Why measuring means awareness

Photo by Andrea Sonda on Unsplash

How many times you were surprised how many hours have passed without even knowing what happened to your day? How many times you were shocked how many hours you spent on your phone?

Whether it is something good or bad for you, counting or measuring something gives you more awareness than by just doing it.

I found this interesting quote;

Count something. Regardless of what one ultimately does in medicine—or outside of medicine, for that matter—one should be a scientist in this world. In the simplest terms, this means one should count something. … It doesn’t really matter what you count. You don’t need a research grant. The only requirement is that what you count should be interesting to you. —Atul Gawande, Better: A Surgeon’s Notes on Performance

The things we measure are the things we improve. It is only through numbers and clear tracking that we have any idea if we are getting better or worse.

• When you counted the times you read a book during the week, you tend to read more books.
• When you tracked your phone consumption, you become more aware on your usage
• When you tracked you net worth each month, you tend to save more and invest wisely

The idea of countings helps you to measure anything that you wanted to improve more. This is also why tracking your habits and journaling are one of the effective ways to reinvent yourself and change the course of life.

COUNTER IDEA OF MEASURING

However, not everything that is important in your life should be measured, such as your “values” or “love”. Those kind of “ideology” or profound terms are something I considered “immeasurable” as it more vast ways of seeing it rather than just putting it into numbers.

Nonetheless, measuring it in a way that you are counting how many times you’ve showed up on such areas helps you somewhat improve. Bear in mind that this can only help a little but should not be entirely your basis in measuring it.

Like for example, you can count how many times you had a date or called your love ones during the month. But it should be entirely about the times your called.

CONCLUSION

The start of awareness if thru measuring, if you wanted to improve one aspect of your life you have to start counting it. Do the simplest task of tracking different aspect of your such as your finances thru budgeting, productivity time spent, hobbies or skills your are building. It all starts with counting before you become aware and see growth for yourself.