How to track progress without quantitative metrics

Why imperfect, incremental progress is the secret

We are told, and experience proves out, that progress on any big audacious goal requires consistency. Showing up, every day, every week, to do the work. Do the days, keep going, don’t break the chain. Set your goal, and show up to do it, consistently.

“What gets measured gets managed” is practically gospel in productivity circles.

When we hear that phrase, our minds will often assign a numerical goal to make sure we are hitting our targets: Make 20 sales calls a day. Work out 5 times per week. Post on Instagram every day. If we hit our number, we have “achieved consistency” and we are making progress. If not… well, our inner voices will tell us what they think of us in short order.

What do you think of when you hear the word consistency? Maybe a smooth glassy river flowing in one direction. A calendar with an unbroken chain of red X’s on each day. We often think of it as an on/off switch: we’re either being consistent, or we’re not.

Our image of perfectly consistent progress

We get hyper-focused on the qualities of the “ideal” consistency - elegant, unbroken, steady, unwavering.

Racking up success metrics in a linear up-and-to-the-right fashion.

We think if we can create a perfect, unshakable habit, which we perform in sickness and in health, we are assured of success. Alternately, if we let something get in our way, then we have fallen off the path, and we’re not making progress anymore.

And maybe that works for some folks (I’m guessing most of them are internet productivity gurus). But it has never worked for me. In fact, it only ever made me feel bad about myself when I’d inevitably miss a day because my kid needed me, work was just too much, or I was simply tired. And I’m guessing it hasn’t worked for you.

I’m here to tell you the truth about the majority of the progress made in this world: it doesn’t happen by making perfect, flawless incremental progress. I want to share what I hope can be a much more valuable framework for making progress on your most important goals.

The most valuable skill in making progress isn’t the ability to stay steadily unwavering in your actions, but rather to stay steadily unwavering in your pursuit of your goal, no matter what happens with your actions.

Fall off the bike.

Get back on.

Fall back off.

Get back on.

Repeat ad infinitum.

The skill here is noticing you’ve fallen off, not being discouraged, seeking the help/spark/focus you need, and then starting again tomorrow (or right now!).

Learn to see falling off not as failure, but as part of progress. Be ready for it, know it will happen, and don’t spend any time berating yourself for being “terrible at goals” or the like. (Again, I’ve tried it -- verdict: waste of time and precious creative energy)

Think of a sine wave, moving up and down in constant flow, but always flowing forward. That’s you. Not an unbroken line, but a curvy, organic (and much more interesting) wave form. Still making progress, only in swells. And even your swells won’t be perfectly even and predictable, and still that’s ok.

We all have ups and downs; expect them. On a long enough timeline, this becomes a straight(ish) line.

Because it doesn't matter what your progress looks like behind the scenes. What matters is that you make progress, in whatever way you can muster.

No one will ever know if the work you did flowed elegantly out of you as you sat down at your desk every day at precisely 9am, or if it came together on a hope, a prayer, one all nighter and two early mornings, then 3 fits and starts, one dead end, and one lucky break. No one is going back and looking at the logs.

An accurate representation of my typical progress

As long as you can inch inelegantly forward and throw yourself over that finish line, you’ve finished. No matter how many stops and restarts along the way.

Imperfect progress isn’t the obstacle to consistency, it is the recipe. Know that pausing, rerouting, asking for directions, and taking a sick day is part of the process, as long as you interpret it as such.

On a long enough timeline, start-stop-get-back-on consistency is almost indistinguishable from “perfect” consistency. If something is important to you, just keep showing up repeatedly, whatever it takes.

There’s a metaphor I love from the book Search Inside Yourself by Chade-Meng Tan. Tan uses his own bike riding analogy to teach about meta attention in meditation. When you ride a bike, it’s common to tip left, then right, then left again, and make continuous micro-corrections to stay upright. In this sense, veering off-center and then righting yourself isn’t an obstacle to riding a bike; this IS riding a bike. When veering and correcting is repeated consistently, the end result is that feeling of balance we were searching for all along.

So here is your permission slip. Miss a day; don’t stress about it. Keep getting back to it, no matter what work you’re trying to make progress on. Building up the “get back on the bike” muscle will serve you the stronger it gets. Make this your habit.