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.
I’m thinking this: I use a general survey, and basically ask myself to rank how I did “yesterday” regarding the following initiatives.
To keep it from getting weird as initiatives come and go, I could have categories. For example, “Habit,” “Business,” “Personal”, etc. To keep it focused and prioritized, I could maybe even leave it at just 3. And sometimes they could be empty.
Finally, I could have a comment box where I note when one initiative is traded for another, just for posterity.
But this method would keep it focused, would allow me track progress over time, and would even give me a broad picture of how I’m generally doing, even when initiatives change.
I’ve been doing it and it has actually worked well. It keeps me moving forward even when things feel like they are stalling.