In my professional life, I’m known for being a very data-driven person. I like to know if I’m getting results, and I don’t know how to be sure of that if you’re not clear on what you’re trying to achieve, how you’ll know when you get there, and how you can track progress along the way.
In the professional world, this makes lots of sense. In fact, over the last fifteen years, I’ve created dozens of logic models that help nonprofit organizations clearly identify what they are trying to achieve, how they think it happens, and metrics to help them know what success would look like, as well as reports to know what progress they are making along the way.
So when I read an article (which I would love to link here, but I read it long before I thought of writing this blog) that suggested tracking five key metrics to achieve your goals, I was really intrigued, and decided to try it. These five metrics are now in my daily bullet journal, and I do my best to record them every day.
Work is not life, though
As I mentioned, measuring results is something I’ve got lots of practice in through my work history. But I’ll admit, one thing I learned in doing this is how many people struggle with this concept. “You care about numbers, but I care about students,” is a thing I’ve heard many, many times over the years. I would have to keep reminding people that the “numbers” I was looking at represented the progress of students, and that data is just the aggregation of whatever individual stories are involved. “But these numbers are our students,” I would insist, doing my best to avoid replicating Mitt Romney’s “corporations are people” blunder.
So if we resist this kind of measurement in the workplace, it can feel especially gross in our personal lives. While I was preparing this post, I came across an article where the author (I’m not linking here because I don’t want to shame them) suggested that a great personal metric would be to measure the number of friends you have. I gotta admit, even for someone as in love with data as me, that one felt a little slimy.
Measuring what matters
But let’s take a step back, and take this idea apart. We’re all in the business (well, I am, that’s why I started this blog, and since you’re reading it, I’ll assume you are too, or at least are considering it!) of working to create a life that is more aligned with our values. That means we know we have something we’re striving for.
Do you know what your goal is? If not, start here, and don’t move on until you know what that goal is. It doesn’t have to be huge – you can start with something really simple. Let’s say you have a goal to exercise more (since like 90% of people want to do this, it’s probably a safe one to practice with).
Bam. Goal set.
The next step is to identify how you will know if you’re achieving this. You may or may not know exactly how much you exercise now, which is fine. You may say “I want to work out 3 days a week for 30 minutes each time” or “I’d like to get 150 minutes of moderate exercise per week,” something like that.
Bam. Metrics developed.
Now, all you have to do is track that. If it’s 150 minutes of exercise, maybe each day you see how much exercise you got that day, write it down, and add it to the previous total. At the end of the week you can then see clearly: did you get to 150 or not?
Bam bam. Measurement completed.
And if getting more exercise matters to you, and you’ve decided 150 minutes is how much “more” you will feel good about – well then, you know you’ve done what you set out to do.
But numbers feel gross!
One of the main concerns I’ve heard – one that I share – is that “not everything can be measured.” And if we were trying to conduct a scientific experiment that demonstrated impact, I might agree with that. But that’s not what we’re talking about here. You’re not going to write this up in an academic journal (are you? Cause that does seem weird), so we’ve got room to work with here.
In your real life, as you’re trying to act in accordance with your values, sometimes things just can’t be quantified. What if your goal isn’t “get more exercise” but “have a better relationship with your mom”? How do you set goals and measure that?
Well…you still follow the same basic process. You just have more squishy ways of getting at things, and since this is YOUR life, and YOUR goal, you do it in a way that’s meaningful to you.
So. Goal: Better relationship with mom.
How will you know if you’re achieving this? Maybe it’s fewer fights or maybe it’s talking more regularly or maybe it’s “I don’t feel so bad about myself when I hang up the phone.” Any of those can work and be the metric by which you will measure your improved relationship.
Then: you figure out how you will try to that, since you probably won’t have fewer fights just because you decided not to fight (though sometimes that does work). And then you start to do that, and track your metric–number of fights per call or number of calls per week or icky feeling on a 1-10 scale, and see how you make progress over time.
What if it doesn’t work?
