How do you know if the changes are working?

Today’s newsletter has a topic that’s been helpful to me in focusing in on the activities and processes that have given me improvements - something that can be hard to do if it’s not easily quantifiable.

I’ve got a fairly easy way to work this into your routine so that you can see the same benefits without having to recreate the wheel. Let’s go.

Why Would We Track?

I’d like to start out by saying it’s not feasible to track everything that you do or make changes to.

Sometimes you just need to make a change and get a feel for how it works - if it’s better, worse, or just different.

I certainly don’t track every little thing that I do, and it would probably be a huge waste of time as the little things add up - sometimes it’s more important to say “no” or take things away in order to be more productive.

However, I do believe that tracking the outcome or output of bigger changes can have a meaningful impact and I’m not just talking about dollars or hours.

For example, if you at some point implemented a weekly review, it’s unlikely that you can tie a dollar amount to the benefits while at the same time it’s been highly beneficial, right?

Let’s look at some ways we can track or review changes in a way that won’t drive us insane!

This Week’s Favorite

Tracking Changes

One of the best ways that you can track changes is by having a regular review habit.

This could be weekly, monthly, quarterly, whatever works for you.

I find that the time scale of a weekly review helps as it can be harder to remember what happened 3 months ago or the benefits of a change over 90+ days. That said, something is better than nothing, and we can use the idea of “habit stacking” to add on to your existing review. If it’s quarterly, so be it.

Try adding in a prompt along the lines of:

• “What’s working well - and why?” or,

• “What have I tried changing recently - has it improved my life”? or,

• “What things have I done recently that are adding to my productivity?”

You get two benefits from doing this:

1. You get to find out what’s working well

2. By focusing on the positive you’ll incorporate some gratitude into your reflections

It’s well known the benefits of thinking about things your positive about or grateful for - if you’re worried you’ll “miss” the things that aren’t working, don’t worry too much about it. It should be very obvious what you’re not mentioning in when answering these questions and you can consider reverting back or removing them.

I have one of these questions at the start of my weekly review and it’s helped identify what’s working well so that I can either expand it, replicate it, or otherwise benefit further.

The items that don’t make that list eventually get some scrutiny - and maybe head for the chopping block.

One quick question 👋

I love hearing from readers, and I’m always happy to hear feedback from active subscribers. How am I doing with the Productivity Academy newsletter? Is there any content you’d like to see more or less of? Which parts of the newsletter (or articles, or podcast) do you enjoy the most?

Hit reply and say hello, happy to hear from you!

P.S. Looking for resources to improve your productivity? Check out the tools I use right here.