Why checking your progress every week gets you there faster than checking it never.
Every Friday morning, I sit down with a spreadsheet and do our personal banking. Coffee in hand, spreadsheet open, ready to go.
The spreadsheet tracks the goals that my husband and I have set for retirement – we are ‘practicing retirees’. We built it around a budget for the life we want to live once we stop working, and we practice this budget now, in preparation for when retirement arrives. We have set goals for different parts of our life: travel, savings, household, eating out and the milestones we want to reach along the way.
Each week I update the numbers and see where we stand. I can see whether we are on track, off track or on target. The spreadsheet holds year-to-date figures, projections and charts, so the picture builds as the weeks pass.
I honestly look forward to this weekly ritual. The spreadsheet shows me the outcome of our plan while it happens, not months later when the numbers have piled up and it’s too late.
Call me a geek if you like; I will wear that title with pride! The question worth asking is why tracking a goal this closely changes how people reach it.
A goal without a way to track it is like driving without GPS. You know where you want to end up, but you have no way of seeing whether you are on the fastest route, or drifting into traffic that is about to cost you the whole afternoon.
A GPS does not just show your position, it shows whether you are on track, and it recalculates when you are not. The same applies to a goal: a regular check-in shows you the same thing, in time to change course.
The American Psychological Association’s release, “Frequently Monitoring Progress Toward Goals Increases Chance of Success,” looks at a meta-analysis of 138 studies covering nearly 20,000 people, led by Benjamin Harkin at the University of Sheffield. It finds that checking progress on a goal more often raises the chance of reaching it, and recording that progress in writing or sharing it with someone else raises the odds further.
The route to the goal
A GPS does not just mark your destination, it watches the route the whole way there, tells you when you are off track, and finds another way through when the first path stops working. A goal works the same way. Setting it is only the start; the route is what gets you there.
Set the destination
Decide where you are going, clearly enough that you would recognise arriving. A goal that cannot be pictured cannot be routed to.
Watch the route
Check the route on a regular schedule, not just when something feels wrong. Each check shows one of three signals: off track, at risk, or on track.
Recalculate
Act on what the signal tells you, before red turns into a wasted afternoon. A GPS recalculates the moment it sees a problem; a goal deserves the same speed.
Arrive, however you got there
The path can change along the way, and so can the destination, if you find something better on the road. Reaching the goal matters more than sticking to the first plan.
That is what the spreadsheet does every Friday morning: it is not the destination, it is the route.
Next steps for you
- Start your own weekly check-in — Pick one goal and decide how you will track it each week, on paper, in an app, or in a spreadsheet.
- Apply this to your quality objectives — The same principle — set the destination, check the route — sits behind ISO 9001. Download the Clause 6.2 Quality Objectives Scoreboard and Planner.
- Decide what off track looks like — Before you need to notice it, so the signal is clear rather than something you talk yourself out of.
Lead the Standard
