With the prevalence of tracking systems available on the market the question you have to ask is, will it make a difference in my performance or will it just take up my limited amount of time. You are a busy person with many responsibilities and need to be able to perform adequately enough to maintain a positive life and taking additional time to track your activities has to be beneficial.
Keeping track of actions will improve performance by improving the consciousness, increase or decrease the frequency and provide a baseline of the activity. Action tracking provides information to make intelligent changes to daily actions to reach a goal.
When you become aware of actions which you are taking it becomes obvious to you what you need to change if you want to improve and make headway towards your goals. This is one of the greatest benefits of fitness watches. They track basic fitness activities such as steps taken during the day, sleep schedules and heart rates. Prior to knowing these basic activity levels a person is much less likely to do something to change for the better.
Fitness is non the only area where tracking actions are beneficial, Frank Betcher in his classic book “How I raised myself from failure to success through selling” explains his method of tracking sales calls and the benefits he received from the activity.
How being conscious of activities improves performance
Have you ever watched a professional athlete perform something difficult with what appears to be complete ease? The fielder who jogs to the right spot and easily catches the ball, the skater performs a triple axel or a swimmer makes a perfect flip turn. All these actions are integral to their success as an athlete and each one was practiced regularly to improve and maintain the skill.
Being conscious of activities with a positive or negative effect on success will affect how often and how well the activity is performed. Once awareness is raised, attention to how the action is performed becomes clearer, providing valuable information to either improve the action or hinder it.
In the early stages of learning a new skill you have to be conscious of what you are doing at each step of the way. This includes several small steps which make up the skill. When you become conscious of when you are performing an action it is easier to break down the action into its parts, giving you valuable information as to why you are performing the action or how you can improve it.
In his great book “The Power of Habits” by Charls Duhigg breaks down how habits are formed with a simple idea. A habit needs a cue which instigates the routine which provides the reward. By being conscious of the routine (the action you are tracking) it is easier to learn what the cue is and what is the reward.
With this information you can either encourage the frequency of the action or decrease it depending on your goals. Without being conscious of the action you are powerless to make alterations to your routine to any positive degree.
How tracking Activities increases or decreases its frequency
We all have habits, some are good habits and some are bad habits. It is obvious that we all want to improve our good habits and stop our bad ones but unfortunately we are also good at lying to ourselves. We consistently overestimate our good habits and underestimate our bad ones.
By tracking activities a more accurate picture of the frequency of the activity, giving a blunt picture of the time and energy being spent on each tracked activity. If the activity is negative the automatic response is to decrease frequency and if it is positive it can increase its frequency.
It is a natural thing to want to succeed. Everyone wants to be healthier, live longer, make more money or have more time and we intrinsically understand that our daily actions are what leads to better or worse lives. When you start to keep track of activities which you understand as being important or detrimental to your success you will subconsciously alter their frequency.
This is called the mere measurement effect. Coupling the tracking with questioning why you are taking such actions will either cement them into your routine or help to inhibit them. It is used effectively in marketing to re-enforce or alter people’s buying habits simply by asking questions about why someone is purchasing a certain product. It works in marketing and will work for altering routines.
Benefits of knowing the baseline frequency of an activity
There is a saying that it is hard to get somewhere when you don’t know where you are. The very idea that you will be able to somehow navigate your way to success without having an idea of where you are at the start is ridiculous. This is where keeping track of activities which you believe will help achieve your goal and those which will hinder it.
A baseline frequency of an activity provides an understanding of an individual’s current standing. Having a baseline frequency improves decisions regarding specific actions and measuring improvement to changes made without a baseline become guesses which cannot be relied upon.
If you have ever been lost this is easily understood. You don’t know where you are so you don’t know which way to go. It is as simple as that.
If you are a salesman and you want to improve your income the obvious question is how many sales calls are you making. If you are making only one or two a day in an industry where most successful salesmen are making 5-6 this is your answer but to know that you need to keep track of your calls. On the other hand if you are making 10 calls a day and still need to increase your income then maybe you need to look at your closing rate or your average profit per sale.
The point is that if you don’t keep track of the actions which lead to success in your industry then you will not be able to make reliable improvements. This goes for every activity which leads to success, students and study habits, managers and uninterrupted work etc.
Having a frequency baseline also provides indications to whether you even need to track the activity. For example if you are a writer and want to produce better content then one action you can track is hours spent writing. If you find you are spending at least four hours writing every day then your problem probably is not hours spent but a system issue so stop tracking this activity and focus on another until you find one which can and should be improved.
Keeping track of activities identifies possible roadblocks
You have probably hit a roadblock in one aspect of your life or another where it doesn’t matter what you do, you just can’t seem to overcome an obstacle. It could be a financial obstacle, health obstacle or a relationship obstacle. These roadblocks seem impossible to overcome but by some careful analysis of your daily activities the solution may become obvious.
By keeping track of activities the barriers to achievement can be exposed and what areas of the chief aim are not being attended to. Once weak areas have been identified they can be addressed through learning and practice. Without a tracking system it is difficult to pinpoint areas of weakness.
Roadblocks are caused by unknown factors acting negatively on your results. Such as a runner who has topped out on distance or speed. If the runner is serious the problem is probably not time spent running but it may be technique or improper gear or diet. By tracking actions regarding the action you can learn if it is hindering your growth or not. If it is then you can make changes and otherwise you can focus on another action which can have an effect on your growth.
How many actions should be tracked for best results
There are way too many actions to track which can affect performance. It can become an obsession which takes valuable time and energy from the activities themselves. When making improvements in your routine or altering some actions, limit the number you are working on to one or two. Trying to alter several at once will lead to failure as your focus is split between several things making it hard to make any valuable improvements.
Keep the number of tracked actions to one or two to maintain focus. Tracking one or two actions prevents fatigue, increases enthusiasm and improves the chances of success. Too many goals dilutes the energy needed to make positive changes and slows growth.
Take as an example Benjamin Franklin as a young man decided to become morally perfect. A goal which at the outset is impossible. He began tracking 13 traits which he wanted to perfect, focusing on one per week. He did this for many years and few of us can boast of having a greater influence on society as he had in history.
In “The power of habit” Charles Duhigg explains how self discipline is like a muscle and needs to be built like any other muscle requiring exercise, rest and proper form to improve. When focusing on too many actions the self discipline “muscle” will become depleted leading to no improvement in something for that time period.