You Can’t Improve What You Don’t Measure

You can't improve what you don't measure.

I actually thought of developing this topic after reading the No 12th thing @CrazyRichFilipina learnt last year, and also because I agree with her.

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A lot of people say they want to hold themselves to a higher standard, but very few actually measure their progress. Progress is hard. It's a simple fact that you can't improve what you don't measure.

What results do you want to see? Whether it's more daily exercise, eating a healthier diet, reading more books, meditating, or anything else that gets you up and moving forward, measuring these goals will ensure you identify ways to make progress.

After a while some of your changes will naturally start showing up in your everyday life. The moment you start logging them will be the moment you can begin improving.

Tracking progress is the best way to ensure you’re moving in the right direction.

If you’re not tracking your progress, you might as well be driving in circles. When you can see how things are going, you can steer yourself onto a better path. The only way to see how much you’ve improved is to track your progress over time. Measure your results to double your success rates.

If you're like most people, you probably want to improve yourself in some way. Whether it's a new job, a new hobby, or even something as simple as eating healthier, we all want to be better.But what if you can't even tell if you're improving? This is the situation most people find themselves in. How do we know how much healthier we are? How do we know how diligent we are about our new hobby? How do we know if we're making any progress at all?

The problem is we don't measure ourselves. And the way to change is by using the right measurement.

We all have our number one focus item in life. But, what if you have more than one? How do you know which one is most important? And how do you focus on the things that matter for what you want, instead of falling victim to the whims and distractions of life.

The answer is simple: you measure and track them.

Don’t measure efforts. I'm sure we've all heard someone say this at some point in our lives, and while they weren't wrong, they may have been oversimplifying things. Just like measuring only your weight can create a misleading picture of your health, measuring only your effort can result in disappointment or frustration. When it comes to achieving goals, it's important to measure both your progress and your effort so that you can see how you're doing. Let's say you want to lose five pounds and you go about it by cutting out all junk food from your diet. You succeeded! It was difficult at first, but after two days the cravings stopped and now you're eating healthy without even thinking about it. So far so good! But then you step on the scale and see that you did not lose five pounds. You lost one pound.

The easiest way to keep your goals is to measure progress, not effort. Technology has made this easier for use to measure our progress. Apps likes Progress Bar can help you track your successes and keep you accountable. At the beginning of each week or month, choose a goal. You can even choose a combination of goals — weight loss, working out, reading more books are all great examples. Then, each day, you'll see your goal will be marked with a bar on the Progress Bar. Progress Bars appears on your daily dashboard if you have goals for the day and if you didn't mark anything for that day. If you don't like looking at the progress bars, you can make them only appear when you open your dashboard so you can check your progress without being bothered. You can also edit your goals anytime and check out the previous progress.

We’re all so busy in life that sometimes it’s easy to get lost in the daily grind and lose sight of our goals and dreams. In order to stay focused and on track, it’s important to have a way to measure your progress. What are you doing right now to make sure your goals are on target? If you’re feeling like you’re spinning your wheels, consider these suggestions. Don’t judge yourself by what you have achieved, but by what you’ve overcome. Don’t be afraid to take the road less travelled; sometimes the best way is not always a straight line.

“You are not here just to live, but to have something to live for”.