The Importance Of Measuring Metrics

Looking at a wide range of metrics on a certain area can show where you may be lacking in that area. For example, pulse rate and how many miles you can run/hour, if your pulse rate is high but you can run lots of miles in an hour, then you are probably pushing your body too quickly and hard. If you measure revenue and profit in your business, you may have a good month of profit but revenue may be exceptionally high even for that month and then the statistic of profit is irrelevant as you’ve lost efficiency somewhere.

Doing an initial metric analysis in an area of your life can help you set achievable goals as it shows where you are at the moment, it can also be a big motivator if you are lacking alot in a certain area but see improvement through metrics. Correlating 2 statistics eg. time spent writing on a blog (x-axis) income/hits on the blog (y-axis)can become a huge motivator when measured over a long period of time. It shows the undeniable benefits as the graph creeps towards the top right hand corner. If it doesn’t do so, then you know you have to improve something.

If you want to engulf an area of your life in statistics and measurements then you should not be measuring just one thing. As in the profit example above, they can give a false outlook. When you measure several things, you get a better view of the reality of the situation.

We are not driven just by logic. If we all followed pure logic then we’d be forever rationalising and intuition and gut feeling would be pointless. It’s popular to ignore your emotions, bottle them up, but they are a sign that something that you’re doing is incorrect, so don’t attempt to constantly rationalise them. In the gym example, if you have good statistics but you feel awful everyday you workout then obviously something is wrong, you can feel this emotionally. Or you may have an extremely successful business but if it comes at a cost you’re not willing to pay, your emotions will tell you that.

What goals are you working towards at the moment? Pick an area of your life and start measuring it from all angles. Try things to see what improves your statistics, if it works keep doing it, if not, go on to something else.

• Fitness – Start measuring your time spent at the gym weekly in correlation with your weight loss/muscle gain. If you go running, measure how fast you run, how your speed/mile changes over time and how it affects your appetite.
• Diet – If you eat a mainly meat diet and try a vegetarian.vegan diet for a month then correlate it with how your energy feels at certain points during the day.
• Business – Measure profit, revenue, new customers bought in each month, compare to competitors in your market, measure employee/customer satisfaction. This one REALLY has to be attacked from all possible angles.
• University Work – compare time spend studying using various techniques to exam results. Then you can just use the techniques that were effective next time.
• Job – Measure how much you get done each day of the week and each time of day that you would class “productive work”. Then you will find patterns and can schedule your most tasking work to be at your most productive times.
• Social life – Measure how much fun you have with certain people and cut out those who take up your time but give you no fun. Also, to push yourself to go out regularly, measure how much fun you have against time spent out.

Tips on using metrics