I was having a chat with a friend this weekend about how to track and measure his continued progress on something he was working on. He was trying to be grounded in the effort of the daily tasks, but then was getting demotivated by days that he couldn’t accomplish all of them. Yet he was making progress towards the objective all the same.
I said that in some ways that was self-defeating. There needs to be a different way to look at it. That keeps you on track in terms of effort, yet focuses you on realizing the outcomes.
In the pre-industrial days when people were more in tuned to agricultural practices where you could literally see the fruits of your efforts better. Farmers focused on all the tasks that needed to get done to insure a great harvest. They knew that each day they needed to tend to the fields – sowing, pruning, reaping, watering. But in the end, it wasn’t doing these tasks that they celebrated. They celebrated with feasts where they shared and consumed all the great foods produced.
Think of that as you enjoy your pumpkin pie this fall! How will you apply this to your metrics and dashboards?
