Trackers and external rewards

Trackers are a great way to stay focused on your goals. They help you keep track of what’s important so you know you’re moving in the right direction. And they can also be fun when you are doing your check-ins and seeing how well you’re doing staying on target. But there are a few snags you face right away when setting up trackers:

• How do you know which actions to track?
• How do you remember to update your tracker?

You’ve got to factor in incentives. Everyone wants to be happy and live a good life, so you have a natural drive to approach rewards or avoid punishments. Approaching rewards can be motivating. You can hook into this natural tendency to motivate yourself toward action.

So, pick a reward. That much seems obvious. But the question then becomes: how do you pick the right reward?

This is important, so we’ll do a little deep dive into it.

It seems so simple: “I’ll reward myself with X when I do Y.” A few examples might be:

• “If I complete that 10-mile hike then I’ll have that beer in the fridge.”
• “If I study for one hour then I can play video games.”
• “If I have broccoli with dinner then I can have a bowl of ice cream.”

In these examples, you picked an action you want to complete and you assigned a tantalizing reward for completion of the task.

But there’s a killing flaw in all of these particular rewards. They are all under your control or are too easy to attain. The beer and ice cream is already in the fridge. Video games are always sitting and waiting in your computer or console.

There seems to be a limiting motivation factor when you have your finger on the reward button before you’ve even decided to complete the action. In most cases, you’ll just keep mashing your nose into that reward button like a lab rat. Rats are cute, but it’s not a good look for you.

Short-term self-given rewards work just fine in the moment: “Let’s finish cleaning up this messy code then we can go get lunch.”

But for a bigger project or lifestyle change, I’d say:

Self-given rewards lack the constraint necessary to trigger the mental and physical chemistry that really gets your ass in gear.

To create effective incentive structures, there are a few simple considerations you will need to take.

• Look at things you genuinely want
• That are outside your direct control
• That are only attainable through action

As is often said, life rewards action. By simply getting up and doing something you increase the odds of something else happening.

Aligning your actions with external goals can provide the necessary motivation when you’re stuck in analysis paralysis. And if that goal achievement is uncertain or somewhat precarious, you will feel more motivation to achieve it.

In scientific terms, reward uncertainty can increase “incentive salience.” (Think gambling or dating apps.) The anticipation of the reward is increased by the level of uncertainty involved in getting it.

This is the key. Things that are easily attainable are not sufficiently motivating, but something desirable outside of your control can be instantly exciting. But instead of using an addictive app, you are triggering the desire using cues that motivate you toward meaningful actions in your life.

There has to be some distance between you and the reward so that you can’t simply stop and claim your prize whenever you want.

You can accomplish this by setting up proper lead measures and lag measures. (These are not my terms. I first read about this in a book called The 4 Disciplines of Execution if you want to check it out.)

Often, the difference between completing an important project and spinning your wheels can come down to what you are measuring as progress.

Lead measures are the actions that fall totally within your control. Lag measures are the results of your action that are outside of your control but follow your own focused efforts.

I’ll give a few examples.

For a writer, the ultimate goal of writing an article or work of fiction is to get it published. A writer cannot control what gets accepted by editors, but it’s an important measure of their productivity nonetheless. (That is the lag measure.) But, a writer has total over control how often he writes, how much he writes, how much time he dedicates to writing, how often he submits his works to the marketplace, etc. (These are all lead measures.)

Similarly, academic writers measure their publication output but also their citation count. So that’s two tantalizing lag measures that an academic writer can use as motivation to keep writing (lead measure) and reading (lead measure) and doing research (lead measure).

Similarly, body builders might track their weight. This is a lag measure because there is an element of uncertainty to it. Gaining or losing weight can be tricky, but it’s still an important indicator of progress. Appropriate lead measures could be tracking calories, workouts, days in gym, amount of sleep, etc.

So, in summary, here are the steps to build trackers that actually work and that you will actually use.

1. Identify tantalizing reward(s) you cannot directly influence (your lag measures).
2. Identify the lead measures that contribute to that outcome.
3. Track the lead measures religiously.
4. Watch the lag measures roll in.

How you track these is up to you. Pen and paper works just fine, but if you’re more technical you may have spreadsheets or scripts that help you keep track of actions and results.

Helpful data points could be percentages of lag measures achieved compared to actions taken. For example, if you are sending your writing out to editors and publishers, what percentage of your total submissions resulted in a publication?

I have found that Sturgeon’s law holds true in the world: 90% of everything is crap. Most of your efforts will fall flat, but if you’re doing something right then ten percent will rise to the top and get you the results you crave.

In this article, I’ve talked about how you can introduce uncertainty (or luck) as a spur to get you moving on important projects. You are, in essence, hacking your dopamine to get yourself into a more productive state.

A notable criticism of this approach is that you are chasing anticipation rather than relying on discipline and will power. If you are blessed with the ability to do exactly what you need to do without any incentive then by all means just do it. But for most people, having a clear, tantalizing reward and tracking actions that contribute to it provides the thrust necessary to get going. Discipline and habit formation can come along after.

On the other hand, do you really have a choice in the matter? Most of the results you will want for any action require some luck and uncertainty. If you create a product, you can’t force people to buy it. If you write a novel you can certainly tout it to potential readers, but at the end of the day it’s solely the reader’s choice to engage.

So, to recap:

• Effective tracking requires external rewards and controllable actions
• Focus on lead measures, let lag measures take care of themselves
• Position yourself accordingly so good fortune can find you