I just happened to read my post about how a weight training system helped me quite a bit and then mused that I should have something similar for improvements in my business and personally. Then I read the following post which had more ideas about what I could put together.
And those were both way back in 2020 and I haven’t done anything yet.
Well, while I was reading I had some ideas. What if I put together some sort of end-of-day (or maybe start-of-day?) ranking system that lists all of my current initiatives and then I rate myself on how I’m doing on them.
Perhaps weekly, I could remove things that are no longer important initiatives.
And that’s it, that would be the system.
Why would this work?
First, it would keep things very simple. I don’t like the idea of a clumsy, complicated system that’s a lot of work to manage.
But what would make it effective would be the following:
- It would keep all important initiatives top-of-mind
- It would help me track how they are going over time
- It would motivate me to actually make progress so that I can put good numbers down
The last one is probably the most important. This has worked with my daily survey I fill out personally, because every time I put down bad numbers I feel guilty or ashamed, and every time I put down good numbers I feel accomplished.
It motivates me to get those good numbers.
So what would I put on this list?
It would be things like new habits I’m trying to develop, long-term efforts like trying to find and purchase other website hosting companies or setting up my fine art photography website, and possibly short-term projects as well.
The more I think about it, the more I think that the perfect time to respond to this daily questionnaire would be when I’m putting together my to-do list for the day. This happens almost every single day, usually late in the morning.
I think I would phrase the question like, “How do you think you performed yesterday with regard to the following projects:” and then it would list each of them on a 1-10 scale.
If I didn’t do any work at all on a project, that’s a 1. If I did minimal, maybe higher.
Or for a habit, if I failed at it completely, that’s a 1. I suppose if I did it but it wasn’t great, that’s a… 5 or 6. If it was fully engrained and went perfectly, that’s a 10.
I think this could actually work quite nicely. I just need to decide how I want to do it. I use Google forms for my other questionnaire but I don’t love it. It could get a little weird over time as I’m adding and removing initiatives, too.
But, I think it’s worth a shot at least to start. I’ll make a note to start it up in a couple weeks when I’m back from Mendoza and we’ll see how it goes.