Tracking is Critical
"You can't improve what you don't measure"
I don’t think I ever understood the importance of collecting data or trying to look for patterns. To a certain extent, I always knew the “magic was in the data”. But it never clicked well enough to surpass the laziness of gathering the numbers in the first place.
About 2 months ago, right around the time of peak FTX fiasco in November, I finished up my role at Chapter One and decided to take a few weeks away from crypto. 2022 was truly a crazy year for me - both professionally and personally - so the break was definitely much needed.
I decided to take the gym seriously for the 5th time that year. After signing up for the local 24 hour fitness, I joined a friend and started going everyday. He had recently downloaded the Strong app and was tracking all his workouts. Meaning after every set he would write down what he did. At first glance, it felt to me as if it was killing the vibe. What’s the point of tracking? It felt too methodical and annoying to me. He tried to get me to download it a few times but I denied. Eventually, since I was working out with him daily, I decided to just give it a shot for the heck of it.
Initially, I kept on forgetting to even write down the numbers after sets…or heck to even click “start workout” at the beginning. But I kept trying for the next few days. Eventually, I came around to my second round of push/pull/legs and saw the dashboard display what numbers I had hit previously. It immediately triggered the competitiveness in me. I had to beat my numbers from the last leg day! Lucky for me, the pre-workout hit right in time and I got my green checkmarks in. In no time, the ability to visualize progress on the app fueled my workouts with another layer of excitement.
The Strong app was honestly starting to feel like a fitness coach in its own right. The success with tracking my workouts inevitably started influencing other areas of my life. I quickly started tracking my diet & macros into myfitnesspal. I made a simple note sheet to track daily breathing & mindfulness. I even started tracking articles I was reading in my free time.
Yes - the initial overhead of getting it fixed into my daily routine was annoying. But it was so worth it. Now, about two months in, tracking my daily routine has become an obvious answer and I can’t imagine going back to guessing. I literally feel more confident throughout the day as I know exactly where I’m at and what I need to do.
In fact, starting to track what I was doing led me to buy a daily planner to schedule my days. Something a degen like me would never dream of doing. For me, it’s always been about creative bursts throughout the day. Obviously, I would prioritize what I needed to get done if it was important, but never structured in the sense of todo lists. Habits like these sounded dumb to me and just a way for people to fluff around the main activity.
However, at the end of the day, improving any model requires data. A lot of it. I’m still early into my data collection journey so I’m excited to see progress by the end of the year. For any and every goal I set for 2023, I’ve been adding an extra column in my notes where I write the relevant metrics. By shifting my mindset from daydreaming about what happens next to focusing on data, it’s been a lot easier for me to simply get started.
One goal I had this year was to get better at writing and start my own newsletter. I’m not sure what it’s going to be about. But at this point, it’s obvious that the only way I find out is by practicing writing and putting things out there. So I’ll do exactly that. Write & publish. And as for my extra column - what will I track?
Times / week did I hit the publish button
Word count / post
Time spent / post
As of right now, I’m not treating this substack as a formal one that I need to market and grow on Twitter. I’m simply using it as a platform to publish. Possibly, I find my early true fans? At the worst, I just get better at writing and build a portfolio. My guess is however, that I’ll eventually find a micro-niche that I enjoy writing about and will go down whatever rabbithole. Let’s see where this journey goes.
P.S. if have some time, checkout my other project: Web3 World.