Measuring What Matters: Tracking Without Obsession

## High-Level Topics

Process metrics vs. outcome metrics and why the distinction matters
Building feedback loops into your systems
When to track, when to trust, and when to stop
The dark side of measurement: obsession and gaming metrics

Article Ideas

“What gets measured gets managed - but not always improved”
The difference between data-driven and data-obsessed
Why tracking everything can make you worse
Leading indicators > lagging indicators
The metrics that actually predict success

Brief Outline

Introduction

“What gets measured gets managed” (Peter Drucker)
But measuring the wrong things leads you astray
The balance between feedback and obsession
Understanding what to track transforms your discipline

Have you ever met someone who has a really long Duolingo streak? They share a commonality. They’ve been using the app daily, for months and even years, but they don’t know any new languages. At best they know the fragments of a dozen. They could get directed to the bathroom or order a glass of water. A real conversation though? That’s the stuff of dreams.

None of that matters to Duolingo users though. They get cheap dopamine from using the app. Numbers go up, awards are given, congratulations are spread, and you feel like you’re learning.

This is why it’s so important to understand what you’re measuring. You can’t just aimlessly track what’s related to your goal otherwise you’ll end up like another Duolingo user.

You see these users only measure process (poorly) and never outcomes. Time in app and “lessons complete” becomes the only way for them to track success but neither of these are tied to outcomes.

This is the idea of a process metric rather than an outcome metric.

Part 1: Process Metrics vs. Outcome Metrics

A process metric acts as a leading indicator. It’s the time you spend in the gym, the calories you consume, hours worked. They are all actions within your control and often have immediate feedback.

Process metrics are great! As long as you have the right process, because your process becomes your outcomes.

An outcome metric is what happened. It’s the weight you can lift, the fat you burn, the promotions you receive. These are the results of your actions and are always delayed from the process itself.

For most of us an outcome metric is simply a goal. It’s the thing we want to achieve rather than the act of achieving it.

Your ideal scenario is one where you are in complete control of the processes that drive the outcomes you want while always measuring both.

Outcome Metrics (Lagging Indicators)

What happened: weight lost, money saved, promotion earned
Results of your actions, often delayed
Useful for: Long-term evaluation, goal achievement
Problems: Low frequency, outside your control, lag time creates confusion

Process Metrics (Leading Indicators)

What you did: workouts completed, dollars saved, hours worked
Actions within your control, immediate feedback
Useful for: Daily motivation, system refinement
Problems: Can do the process without results (if wrong process)

The Key Insight: Control the process, measure both, optimize the process

Part 2: Examples Across Domains

Every goal you’ve ever had or ever will have has a process and an outcome metric. Often times a singular goal can have dozen of related process and outcome metrics you might want to keep track of.

I’m a huge fan of fitness as a way to get into self-improvement and it’s an exemplar of how process and outcome metrics work.

Fitness Process: Workouts per week, miles run, sleep hours, calories eaten, supplement intake. Outcome: Body weight, BMI, strength maxes, running a marathon, biking a century, competing in whatever event your heart desires.

And for one a little less obvious

Relationships Process: Quality time spent together, time with family, date nights planned, vacations scheduled Outcomes: A happy marriage, conflict frequency, a loving family

Whatever you want to accomplish, you can break it down into its effective metrics. What matters most is that the processes you’re undertaking seem to have a measurable impact on your outcomes.

Fitness

Outcome: Body weight, body fat %, strength maxes
Process: Workouts per week, protein intake, sleep hours
Best metric: Consistency (shows up to gym 4x/week)

Finance

Outcome: Net worth, investment returns
Process: Savings rate, unnecessary purchases avoided
Best metric: Automatic savings percentage of income

Productivity/Career

Outcome: Promotion, salary, completed projects
Process: Deep work hours, skills practiced, applications sent
Best metric: Weekly deep work hours

Relationships

Outcome: Relationship satisfaction, conflict frequency
Process: Quality time scheduled, active listening instances
Best metric: Phone-free conversations per week

Part 3: Building Effective Feedback Loops

Daily feedback: Did I do the thing today? (Yes/no)
Weekly feedback: How many times this week? Trend up or down?
Monthly feedback: Are outcomes starting to shift?
Quarterly feedback: Major evaluation, system overhaul if needed

The faster the feedback, the faster you can adjust

Once you understand your process you need to understand your feedback loop. How often can you measure the outcomes you’re looking to achieve and the processes you feel that drive them most.

On a daily and weekly cadence you’re focused on processes primarily and maybe some outcomes. For things like weight loss tracking intraday is almost useless, but if you weigh yourself every Sunday morning and don’t see any improve over two weeks it’s clear your process is wrong.

