The Fifth Week

What consistency compounds — and what neglect costs.

Dear Leader,

When we saw each other this week, I asked "How is the implementation of metric tracking coming?" You responded "Ahh, I didn't get to that this week. We had the auditor in this week ....." each reason, a legitimate urgency. But this was the 5th week in a row.

It's understandable, developing and implementing data tracking and reporting is boring work. It doesn't NEED to be done right now, so, it's easy to let it lapse. It reminds me of when an employee who was about to have their first child asked about what I had learned from having children. I was a small business owner at the time, I was busy and skipping dinner was a true temptation. But consider this. Dinner with the whole family is 45 minutes per day. It's a moment where all of us are together, where we can impart a little wisdom to our daughter who is being shunned by her peer group. But over a year we find that small investment culminates in 34 - 8 hour work days. A month spent with your whole family. It shocked me just how much impact something small, like dinner, when done consistently really adds up

Slipping on dinners didn't seem significant in the moment and I believe the same is happening to you with the metrics. The ripple effect of delay on the metrics compounds to the company's entire strategy. They are a prerequisite. Without them, you can't gauge your progress, determine which experiments are working or discover efficiencies. Essentially, you are blind to what is happening inside your own company.

The solution isn't difficult. Open your calendar. Mark time on it that is dedicated to the metric work every week. Maybe that's 3 or 4 hours per week, but block it out, flag it as busy. Commit to working on that and only that during the time. Don't allow it to get pushed for something urgent. Consider this like you would an appointment with the boss. Don't be late, don't miss it, don't allow someone else's emergency to derail it.

It's easy to see the things that are done repeatedly as common, disposable and even unimportant. But paradoxically, those become the most important and impactful over time. Elevate these things, hold the time allocated to them sacred and in 5 weeks, not only will your metrics be giving you real insight, but you will have had a full 24 hours of one on one time with your family.

Park Wiker

P.S. "It’s not what we do once in a while that shapes our lives, but what we do consistently" "Tony Robbins"