My daughter just bought a planner for 2019. One of its neatest features is the opportunities it provides to measure progress. For each month there is a Goal Tracker; you write your goal in the left column, and then color in the corresponding square for each day that you accomplish the goal. For many of us, there's something highly satisfying about filling in one square after another, and sometimes just knowing that we don't want to break a streak is enough to keep us going!
It also has a huge grid with one box for each day of the year so you can rate each day - a great day, a good day, a so-so day, a bad day, or a horrible day. This is a nice way to look for patterns and reflect; is it a certain day of the week or time of the month or time of the year when you have highs or lows? Did you have three difficult months, and what brought you out of your funk?
Tracking what we eat helps us consume more wisely. Tracking what we spend motivates us to buy less. Tracking our steps helps us take more of them. Tracking our sales calls ensures we make them. Tracking our mood helps us know ourselves better.
Peter Drucker famously said, "If you can’t measure it, you can’t improve it."
Want to accomplish something? Identify a way you can track it.
Photo by Andres Urena on Unsplash