What Are You Measuring?

Quick. See if you have answers to these questions:

• How much money is currently in your checking account? Your wallet or purse?


• How many friends do you have on FB (or followers on Twitter, connections on LinkedIn, etc.)


• How many vacation days do you have this year?

Now, a second set:

• How healthy is your relationship with your _____________ (spouse, children, best friend, etc.)?


• How much have your skill sets improved in the past year?


• What are some concrete ways your time management skills have improved in the past 3 months?

Peter Drucker, business guru, states that, What gets measured gets managed. We tend to do a much better job with money and vacation days than with work life balance and relationships. One reason is because we don't have a simple way to measure these things. That shouldn't prevent us from doing it.

Here are some weekly "rulers" you might consider when measuring your use of time and energy:

• Make a list of the number of tasks or activities you completed that took more than one hour.
• Also list the number of activities you completed that you WANTED to do, not just what you HAD to do.
• Don't leave out counting the amount of time you spent in personal planning and goal setting.

On a daily basis you could count the number of quality (use your definition of quality) interactions you had with coworkers or quality time spent with family members. They are going to vary wildly depending on your week's schedule, but over time you should see the numbers increase. And just like savings for retirement, the increase proably indicates you are better prepared to handle the coming weeks, months and years of your life.