Measured by the Clock

The hours of folly are measured by the clock, but of wisdom no clock can measure ~ William Blake

When I was in direct sales, one of the most profound lessons I learned was to measure the activities I was completing, not the actual results of my work.  That meant to count the number of phone calls I was making to book parties or the number of people I talked to about becoming part of my time, not necessarily the number of parties I booked or recruits I made.  Measure the activities.

In writing, this has translated into measuring how many words I write each and each week.  If you follow my blog regularly, you know that my standard goal these days in 5000 words.  Following this goal, I will have written the first draft of my second novel in five months, compared to the four years it took me to write my first novel.  By keeping track of my weekly word count,  and notes on why I didn't achieve the 5000 word goal, I have helped keep  myself accountable and wrote a novel in 1/10th of the time it took to write the first one.

So track the activities it takes to reach your goal.  When you keep track of the activities, you will eventually move towards making your dream goal a reality.  What can you start tracking today?  I'd love to hear about it!