Are we over tracking our lives (and is it helping us)?
Hello,
December always feels like a short but incredibly busy month. One where I wondering about how businesses approach the week between Christmas and New Year. It’s a strange week in which to sell. Of course, people are buying but we no longer have that Boxing Day sale in the same way - products have been discounted since before Black Friday.
If you are launching over this period - maybe look at how engaged people are so you can plan for next year. I’m curious to know if that Christmas week gives you downtime or it’s a big sales week for you.
I’ve never worked in an industry that is particularly busy over the Christmas-period. Records are never released during this time. And while some content is consistent year round - not all do the same.
This week I’m looking at tracking our lives. I went into this newsletter with a particular view in mind. As I read and researched, my mind was changed and the conclusion - as a result - is one that I find echoed around people I respect and admire for how they see the world.
Have a read and let me know what you think.
Short Read
Not enough time to read the full article? Here are the main points. Data is only useful when you track the right thing and you take action. Instead, reflection might be a better lense through which to view our lives so we can improve. Consider less what you can fit into a day and more what you can do better.
Tracking Everything Won’t Necessarily Make You A Better Person
If it’s not on Strava, the run didn’t happen.
I love Strava. I love that I can track my progress, see what my friends are up to all over the country. And that there is some sort of evidence I got off my butt a few times in a week to move. It’s fun and it’s gamified exercise.
On my watch I can track my health, sleep, workouts (and probably a whole lot more that I never bothered to investigate). On my phone I can track my monthly cycle, screen time, how I spend my time in general. My laptop also tracks what I do and how I spend my time.
And I love data. But data without context can lead you down the wrong path and in some cases be downright dangerous.
We spend so much of our lives tracking every little bit of what we do so we can improve, do better, fit more into the day. Which is all well and good but when do we stop and wonder about the context for all this maximising our productivity?
Doing everything
Part of the problem lies in trying to do all of the things. If only there was more time in the day then you could fit in that extra thing you want to do. But you cannot do all of the things. You certainly cannot do too many things and do them all well.
So if we are tracking every inch of our lives are we tracking the right things? And are we using the information to better our lives?
Track the right things
Data is brilliant. We can gain insights and use them to do things better. This only works if we track the right metrics. And if we take action on them.
Every month, I create a report for my business and for that of my clients. It covers the basic stats you’ll find on Google Analytics and Search Console. These reports mostly show whether or not the work I’ve done the past month has had any impact.
The most important part of the report is at the end - the actions I want to take in the next month as a result of the data. You see, while it’s helpful to show clients that what I do is making a difference, that doesn’t quite go far enough. We need to put actions in place to keep building on it else we will stagnate.
And every month I ask the same question: is this data taking me towards the goal of the business?
For example, with one client I know that most of their website traffic comes from local search. So I prioritise this as part of the SEO strategy. This is only useful if I know that they are getting leads from local search. Which means making sure the forms on the website ask where they found us and getting the staff to ask the same on the phone.
The Google Analytics data is not enough to answer this. I need more data from inside the business. If I’m not tracking both then it’s unhelpful to understand the full journey a customer takes.
Track our lives
The same is true in our lives. If you want to get faster or stronger then track your exercise. If you want to understand where all your time is going - spend a week tracking all your activities.
Then do something about it to make a change.
We don’t need to be tracking every facet of our lives at all times to magically transform ourselves into better people.
A couple of weeks’ ago, I argued that it’s by freeing our time we exercise our brains to develop better ideas. We need to create the space to do this. That’s not going to happen while we’re monitoring ourselves at all times.
Productivity and tracking
Part of our obsession with tracking is that we can optimise our time and what we do. Fit more into the day, achieve more, create more. To be more than we already are.
Tracking is nothing new. Since apps were first developed there have been ways to track what we do - if not how we do it. The problem comes when we allow this data to inform what we do rather than guide it.
Let’s say you want to get your 10,000 steps every day. One day you’ve not moved so much, you’ve had a long meeting and there hasn’t been the opportunity for your daily walk. When you track to guide, you accept that the overall week or month average is a better account than what you do daily.
The person who lets the data inform their decisions may well feel bad or guilty that they’ve not hit their goal that day. Which can trigger other negative emotions and have a domino effect.
I recommend watching Brittany Runs A Marathon for an idea of how our obsession with numbers - in this film it is weight management - can become something more than is healthy.
Are you over tracking?
I have a nutritionist friend who says keeping a food diary for a short time is a good thing to help you make small changes to a healthier diet. But tracking all of your food consistently on an app like My Fitness Pal is laborious and mostly pointless.
We might keep it up for a while but who wants to track everything they consume? Does it not take some of the enjoyment away?
The other week, I forgot to upload some of my runs to Strava. Nothing happened. I didn’t get any worse or less motivated to run. I run with a friend who doesn’t even track their run on a watch. They simply run. There is something quite freeing about not knowing how far or how fast you are going. Especially if you are not training for anything.
Is there anything wrong with tracking?
Perhaps the problem lies not with the tracking but with how we use that information. Spanish scientist, Morris Villarroel, tracked his life for 10 years. While he didn’t use any fancy apps (many notebooks and an excel spreadsheet) he did find that he could pinpoint stresses in his life and regulate his emotional responses as a result.
I would argue here that it was not so much the tracking as it was the reflecting that brought about the change. A study through Harvard Business School found that call centre staff who kept a daily journal were 20% more productive at work as a result. This is because they reflected back on what they did that day.
Julia Cameron calls the daily journal her Morning Pages. In her books The Artist’s Way and The Right to Write, she encourages her readers to make a habit of morning pages. For Cameron, there are rules to these pages. You should write for five pages before you do anything else that day. Even if you fill five pages with “I have no idea what to write.”
The idea being that at the beginning of the day, you are less influenced by what has happened to you and so you are more connected with how you feel. It is through these pages that she has known people to reassess what is going on in relationships and at work so they can do something about it.
This month marks three years since I started journalling. Mostly it was to deal with how I was feeling about life at the time. Then it became helpful to document the mundane life through lockdown. When I look back, I can see cycles, ways I repeat mistakes and then can do something about it.
Taking action
Whether you track or journal - the key here is to reflect and make changes. To actually do something with the data. Without context and without action you can track and write as many notes as you want - they won’t be useful unless they are used.
Over the course of writing this week’s newsletter, my feelings towards tracking have changed from the research I’ve done. You need to know yourself to make changes. But you don’t need to necessarily do this through tracking everything.
If nothing else, it’s made me more appreciative of journalling and understanding that this goes beyond productivity to a deeper self-improvement.
How I help
I’m here to help you create better content so you can sell your product or service without it taking over your life.
Content Clinic - Unblock your content conundrums
Content Strategy - Building you a sustainable content strategy
Content Creation - Clever content for compassionate businesses
I hope I’ve inspired you to start some kind of journalling and reflection practise. Let me know how you get on.
And I’ll see you next Thursday.
Fiona