What gets tracked?

You’ve probably heard the phrase: what get’s tracked, gets managed. 

It reminds you of the fact that tracking and data are important. They inform decisions and help keep you on track. 

This same business rule applies to your life as well. 

If you want to make real and meaningful progress in an area, you’ve got to measure and track it. 

Keep notes on books you’ve read. 

Write down scripture verses you’re memorizing. 

Maintain a workout log.

Things are far more likely to improve when you take the time to track and measure your progress. 

Sadly, the opposite is true as well. The things you pay little attention don’t get better and often deteriorate. 

Systems

There is a difference between knowing what you want to do, and actually making yourself do it. 

What helps you move things from one category to the other?

The discipline to spend more time focusing on systems than thinking about goals. 

A system gives you a tangible method that requires regular—if not daily—activity. For example, writing a novel is a goal, but writing 500 words a day is a system. It’s the small daily habit and, not the grand idea, that wins the war. 

Goals are great in the short-term but systems win over the long haul by placing your focus where it should be—the process. 

The process doesn’t come with deadlines, and most days you won’t be able to immediately see your progress. But over-time they’ll get you where you always wanted to go.

Compound Interest

Growth, change, and progress always happens internally before it ever manifests in an external way. 

In fact, the distance between when real, true, systemic change takes place inside you, and when it becomes apparent to everyone else is gargantuan.

That’s how you get better though; winning one small internal battle at a time. 

Victories over donuts, laziness, and the snooze button may seem tiny and insignificant. And they are when taken individually. 

Things rarely happen in isolation though. 

Each win you secure over weakness in whatever form is a deposit in an account that’s accruing interest. 

Every time you say, “No,” to something you shouldn’t do, you make a deposit in the account. Those deposits are small at first, but blossom over time. 

Compound interest is a beautiful thing, and it doesn’t apply to bank accounts only. It applies to every area of your life. 

Invest in a handful of daily habits. Habits that seem small when taken in isolation, but yield massive results months, and years down the road.