Leading metrics

You have something you want to achieve. It is somewhat big that you cannot complete it in one sitting. How can you make sure you keep track of it and work on it and achieve without wasting any time ?

It is by splitting the work into smaller things, allotting just enough time to complete and then tracking the leading metrics for the work we are doing. 

For e.g. the leading metric for an author in completing a book is number of words written per day. For a software developer, it is number of sub tasks completed/number of problems solved. These are different to the lagging metrics like number of books published or number of software released. Since for a person starting out and even for a person starting a new project, by definition, there will be some time before a project can be released. But to be productive in the time of development, it is important to keep track of the leading metrics. What gets measured, gets managed. 

This can be applied to everything important in your life. Identify the very important things where the result can be known only later. There, develop leading metrics to make sure you are on track. You will be surprised by how much you can achieve because of this. Apply this to your health, contributions, relations and finances. Let me know in comments how you have applied this to your life and how it has helped you.