INTERNAL SCORECARD #4
This is the fourth week of me publishing a weekly internal scorecard. The point is to learn about what looking to be productive actually looks like. This week I geared down intentionally. Let's start and go from there --
ON MOMENTUM AND MORALE
One of the biggest risks of failing is getting into a negative cycle of inertia and demotivation. Certainly, you've experienced in your own life that when you're thriving, things keep breaking the right way. And when you get in a slump, other things seem to promote the slump.
Last week was a successful week, but it was successful due to improvised and random opportunities being seized. Meanwhile, I had near 0% completion on the "set" objectives I had when a lot of spontaneous travel opportunities came up.
What to do, then? Run off some easy successes so you don't go off the rails.
THE 70% SUCCESS RATE TARGET
I always target a 70% success rate on short-term goals. If I set 10 goals for a week, I want to be looking backwards a week later and seeing I hit around 7 of them.
Why 7 out of 10? Because if you're aiming for 10 out of 10, you're likely to set your goals too low and not be on the edge of your capabilities. Or, if you're pushing your limits, you might do 9/10 and still be feeling bad that you didn't quite get it done.
Meanwhile, being lower than a 70% rate tends to hurt. Most people, myself included, feel losses more strongly than wins. Thus, at a minimum, I want to be succeeding more than failing.
70% success rate is right on that border. It means pushing my limits, because I'm not hitting everything. That makes one more able to make audacious pushes and fall a little shorter, and also to stay on track and in high morale even when missing some objectives.
So, practically, when I succeed at 100% for a week, I increase the volume or difficulty for next week's objectives. If I hit 100%, I want to make it a bit tougher or more expansive next week.
If I hit significantly below 70%, I decrease the volume or difficulty for next week's objectives.
HOW THIS WEEK WAS PLANNED AND THIS WEEK INITIATIVES
The last three weeks were planned the same week. This week was different.
I recognized that I'd hit none of my objectives last week, I was towards the end of an intense stretch of travel, and I had more intense travel this week.
Thus, I outlined a minimum to get done on each day by day of the week, with the difficulty set very low.
Here's how my objectives and schedule looked --
2: Belgrade: Training
3: Belgrade: Relax after training, no work
4: Transit/Budapest: Read, video, total day off
5: Transit/London: Great work day*
-- GGW Training System
-- Finish notes
-- Plan talk
6: Boston: Talk, family
7: Boston: Work day
8: Boston: Day off
Being in 4 countries across 7 days limits your productivity, and I was coming to a rough stretch of travel. I'd missed my objectives last week, so I proactively scheduled this week low, with many days for relaxing, enjoying the city I was in
THIS WEEK'S INITIATIVE RESULTS
There were only three work days on the calendar this week, and the goals set were easy to achieve. I had a list of about 23 things I wanted to do back in the States. It's my first time back in 3.5 years, and so I had a lot of accumulated admin.
Much of that wound up happening. The Training System didn't get finished, which is dragging along at a slower-than-intended pace after that initial burst we put into it. We had applications for 4 new volunteers for GiveGetWin, so I'd like to get the Training System up in at least a rough form ASAP. We could still take people onboard informally like we did before, but it's a bit of a waste of an opportunity to see the system in action if we go that way.
I got to spend a lot of time with my grandmother, who is 85 and had a stroke earlier this year. We talked a lot about the Great Depression, about her nurse's training in the 1940's following the end of WWII, about family, about life. She's really an incredible woman, and that was the most important thing for me this week. I'm glad I got to spend the time with her. That alone makes the week something of a win.
I went to the dentist, did some things related to banking and bookkeeping, did some basic corporate governance things, and some other general admin. Nothing sexy, but important to do.
I had the opportunity to attend a very interesting meeting and speak there a bit, which was important to me. I wrote up my points for it, and got back that it went very well.
I got behind on my email. I had the (unrealistic?) idea that I'd be able to keep it under control, but I wound up about a week behind schedule on it. Even with noting that this week would be crazy with the schedule, I overrated my ability to work through little points simultaneously.
Never the less, with 4 of 7 days set for no working, I'd only need 1 work day to go right to hit my targets. Turns out, I had 2 good work days -- initiatives to do while passing through London Heathrow was a bust (I had around a 10 hour layover there, and was planning on working from the lounge there -- but fatigue was very high, and I wound up taking a lot of phonecalls but mostly in zombie mode). But surprisingly, I did fantastic work in the dining car on the way from Belgrade to Budapest, and also on the 7th. I took the 8th off as planned.
CURRENTLY READING --
Meditations by Marcus Aurelius: Still the only book I'm reading. I'm going through it slowly because it's excellent.
DALIO OF THE WEEK --
"After you set your goals, you must come up with a plan or a design to achieve them and then you must execute that plan by doing the tasks. On the way to achieving your goals and executing your design, you will encounter problems that have to be diagnosed, so that the design can be modified to get around these obstacles. That’s why you need to identify and not tolerate problems.
