to be lights a fire under your ass. This week I’m going out to get some cash. But I don’t lie to myself, I’m not getting cash, and I mark it down every single week. I’ve got to not spend, keep an eye on bank balance. Also, I already wrote down and publicly committed to my financial goals in “Mark This Down and Watch Me.”

Now, I’m not sitting on my duff this whole time. I’m building things, working on other projects, writing fairly prolifically here at the blog, and building up my next company. But just being forced to write down those 0′s every weekly review is sobering. I’m not getting done something that needs to be getting done, and I’m forced to be aware of it.

How about if you know you want to start a new goal, but aren’t sure exactly how to go about it?

Interestingly enough, you can add something to your weekly tracking and then just write down at the end of the week you weren’t tracking it – that means you’ll naturally consider tracking it the next week.

For instance, I knew I wanted to track my budget, but it wasn’t happening. So I added it to the weekly review, even though I hadn’t really started tracking it daily:

Review of four days: 6 July to 9 July (done on 10 July) – What’d I spend this week? Not sure, pretty low.

Weekly review 10 July to 17 July (8 days) – What’d I spend this week? Figure out expenses

Weekly review 18 July to 26 July (8 days) – Total: room $144 ($18/day), food $46, coffee $19, groceries $31, transit $2
-> I also bought vitamins for $66, but that’s a long term expense over the next two months, not an expense for just this week.

Total spent: $223 for this week specifically, $27 per day.

I wrote about my observations from this on “My Spending Over the Last 8 Days.”

The amazing thing about tracking spending is it naturally goes down. Having a coffee now and then in Hong Kong was costing me $19/week, whereas instant coffee costs almost nothing. But don’t think I’m depriving myself – I realized I wasn’t getting a massage when I was thinking about my spending for the next week. All instant coffee + getting a massage for health is much better than cafe coffee + no massage.

Unsurprisingly, my biggest expense was lodging/accommodation. But interestingly enough, the gears started turning in my head now that I’m writing those numbers down each week. I thought – “How could I get this down?” I came up with a rough idea. I’d see if I could be someone’s guest, and then spend about half of what I would spend on lodging on gifts, dinners, things of that nature, and lend my talents to their cause. I’m fairly skilled in a few disciplines, and I’m happy to put my talents to use for whoever is hosting me.

I joined Couchsurfing, but I haven’t used it yet. When I updated everyone that I was visiting Vietnam, my friend who lives here said I could stay with him as he has an empty guestroom. I planned to stay a short time before moving on, but it turns out we had a blast, and after the first week he said “stay as long as you like – seriously, as long as you like Sebastian” – which is very gracious and cool of him. I make a concerted effort to pick up the check for dinners when we’re out and otherwise aim to spend at least half or more of what I’d spend on lodging towards doing nice things. Then I spend 5-10 hours per week doing general strategy, teaching him on the topics I’m an expert on, spec’ing out a plan for him if he wants to do more creative work going forwards. I introduced him to a few people I know in business. I also run errands and stock his home with bread from this hybrid French-Korean bakery nearby. (It’s a French bakery run by Koreans, so it has French bread, Korean-ish bread, and Vietnamese bread. Strange but good)

As an aside, he’s quite talented as a manager and an executive, so we really had a blast talking on different topics, talking about politics and governance. He shared quite a few amazing stories about management and business, I shared on my expertise, and it’s been a very virtuous good cycle. He’s actually back in the States now and said I’m welcome to house-sit for him, which was very very cool and very appreciated.

This all cuts my expenses/burn rate down, which is good when I’m working on speculative endeavors and don’t have cash coming in. I’ve got all the marketing and market research and product/service mix for my next company done, but we’ll see if the market is really there. (It’s business to business, so step one will be getting in front of someone who has budget authorization, and step two will be demonstrating the ROI… I see the ROI pretty clearly, but can I communicate it? We’ll see)

This all got noticed by me tracking my spending. I also notice if I’m paying twice as much at one restaurant as another, but the twice-as-expensive one isn’t any better… whoops, time to change. You wouldn’t normally notice the difference between a $3 decent meal and a $6 decent meal, but when they’re written down right next to each other, it makes you think – is the food better at the $6 place? No? Why don’t I just always go to the $3 place? And so, I do. What gets measured, gets managed.

