Keep statistics on everything important to you. Everything that is important to me, I actually create a graph for. For example, my workouts, time with my family, children and wife, movies, dates, money, investments, business, clients, follow-up, incoming calls, outbound calls, and mail. Everything that will generate something of value to me, I want to keep a graph on.
Keeping statistics allows me to be logical and unemotional. And it shows me where I can start moving the bar. If you’re not measuring it, you are going to go into some mystery about it. Mystery is not a good thing.
I don’t want to just trust. I want to know, and the way to know is to keep statistics. For example, if I am running a 60-yard sprint, I want to keep a clock on it because I want to see if I can make it a little faster each time.
If I am making $60,000 and it took me 60,000 phone calls, I want to keep statistics on that, because I know if I have fallen below those phone call numbers, or I don’t do that phone call right, something is out. I can look at the statistics and figure out what I have to do to hit that target.
Keep statistics on everything that is important to you. It’s going to get you out of this mystery mess of “Oh my gosh, what is going on?” You will find the reasons underlying a situation, and this will put you back in control. You will realize that you just need to change the numbers, and the graph will start going up this way. That will motivate you. That will keep you excited and it will keep you focused.
