Track It Like Data Points

When I was cycling, everyone told me to get Strava and track every ride, from speed to elevation. Tracking is how I built endurance. I could see what was working.

Many of my clients track everything at work and nothing about themselves. Suggest a journal and the word alone sounds soft.

So call it data. Little bullet points, dated, about what happened and how you felt in it.

One client told me how she gets past the blank page. She writes in fast cursive and lets her eyes go soft, so she can’t read it back and won’t stop to fix the punctuation. “Starting is the hardest,” she said. The soft focus gets her started.

The one thing I asked of her: keep it legible. The point is to read it later.

And later means later. Give it a few weeks before you go back. Then sit down with the whole stack and look for what repeats: the meeting that drains you every time, the person who always leaves you lighter, the hour of the day your thinking is clearest.

What you don’t measure, you can’t change.

Five minutes at the end of the day and any notebook will do.

What would you track first if no one else ever read it?