At a monthly level, for any goal or outcome, you should start to see changes. Whether this is fitness, finance, or your love life a month is enough time to see some impact.

Once we start talking about 3-6 month timelines we’re considering a major evaluation. It might not just be whether you’re outcomes are moving in the direction you want but are they moving fast enough to matter?

In finance, a lot of advice revolves around saving a percentage of your income to hit your retirement goals. But that begs the question, are you earning enough income to hit your goal no matter how much you save? When you’re very early in your career, you likely aren’t and that’s okay!

That might change your near term goal from having a healthy retirement balance to getting a better paying job. This is a major reason that understanding your identity and developing your own goals is so important!

Part 4: When to Track

There are some simple rules for when to track,

Starting a new habit (need data to know if system works)
Debugging a failing system (where’s the breakdown?)
High-stakes goal (training for event, financial goal, health issue)
You’re the type motivated by data/gamification

It’s also brutally clear when to stop tracking or avoid starting in the first place.

If tracking metrics judiciously causes you to stress or feel anxiety then you need to find a healthy middle ground. Maybe the system you develop focuses only on tracking outcomes rather than every bit of the process. This isn’t ideal, but if process tracking becomes stressful you aren’t likely to do it anyway.

Ultimately what matters is the work you do not the tracking that goes a long with it.

Track when:

Starting a new habit (need data to know if system works)
Debugging a failing system (where’s the breakdown?)
High-stakes goal (training for event, financial goal, health issue)
You’re the type motivated by data/gamification

Don’t track when:

The habit is fully automatic (unnecessary overhead)
Tracking adds stress/anxiety (some people with food/body image)
The metric is easily gamed (focusing on metric, not goal)
You’re tracking 10+ things (cognitive overload)

Part 5: The Dark Side of Metrics

The Duolingo users I mentioned earlier are an excellent example of Goodhart’s Law which states,

“When a measure becomes a target, it ceases to be a good measure”

Duolingo users measure their success based on the streaks their earning and the lessons they complete, but neither of these things has anything to do with their initial goal of learning a new language.

I guarantee no user downloaded Duolingo because they wanted a 100 day Duolingo streak. However, if you ask those users about their experience with the app it’s likely the first thing they’ll mention.

This is the dark side of metrics. The worst thing that can happen to us is putting in minimal effort on grand goals because we’ve mistaken the process for the outcome.

Our solution? Measure the right thing, at the right time, with the right mindset. Goodhart’s Law: “When a measure becomes a target, it ceases to be a good measure”

Example: Tracking workouts → showing up but not trying
Example: Tracking calories → eating 1200 cal of junk vs. 1800 cal of nutrition
Example: Tracking hours worked → presence over output

Metric Obsession

Weighing yourself 5x per day (noise, not signal)
Tracking every macro to the gram (eating disorder territory)
Productivity porn: optimizing tracking systems instead of working

The Solution: Measure the right thing, at the right frequency, with the right mindset

Part 6: The Minimalist Tracking System

I’m a huge fan of minimalist tracking systems. While I enjoy a bit of gamification it doesn’t motivate me the way accomplishment does. There is no gimmick as good as deadlifting 350lbs. If you’re like me tracking can be as simple as,

At the end of the day, did I do my habit? At the end of the week, how has the outcome I’m tracking changed. At the end of the month, has my outcome changed enough for me or do I need to rework my process.

We’re working on a series of apps that will let you do just this and as we role them out we’ll pin them here.

For Most People, Track:

One keystone process metric: Did I do my main habit today?
One outcome metric: Monthly check-in on results
Weekly reflection: What worked? What didn’t? Adjust.

That’s it.

Tools:

Simple: Paper calendar with X’s (Seinfeld’s “don’t break the chain”)
Digital: Habit tracking app (Streaks, Habitica, etc.)
Advanced: Spreadsheet with weekly reviews

Part 7: When to Trust Instead of Track

Once you’ve hit 90+ days of consistency
The behavior has become automatic (you’d notice if you missed it)
You’re maintaining, not building
Your relationship with tracking becomes unhealthy

This is the big transition. I do not think that most habits need to be tracked after about 90-days of pure consistency. You’ve likely built out a true habit at this point and have a strong understanding if the process you’re attaching to your outcomes is working.

However, never let the lack of tracking mean you stop checking in on your outcomes. This is the easiest way to slip back into old habits.

The goal*: Track to build, trust to maintain

Conclusion

Measure process over outcomes
Build feedback loops, but avoid obsession
Track only what matters, as little as necessary
The best system is the one you’ll actually use
Remember: The goal is the life change, not the perfect spreadsheet