FS | BRAIN FOOD
No. 541 — Sept 10, 2023 — Read on FS — Free Version
TKP
Shreyas Doshi on the difference between measuring and evaluating (lightly edited for clarity):
"You hear in business meetings that if you can't measure it, you cannot improve it. These kinds of statements are taken as truths. And over time, I realized [that] used in the wrong context, they tend to cause a lot of damage that we don't even realize because we feel like we are being smart when we say, "This thing must be measured before we can improve it." The way I realized some of the flaws in this thinking—of "you cannot improve something that you don't measure"—is [by] looking at my personal life and evaluating it.
I am a parent. And I asked myself, "Am I measuring how I'm doing as a parent, or am I measuring how I'm doing as a spouse?" And while I clearly improved in certain areas of parenting, I had not done any measurement there.
So then I started asking myself, "Well, if I've clearly improved in this area of parenting or this area of being a spouse, but I don't measure it, I don't track it on a daily basis, I don't have any metrics associated with it, and yet I can tell that I'm improving in these areas, … how am I doing that?"
The way I know that I'm improving is because I'm evaluating. And that's where I feel like there's a difference between the idea of evaluating how you're doing and measuring how you're doing.
The fundamental observation here is that sometimes evaluating how something is going is enough. And sometimes if you try to measure a thing, you might improve the measurement, but you might not actually be improving the underlying thing."
Insight
"One of the most important parts of developing an identity that can thrive, persist, and endure change is to diversify your sense of self. You can think of identity like a house. You want the house to have multiple rooms. Perhaps there is a "parent" room; an "athlete" room; an "employee," "entrepreneur," or "executive" room; a "community member" room, and so on. It's okay to spend a lot of time in just one room, but you've got to ensure you keep the others in good enough shape. This way, when you experience a massive change or disorder event in one area of your life, in one room of your identity, you can step into other areas to gain your footing and stability. Like a diversified portfolio in investing, diversifying your sense of self makes you more rugged and flexible in the face of change."
— Brad Stulberg in Master of Change
Tiny Thought
When you focus on the outcome, the gap between where you are and where you want to go seems large. To cover ground quickly, the tendency is to look for a hack or shortcut.
The problem is that no one who got the outcomes you wanted used a hack or shortcut to get them. Instead, they consistently inched forward.
Instead of focusing on the ultimate outcome, focus on the next move. There is always something you can do today to get a little better, to move a little closer, to put yourself in a better position. It's not pretty. It's not sexy. It's not fast. It doesn't even make for a good story. But it works.
You don't build an empire in a day. You build it brick by brick. Day by day.
Consistent daily progress for a long period of time.
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ETC.
The Long Game
"Every action is a step toward the short game or the long game. You can't opt out, and you can't play a long-term game in everything. You need to pick what matters to you. But in everything you do, time amplifies the difference between strategies that work in the short term and ones that work in the long term. The long game allows you to compound results. The longer you play, the bigger the rewards.."
— Source
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