How fast, how far, how long? How long have you been practicing a specific initiative? Or, which week of it are you in?
Are you really in touch with those aspects of your life, or just flowing along with whatever the day brings? If you’re not DATA LOGGING your efforts and endeavors, you’re not dialing in to a key tool for achievement and focus that lets you Eclipse the Competition.
Athletes have an amazing tool at their disposal for this. It’s the app called Training Peaks (www.trainingpeaks.com). Training Peaks logs athletic efforts session by session and calculates your form, fatigue, and stress. It helps you adjust training load and make detailed notations on what worked and what didn’t. It also permits you to plan, or even, to load multi-week, pre-created plans over and over again for successive seasons or races. It’s a great tool for understanding progress and creating a higher level of performance.
Professionals have no such thing for growth and development, much as I wish we did. And, most planning and project management apps (and I’ve worked with many that are out there) don’t have that bird’s-eye overview of progressive training. They’re focused on you getting the project done, rather than YOUR skill and achievement development.
So -- we have to get clever here. This data sheet method is a simple way of tracking performance over time. (If you also wanted to build in a planning aspect, you could do that too, but we'll focus on the tracking here.)
5 Ways Keeping A Logbook Gives You An Edge
First, realize that data logging gives you an edge. Here are 5 reasons why:
Keeping a log gives you actual, quantified information on your stats over time, rather than the featureless flow of the everyday. If you’re working a new performance initiative, such as organizing your work so you get home on time, keeping a log can give you insights on when you succeed and when you slip up.
It gives you a way to dial in each morning and refresh yourself on your goals. Each morning, open your log and fill in details of the day before. This is a great check-in and also reminds you of the things you’re wanting to achieve.
It lets you know how long you’ve REALLY been working on that intention. These stats may surprise you! Have you been meaning to get on that desire to practice public speaking for a week? Two weeks? Oh man, has it really been a month and you only tried twice?!
You can see your progress. The longer you maintain your log, the more you can refer to whether you struggled or succeeded with similar efforts in the past. It’s really exciting when you complete your first YEAR of a logbook and can see how things changed and grew for you, and where you were last year at this time.
An Easy Way To Data Log
As a UI/UX designer, I know that it’s got to be EASY TO USE, or it won’t fly. It’s also got to become a HABIT TO DO, or it will fall by wayside. Here’s how to build in both aspects with things you already have.
Make it easy to use.
Use Google sheets or Excel. (If you're a data person you've probably also got some other fun stuff you can use.)
Set up a simple spreadsheet that is easy to access from your usual device (laptop, desktop, tablet, etc.).
Pin its Bookmark to the top center of your browser’s Bookmarks Toolbar so it’s RIGHT THERE.
Create the following headers: Date, Day of Week, and then columns for whatever you want to track. For instance: Speaking Mindset, Strength Building (strength as in willpower), Avoiding Distraction.
You will use one row for each day. Columns, which stretch off to the right, can be as many as you like.
Each morning, fill in the next row with notes referencing the previous day and/or current day (depending on the field).
See the example below:
Figure 1. Example of Data Log.
Make it a habit. Next, make it a habit by tying it in to something you already do.
Such as, when you make your morning coffee.
Sit down and while sipping coffee...
Open your browser.
Open that bookmark that you’ve set as being RIGHT THERE.
Fill out your data sheet from left to right.
This soon becomes a regular habit as well as a daily fascination with watching your stats grow and grow.
What to Log?
Log whatever you want to follow over time about your day and performance. I have variously used (and still use) columns that track:
Sleep performance and how it impacted my day.
Which initiative I wanted to focus on for the week.
Brief recounting of everything I got done in the day.
Projects that changed by week, ex., week’s intention.
Foods I ate and how these impacted my focus and alertness.
Sequential tracking, just add a number to the field each day you log (ex. “Being more decisive 5”, “Being more decisive 6”, etc. as I add successive days of practicing greater decisiveness).
You can also use a number ranking for items such as:
How much struggle was in your day 1-10? Or, how much smoothness and FLOW -5 to 5?
How quickly were you able to relax and restore your energy?
How much success did you have that day at your current initiative?
It's very effective to observe your numbers and the flow of change and growth over time. And as you add more ideas, you simply add additional columns. This solution grows as you do.
Data logging gives you realtime results that anchor your efforts in time and space. This gives you an edge over everyone who's just "living the flow of the everyday".
Use your data log to give you daily insights. How long have you been practicing mindfulness? 10 days, 30 days, 90 days? How has this made your performance or focus better? Or, when did you last have a big presentation like the one coming up? How nervous were you then? How do you feel now? Now you really know. "How long" data is always surprising and motivating. Surprising, because it's usually much longer than you thought - memory has poor time sense, whereas data tells you it's really been 40 days. And, being able to perceive your progress is a huge motivator.
Data logging gives you realtime results that anchor your efforts in time and space. This gives you an edge over everyone who's just "living the flow of the everyday". Give it a try!
What will you start tracking in your data log today?
Keep Growing,
Katherine Lieber coaches and trains on self-leadership, limitlessness, energy health, inner power, and healing the wounded professional to recover core vision, joy, and high-powered performance in the workplace. She is the founder of TitaniumBlue Leadership. Be limitless - be the hero in a world that needs you.
© 2019 Katherine R. Lieber & TitaniumBlue Leadership
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