Here’s the beautiful thing about this: if it doesn’t work, you will now have more information to approach the problem! If “it doesn’t work” means I didn’t hit my goal (I wanted to talk to my mom twice a week but I only did that once this month) then you can look back at the record and see if you can identify patterns. Did you not call her because you don’t have time to call until after the kids get to bed and by then she’s in bed? Maybe you need to try to call her on your drive to work, or maybe you can send her a Marco Polo message instead of calling.
If “it doesn’t work” means I did the thing I was supposed to do but still didn’t achieve my goal (we talk more frequently but that just means we fight more) then, maybe you’ve got the wrong metric, or the wrong strategy for achieving it. And if you achieved your goal but you still don’t feel right (I did my 150 minutes of exercise per week but I still don’t feel healthy) then maybe you had the wrong goal entirely.
My Five Personal Metrics
I chose five key metrics that track with the areas I most want to focus on improving. I came up with these a few months ago, and I record and track them every day in my bullet journal. If you compare them to my 2020 goals you’ll see that while they are generally aiming towards the same things, they’re not perfectly aligned, which is a problem – I’ll be revising the metrics in the coming weeks to make sure I’m tracking the things that matter most. Here’s how I did it (you’ll see that one of them is kind of a cheat):
Health
This is the measure I actually started focusing on first; I’ve been doing it for more than a year. You can tell that this is a really important area for improvement for me because I have two of five measures focused on it (including weight, below). I was really not healthy in 2019, or for a few years before that.
My health measure is where I cheat – it’s actually a composite of five other measures (represented by the letters in the journal). I consider a day a healthy day if I follow my keto diet; get at least 20 minutes of exercise that day; drink 64 oz of water; get 7 or more hours of sleep; and spend time nurturing my spirit. I circle each one I completed for that day; and then give myself a point for each one I did. So this is measured on a 0-5 scale.
I did it this way because I wanted to encourage myself to be as healthy as possible. Before I started counting this way, a single bad act – let’s say I fell off the wagon and had a Jimmy John’s beach club sandwich and chips for lunch—could derail me. I’d decide not to work out, keep pounding the diet dr. pepper’s, eat something a lot worse for dinner, and stay up too late (usually beating myself up for how unhealthy I was that day). This is a way to remind me that I can still have a pretty healthy day even if I mess up in one area.
Weight
This one’s pretty straightforward. While weight isn’t the same as health, they are related. And I am trying to lose weight. So I weigh myself every day and record the weight in my journal. (Please, God, don’t let me ever lose that journal!)
Job
This is important: this one is a qualitative measure. It’s about me making sure that every day I’m doing something that moves me concretely towards my professional goals. I usually try to lay out my job plans at the beginning of the week, and then review them each morning. So this becomes an assessment of whether I did the things I most needed or wanted to do that day. It’s okay to have measures like this! Not everything is a number. Sometimes I rate this on a 1-5 scale; other times I give myself a + or a check mark or a smiley or frowney face, sometimes it’s an angry dash if things didn’t go as planned. Sometimes it’s just blank. I just flipped back through the pages, and noticed a LOT of the job measures are blank. That’s a sign that I need to work a little harder at that one.
Credit
I’m trying to get a better handle on my spending, especially during Lent, as I had definitely gotten really into just buying whatever felt right at the time. So I decided to track my credit card balance every day. I don’t have a daily goal (that would be challenging because spending is lumpy) but I do know how much is my maximum spend per month, and I know about how much I spend per week on necessities. This one is probably my biggest win – since I have started tracking this I keep a MUCH better eye on how much I’m spending. Sweet!
Satisfaction
Again, this is a qualitative measure, and it’s just about my overall perception of whether my day was a good one. I usually rate it on a 1-5 scale. This is probably the one I will change when I review, because it’s not precise enough for me to find it useful.
So that’s how I do it. These are measures that I use daily to try to make sure I’m spending my time and energy on the things that take me closer to my goals. How would you approach this? Is there a goal you’d like to pursue that could be enhanced by tracking key metrics?