What gets measured, gets managed

Working in a sales role, there are a lot of mantras that get thrown around as words of wisdom. “Retail is detail.” “Eye level is buy level.” “What gets measured, gets managed.”

“What gets measured, gets managed.”

What the hell does that even mean? Then I started running.

When I run, I use Nike+ GPS to track myself. There are so many stats the app spits out at me, as well as a leader board of my friends to see who has run the most each month (I’m very competitive).

But, I started to pay attention to my stats. Not all of them, just a couple that I felt were a good indication of how I was running. Average time per km. Number of kms per month. Number of runs per month. Just by measuring these stats, they would start to improve.

At first, it was unconscious. I would start to shave a few seconds off my time. Then I became aware of it. “Let’s see if I can get that time to under 5 mins”. “Can I top my leader board this month?” By the virtue of measuring these metrics, I started to manage them. My times got better and I would start to push myself even further. I began to set harder goals for myself, just to see how far I could go.

When I began to bring this mentality to other areas of my life, the same thing happened. Once I started tracking what I was eating, I began eating better. When I was tracking my sleep, I started to value my rest more. Measuring my spending, I became less frivolous with my money.

If you want to change something, or start seeing new results, start tracking it. Even if you don’t doanything to change your behaviour straight away, you may begin to see a lift immediately. Once you do start to change your behaviour, you will notice a more dramatic difference. Measure your success. And celebrate the wins.