Issue No. 62

This is a quote famously attributed to Peter Drucker, an Austrian-American management consultant, educator, and author, whose writings contributed to the philosophical and practical foundations of modern management theory.

Peter emphasizes that effective management relies on clear metrics to assess performance, which fosters clarity, accountability, and data-driven decision-making. Measurement motivates desired behaviors, supports continuous improvement through feedback, and facilitates benchmarking.

In our daily personal lives, this means that setting specific, measurable goals can improve personal habits and achievements. For example, tracking daily exercise, budgeting expenses, or monitoring study hours can lead to better health, financial stability, and academic success. Measurement provides clear benchmarks, helps prioritize efforts, and motivates consistent progress, making it easier to identify and address areas needing improvement.

From childhood until I graduated college, I did not bother measuring how much time I spent on various tasks. I am sure most people do the same. We go about our days with a checklist in our heads that we sometimes write on paper or on our phones. There seems to be nothing wrong with this, right? I thought so too.

The problem with living this way is that you never know which aspects of your life you have been neglecting. You just go about your day guessing which tasks require the most attention, and at the end of the day, you're still not satisfied because you feel as if you have not accomplished what you intended to. What were you really intending to do? Just mindlessly completing tasks day in and day out? For what purpose?

This is the sad thing about living this way: we complete tasks every day without an end in sight, no purpose, no deeper meaning. Why do you go to school? To pass your midterms or finals? Why do you study programming on weekends? Because you like coding? Why do you party on Friday nights? Why do you hang out with friends once every two months? Without deeper meanings, these activities will eventually become stale. There has to be an end goal to these.

When I started thinking every action I do has a meaning, it allowed me to actually focus on the things that truly matter. For example, when I thought about my job as a Product Manager as a prerequisite to my future goal of being a CEO, I considered my job a training ground. When I think of my weekend programming practice and study, I don't see it as a hobby. I see it as a productive endeavor that could result in me becoming a programmer in the future if my goal of becoming a CEO or startup founder doesn't come to fruition. That's my backup plan. I work out not just to be "healthy." I work out because, in six months or a year, I want to gain 7-10kg of muscle mass and finally wear my clothes better. I spend one hour every weekend writing a science fiction novel not because I just want to write a story for myself, but because I want to publish it in the future and write sequels for it. I write these newsletters not just because I like writing my thoughts out to the world but because I want to turn them into a book soon.

You have to be specific with what you want to accomplish. I realized this just this year, so I started measuring my activities. First, I started with an hourly measurement. I made a schedule for each hour of the day. It was not sustainable because I realized context switching every single hour is tiring to the brain. It needs to focus for three hours or so and then decompress to switch to another task. So I did time-blocking. At first, there was a big change because time-blocking allowed me to do tasks without worrying whether an hour had already passed or not. The problem was I still didn't know which tasks were worth my time and which were not. I needed to measure how much time I spent on each task. So a week ago, I used Notion to create databases that automatically record the time I spend on each task, such as walking, running, working out, studying, entertainment, writing, projects, work, etc.

I went as far as recording different aspects of my life, such as my health, my screen time, my finances, my meals, my major goals, etc.

What I did was connect a free form from a SaaS platform called Fillout and integrate it on Make, which is an automation platform. When I fill out the form at the end of the day for five minutes, it automatically distributes the data to my Notion databases. I can do this daily or weekly. I decided to do it daily for now so I can see its effectiveness. So far, the effect is incredible. I finally have clear evidence that I am using my devices for entertainment too much.

Or that my sleep and mood have a direct correlation.

I can also see how dehydrated I am. Or that I have very low cardio health. This allows me to focus on the things I am neglecting and tone down the activities I spend too much time on. This is what measurement means. This is what Socrates also alluded to when he said, “An unexamined life is not worth living.” This is how you examine your life in the modern world.

If only we can sit by ourselves and analyze what we have done so far even for a minute each day, that investment of mental energy can influence your future self in ways you probably never thought possible. This is what investing in oneself means.

Does that mean you have to follow what I do and measure every single thing in your life? No. In fact, in a month or so, I probably won't have to measure how much water I drink anymore or how much time I spend on entertainment. Because by that time, I will have maintained discipline in controlling my impulses and have internalized these habits as my identity (Check Atomic Habits book on how you can change your habits by first changing your identity). I will only have to measure the things that matter the most. Right now, I have just started, so I have to measure a lot of things to get a glimpse of my entire life. I urge you to do the same. You will be shocked by what you find out.

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Until next week,