Writing every day for 365 days, I’ve learned to track my behaviors.

I wrote daily for one year, about 500 single entries in my journal. I wrote: drafts, ideas, observations, transcriptions of voice notes and meetings, conversations, questions, fears, dreams, emotions, feelings, plans, desires, pains, nightmares, ecstatic moments.

I wrote for more than 250 hours. Despite my rejection for tidy aligned numbers in infinite columns, I tracked every writing piece as a diligent life accountant: the word count, the time needed to write them, my mood, and a short overall comment.

I have produced such a rich set of data like I have never had before. Only Google knows more than me about the frustration, the effort, the demotivation, the doubts, and the pain of writing every day.

I have tracked a good part of it. I now have data shedding light on my behaviors, weaknesses but also points of strength. 

Most of all, I’ve learned to recognize patterns: those patterns leading to destructive behaviors and poor outcomes, and those patterns leading to what I intend to achieve and to what I want to create.

If you don’t measure it, you cannot learn from it effectively, and you cannot improve your self-leadership.

Measure your behaviors to steer towards your positive, incremental, compounded growth.

This is Essay 21 of 30 in the my challenge One Year Writing: 30 Lessons Learned in 30 Days

1. The Journey is the Purpose (16 Nov 2020)
2. Writing is Thinking (17 Nov 2020)
3. Write a Lot to Write Well (18 Nov 2020)
4. Creative Loneliness (19 Nov 2020)
5. Be Less Ambitious, Be More Consistent (20 Nov 2020)
6. Writing builds your networks (21 Nov 2020)
7. Connect ideas now (22 Nov 2020)
8. Writing improves your memory (23 Nov 2020)
9. Writing makes you a better observer (24 Nov 2020)
10. Writing sets the focus on yourself (25 Nov 2020)
11. Dissolve your distractions (26 Nov 2020)
12. Writing reduces your jargon and slang (27 Nov 2020)
13. Walking generates ideas (28 Nov 2020)
14. Writing is like drinking coffee (29 Nov 2020)
15. Creativity makes you happy (30 Nov 2020)
16. Be smart, let it go (1 Dec 2020)
17. Writing is a process (2 Dec 2020)
18. Automate repetitive tasks (3 Dec 2020)
19. Publish text as digital text, not images (4 Dec 2020)
20. Why asking questions? (5 Dec 2020)
21. Facilitate growth by tracking habits (6 Dec 2020)
22. Type more, type faster, type better (7 Dec 2020)
23. Transcribe your thoughts to become an effective communicator (8 Dec 2020)
24. Write daily to become a better manager (9 Dec 2020)
25. Do it small to do it better (10 Dec 2020)
26. Don’t lose your mind. Back it up (11 Dec 2020)
27. Write daily to enhance your reality (12 Dec 2020)
28. If only I could be ten, again (13 Dec 2020)
29. Writing compounds despite everything (14 Dec 2020)
30. The habit of building habits (15 Dec 2020)