Most problems are potential improvements screaming at you.
Whenever a problem surfaces, you have in front of you an opportunity to improve. The more painful the problem, the louder it is screaming.44 In order to be successful, you have to 1) perceive problems and 2) not tolerate them.
If you don’t identify your problems, you won’t solve them, so you won’t move forward toward achieving your goals. As a result, it is essential to bring problems to the surface.
Most people don’t like to do this. But most successful people know that they have to do this."
-- Dalio, Principles; p28-29
Brief Analysis: Dalio goes on to explain afterwards that people don't diagnose problems either due to a lack of will or a lack of talent/skill. The latter category isn't as important, in my opinion, because skills can be learned or borrowed. You can get yourself as a great engineer to help you diagnose while your engineer is poor; you can get someone who is skilled at communications to look at your skill in a particular area and see if you're communicating well.
The former is much more important -- many people don't want to face the "harsh realities" of an area with problems, despite the fact that those are "potential improvements screaming at you." Having the will to understand and know yourself, and to improve from there, is key to succeeding.
DISCUSSION OF THE WEEK: RECOGNIZING FATIGUE TO DEAL WITH IT
I'd like to discuss a little bit about fatigue.
It's only while writing up this Internal Scorecard for publishing that I recognize how much fatigue was setting in from my schedule. I had a lot of broken sleep, a lot of 4-6 hour nights, a lot of travel, a lot of intense learning (of a dangerous skill that requires 100% concentration at all times), and also just keeping up with having a lot to do.
The tricky thing about fatigue is, it compromises your judgment. Being fatigued/highly tired is similar to drinking in that regard -- once you cross a threshold on it, you're unable to self-evaluate correctly.
I had a number of afternoons and evenings where I was proverbially "out of gas" and it took me a few hours (sometimes as much as five hours) to recognize it. These are low performance times that would be better served by sleeping earlier, relaxing, going for a walk, or doing something low pressure.
I recognize this inability to recognize fatigue and act accordingly is a flaw. Of course, when you're doing something highly leveraged and need to get it over the finish line, by all means pump yourself up and push hard through the fatigue. But that's only a very short term strategy; the long-term has to be maintaining your health and getting back to good health and rest in order to produce at max capacity.
How do you recognize when fatigue is setting in? What do you then do?
THINGS ON MY MIND LATELY
*America is so incredibly wealthy and nobody notices. The buildings are almost all nice and well-constructed, the landscaping is consistently incredible, and the amount of top-quality electronics and appliances is staggering. The amount of "bad jobs" here that people would kill for in other countries is also staggering. After a few years in places where people really struggle to get by and establish themselves, it's eye-opening to see how wealthy and how much opportunity is in the USA. Maybe it's not as exciting and there isn't as much opportunity as one of the boom times, but there's still an immense amount of wealth and an immense amount of opportunities in the U.S.
*I've been thinking about fatigue and managing it, as above. The first step is recognizing it; the second is acting on it.
*As is common in a week with a lot of moving around and a lot of disparate things to do, I felt a little scattered. I want to rectify that ASAP and get into focused mode. Doing a bunch of scattered work and movement just isn't as satisfying as make large focused gains (despite it being necessary sometimes).
*I did a lot of research on incorporation in Dubai / Ras al Khaimah. It seems like somewhat of a hassle and probably more expensive than I thought originally -- with the freezone companies requiring renting a desk or office space (that I don't want) and a business license to operate in the UAE. Still worth doing, but not as much of a no-brainer as I thought originally when seeing the more favorable-seeming numbers. I think I've got the information nailed down and will look to do that in 2014 potentially, but in the meantime maybe incorporate in Seychelles or BVI in July or so?
*Reading Meditations by Marcus Aurelius is insightful. There's points about managing change and chaos, and how you can preserve the sanctity of your own mind despite external events. It's hard to put into short words, but I've been thinking on this concept a lot.
*I'm still often guilty of doing easy work, things I understand, or trivialities to stay busy and get an easy win instead of the most highly leveraged/important thing possible. This is something that's constantly worth focusing on and working on.
*Sometimes, being in motion is antithetical to achieving. Sometimes you need to slow down, not do something, and get perspective and then do what's most important, even if that requires you to fight through confusion towards action.
THE FINAL VERDICT FOR THIS WEEK
I set a low baseline to clear with all the craziness happening, and I cleared it. It was a good week and a number of events were wonderful, though it wasn't a maximal performance week. I also see clearly how saying yes to one thing -- getting into a crazy kind of motion -- can result in opportunity cost two weeks later when cumulative fatigue sets in. A measured pace with focused goals produces larger gains than fast-moving action, though it's also good to run right up to your limits from time to time to begin to understand what they are.
A solid week. Next week's schedule is likewise not too difficult and planned along the same lines, and then I'll likely ramp up from there.
Comments?