How does one measure their actions? How does one make it into a habit? These are two questions that everyone should ask.
I look at life in buckets. There is a social, financial, spiritual, professional, and personal buckets. Each area of your life has a particular importance, some more than others. To ensure that you’re operating at the level required to achieve your desired outcomes, you will need to record your effort.
Recording your progress does not have to be an insanely formatted ordeal. In fact, there’s a lot of benefit in keeping things casual like journaling. Keeping a simple routine of journaling experiences, ideas and results will keep you moving in the right direction.
However, for those who want to push themselves a bit harder, here are more formatted ideas:
Daily report. I have three ways that I do this, one is through a daily report that tracks my KPIs, one is a habit tracker, and the final are journaling sessions. The daily report is the most structure of the three and it has been influenced by a few people. One of the key inspirations for my current progress reporting system is Adora Cheung. She has two very informative videos on task/time management. I used a system of overarching goals, think current and long-term goals, and the tasks that need to be done to achieve them in more bitesize immediate items. I have the KPIs that are important, these are really # of LOIs, # of Deals, Revenue, Customers. In my daily report, I track all the calls I’ve made to prospects, financial institutions, advisors, networks, and much more. I keep track on personal goals: exercise, reading/learning. The objective is keep the pulse of each day and compare it to the tasks and the time allotted for each one.
The habit tracker is a simple excel sheet I have where my goal is to keep the chain connected. This is the Seinfeld Method. Each routine, exercise, diet, outbound calls, etc. are tracked in terms of consistent effort. The goal is to turn ideal routines and habits into actual habits.
Journaling. The most beneficial and simplest form of tracking is an unstructured journaling session. Here, I simply record my thoughts. I try not to judge anything to seriously and am really happy to have my ideas, experiences, accomplishes and challenges simply recorded on paper.
Weekly Progress Reports. This is daily reports aggregated with a few more questions. Here I’m really looking to see a) what I’ve accomplished, b) what were some challenges, c) what I would do differently, d) statistics on my KPIs and a section on the following week’s tasks.
Here’s my routine:
Journal session in the morning. I’m simply jotting ideas, thoughts, feeling and so forth on paper. I’m trying to ease my monkey mind.
Daily Reports. I review my daily report, the task items, the prioritization of them and the time schedule (deadlines, etc.). Here is where I track not only my accomplishments for the day and whether I achieved my goal within the time frame. I’m also journaling about the day. By end of day, I have tasks checked off, I have a journal of the accomplishments and setbacks, the effectiveness of work sessions, tracking of KPIs, and a harsh reality of the progress/effort made in the day.
Throughout the day I’m tracking my habits. Did I read today? If so, I check the box and write specifics about the reading session’s effectiveness. Did I exercise today? If not, why and how could I have fit that in my schedule?
Journaling evening session is where I tighty up my day, often these are bullet points and jot downs of ideas I’d like to have my mind think ponder while I sleep.
Lastly, the end of the week is when I aggregate the information above in digital format and send myself a copy of the week’s progress report. Here are some items of interest:
Who did I communicate with? How much time was spent speaking with X, Y and Z?
How many LOIs did I send, deals did I analyze, sellers did I speak to?
How much revenue did our demolition and construction business have? Which avenues? Customer acquisition costs? What to do differently or the same?…
How much exercise did I have? Did I reach my goal of three lifting sessions?
What did I eat? How much calories, protein, etc.
The idea is to track my progress. I’m perfectly fine with this structure, even though it can be very painful when you see not much was accomplished in a given day. However, even the simplest form of journaling can have tremendous benefits in your work, personal life and mentality. Everyone should have their own reporting system for their goals.