Create your own scorecard

What gets measured gets done

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Episode Transcript

Speaker 1 (00:03):
Welcome to Before Breakfast, a production of I Heart Radio.
Good Morning. This is Laura, Welcome to the Before Breakfast podcast.
Today's tip is that creating a scorecard can help you
pursue your goals and reflect on your progress. What gets

(00:27):
measured gets done, and creating a ritual to check in
on how things are going increases the chances that things
go well. Readers of my blog Laura Vanderkam dot com
know that I often publish what I call a Tranquility
by Tuesday's scorecard on well, Monday's not Tuesday's. Tranquility by

(00:52):
Tuesday is the name of a book I wrote that
will be out this fall. In it, I share nine
time management rule that I think will help people calm
the chaos and make time for what matters. So, since
I'm telling other people to follow these rules, I think
fair is fair and I should try to follow them myself.

(01:14):
Hence the TBT scorecard. On Monday, I reflect on my
adherence to the nine rules. How many times over the
past week did I follow Rule Number one? Give yourself
a bedtime. I look at my time log and report
if I was in bed by eleven pm each night,
and if not, why not? Did I follow rule number three?

(01:37):
Moved by three pm? I report if there were any
days that I did not do some sort of physical
activity by midday. I often spend a lot of blog
real estate talking about rule number six. One big adventure,
one little adventure. Did I do anything interesting in the
course of the week. Often the answer is yes, though

(02:00):
if the answer is no, I find it helps to
reflect on what happened that kept me from adhering to
the rule. Sometimes there is a good reason, and sometimes
there isn't. I reflect on what following or not following
the rule has done in my life. The goal is
to understand how the rules play out in my life

(02:21):
and how I can make good choices in the future.
I certainly hope you will start keeping your own tranquility
by Tuesday scorecard if you read the book. But of
course that's not the only scorecard that can have a
positive effect on daily life. For instance, if you are
trying to eat more vegetables, you could build a veggie
eating scorecard. You'd list the day of the week and

(02:44):
then list what veggies you ate. At the end of
each day or each week, you could reflect on your
food choices. You'd soon start to see patterns like that
you find it easier to eat more veggies when you've
just gone to the grocery store and have lots of
fresh cut up stuff in the house. Maybe you see
that it's hard to eat well when you're traveling, or

(03:06):
perhaps on Thursdays because that's the day your team goes
out to lunch at the burger joint and you have
often run out of dinner ideas by the end of
the week and tend to order pizza. Seeing the scorecard
reflecting that Monday is easily a five servings day and
Thursday is maybe a one serving day, can prompt you
to make strategic choices like maybe doing a midweek grocery

(03:30):
shop or at least bringing some carrots and hummus to work.
Or maybe you're trying to build a daily ritual of
reading for at least twenty minutes. You could create a
scorecard with all the days of the week and a
checkbox for twenty minutes and a spot for reflections. When
you start to see lots of checks on weekends and

(03:52):
very few on Wednesday, well you know that you can
strategize for building a spot into Wednesday's schedule, or you
can decide that you just don't care since you easily
read for forty minutes on Saturdays and it all comes
out in the wash. Totally up to you, but the
scorecard creates accountability, so you can make that choice. On

(04:16):
my TBT scorecard, I reflect in a fairly free form manner,
but if you would like some more structure. Here are
some questions you could ask yourself about goals or habits
you are pursuing. First, what supported your goal pursuit? In
other words, what's working? Second? What challenges did you encounter?

(04:39):
What made it harder to pursue your goals? The purpose
here is not to berate yourself or let yourself off
the hook. You're just thinking about what you might need
to change to make it easier to do what you
intend to do. Third, what was the impact of doing
the intended behavior this week or of not doing the

(05:00):
intended behavior? And finally, any insights for next week? That
last question can help you look forward, because if you
check in weekly a week after this last check in,
you'll check it again. What makes it more likely that
future you will be smiling as you reflect on your progress.

(05:22):
A little strategy and a well designed scorecard can make
that future come to be In the meantime, this is Laura.
Thanks for listening and here's to making the moves of
our time. Hey, everybody, I'd love to hear from you.

(05:49):
You can send me your tips, your questions, or anything else.
Just connect with me on Twitter, Facebook and Instagram at
Before Breakfast pod that's b E than number four then
Breakfast p o D. You can also shoot me an
email at Before Breakfast podcast at i heeart media dot
com that Before Breakfast is spelled out with all the letters.

(06:12):
Thanks so much, I look forward to staying in touch.
Before Breakfast is a production of I Heart Radio. For
more podcasts from my heart Radio, visit the i heart
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