Daily Metrics Tracking for Dummies

Mitch Bowler

— 3 min read

Life is far more fun when you turn the mundane, everyday tasks into a game. It's pretty simple... do the task, and get a ✅ checkmark. Get enough checkmarks and you get the reward.

Simple to say, and thankfully simple enough to do.

Here's how it works:

  • Select 1-5 daily actions to either Do or Not Do
  • Write them out on a sheet and create a grid with the daily actions on the left and the upcoming dates along the top. When writing the dates, include the first letter of the day of the week to make it easier to track.
  • Tape your sheet to your fridge so it's somewhere you won't forget about it
  • Now just take action and track your progress

Example Daily Actions

If you can

  • Do some exercise
  • Get outside for a walk
  • Read X pages in a book
  • Write your journal
  • Drink 2L of water
  • No alcohol
  • No smoking
  • Get to bed on time
  • No sweets
  • No chips
  • Studying for X amount of time

How Long to Track

Default thinking seems to go to 4 weeks or one month, however I recommend doing 3 weeks as your cutoff point.

Why just 3 weeks and not 4?
I've always struggled at the 3-week point. For whatever reason that 4th week just seems to be a struggle so what I do now is go for 3 weeks, then assess my plan if I want to continue with it, or modify it.

3 Weeks feels like the perfect amount of time, almost like a check-in point where you get to adjust and move forward. If your actions were too tough you can modify down, or if you need to focus on something different you can do that as well. It's also long enough to be a challenge, but short enough that if it's tough you can probably get through to the end, win your reward, and adjust for the next cycle.

Example Rewards

Feel free to get creative with the rewards, especially if they are in alignment with what you are trying to achieve in your life. For example... if you're trying to get fit and daily running is a goal of yours, you would set a reward of 'Run a Marathon in Hawaii' or something crazy like that so everything is in alignment and even though you're technically spending money (which one of your goals may be to save money) when it's in alignment you will start shifting your life priorities to be in alignment.

The rewards can be big or small, but they are important as they give you something to feel like you are working towards and that you earned by showing up to do the work every day.

  • Buying a new piece of tech or clothing
  • Taking trip somewhere
  • Eating a meal at your favorite restaurant
  • Treating yourself to a massage or spa day
  • Concert tickets
  • Buying a book

What to do When You Fail

Don't sweat it - just make the next day the one where you get back onto the goal.

If you fail to win your reward, that's alright as well. You can run the same three-week plan again and see how you do next time, or you could modify your daily actions to be more manageable.

The thing to remember and celebrate is the progress you are making. For example... let's say you have a health goal and you've been managing to get to the gym every day, but because life is hectic at the moment you haven't been able to stick to your daily goal of eating healthy and because of this your weight hasn't changed at all.

DO NOT SWEAT THIS!

Celebrate the fact that you made it to the gym and just keep going. If eating healthy every day is too much, try dropping it down to once per week for the next cycle and then build from there. When you just keep making tweaks and improvements to the plan, eventually you'll hit the recipe that fits you right where you're at AND because you've been making progress in other areas those actions will eventually start to show up in your life.

Modifications

Penalties for not taking action
You could assign a cash penalty to any actions not completed daily. This makes not taking action have an extra sting AND it can also help you meet financial goals if saving money is another area you're working on. I like using physical cash for this, taking an empty Pringles Can, taping the lid shut, and then depositing each day as I track my results.

Here are some penalty examples:

  • $1 for every cigarette smoked (when trying to stop smoking)
  • $5 for missing a tutoring session (when learning something new)
  • $1 for staying up too late (when working on a sleep schedule)

Keep your penalty cash reserve going for as long as you want and then use that money in some way to enrich your life. When I've done this in the past we had enough money to take a trip, start making investments, buy a new camera to capture family moments... there are all kinds of ways you can use this creatively so even though it's a 'penalty' in the end you still win.

Using a Digital Tracker
I like paper and pen taped to the fridge because it's in my face and I can't ignore it, but for the true metrics nerds out there, you could duplicate or track digitally which would allow you to have all kinds of ways to work with that data.

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