Tracking general time is simple, easy, and effective. I just occasionally write down what I’m doing or what I finished. It takes seconds, and I’m not fanatical about it – just whenever I notice or right before going out.

For instance, here’s today:

——————————————-
TIME TRACKING:

3:20PM: Spend first 35 minutes expanding Reach site.

4:30PM: Did my morning routine, then did my weekly review.

4:35PM: What important now? Perhaps analysis.

5:20PM: Getting off analysis, going to email to clear out.

6:10PM: Answered almost all of my blog comments, reached out to two people.

7:40PM: Inbox down to 31. All blog comments answered. Now what should I do? Options: Go for a run and get food, answer more emails, work on Reach, work on a blog post.

12:45AM: Ran, massage, ate food from 9:30 to now (3 hours total). What now? Blog post.

——————————————-

(that happens to be the blog post you’re reading)

Just tracking time means you’ll spend it better. Here’s some excerpts from a day that’s so-so:

2 September

4PM: Going for a run, will re-plan when I get back. Rest of the day – I want to clear my email out, finish the Reach stuff for today, and do some planning for the next week.

7:50PM: Went for a run, had a nice slow meal, bought some bread, came home, showered, did situps and pushups, unfortunately surfed the net a bit too much… what now?

3:30AM: Okay, I spent 3-4 hours tuning up my blog, which is time well spent. I also screwed around a lot unfortunately.

Writing down when things go wrong/get off track helps you notice when and why it happens.

So, this obviously helps with personal goals and personal life. All these examples are just over the last three months. Incremental
trending upwards. But it works for business and other projects.

For instance, I pay attention to who is talking about and linking to me, so I can thank them, connect with them more, and write on the topics that suit them:

You can set this up easily, for free, at Google Alerts.

I also use analytics tracking to see what’s going on, and I check in with that daily. It’s fun, it’s like leveling up in a video game, except it’s the real world. But I’ll talk more about analytics in the next day or two, I want to do a full dedicated post to it.

In the meantime, remember – what gets measured, gets managed. If you want to improve an area, start paying attention to it. Even if you’re just writing down how you’re getting brutalized in that area or being undisciplined, that should help inspire you to move forwards. Even if you’re just writing down casually, you might notice things like how much you’re really spending on coffee, and how you’d prefer to go instant coffee and spend that money on a massage. It’s especially good for making sure you do little tedious things, like stretch and floss and take vitamins.

If you want to get started, I recommend you start small. Your tracking system should serve you, you don’t serve it. Too many people jump in gung-ho, try to do something monstrous, and burn out and stop doing it.

Don’t let that be you. Start with a small, easily manageable amount, and build up. More detailed guidelines are at “The Evolution of My Time/Habit/Life Tracking.”

Also, if you’re going to start tracking, why not make a public commitment to do it for a set amount of time, like a week or a month? Please feel very welcome to share with us in the comments. Questions and feedback are welcome as well – let the discussion continue below in the comments.

Edit: Well, hello, Lifehacker crowd! Wow, this is pretty thrilling, the people who hang out at Lifehacker are exactly the kind of people I’m very happy to have come hang out here some :) Big thanks to Ryan Waggoner for the reference, he and I have been connecting a bit via email and he seems like truly a good guy.

If it’s your first visit, you might consider the SebastianMarshall.com best of. Of course, “The Evolution of My Time/Habit/Life Tracking” is very relevant… and if you want one that’s relevant that maybe you haven’t thought about before, consider trying out “Whose on Your War Counsel?” Thanks for dropping by, please feel free to comment on any page (I read all comments and to reply to most), or drop a line by email to have a chat sometime. Best wishes and glad you’re onboard.