I’ve been experimenting with something lately. For years, whenever I sat down to write, I measured my progress in time. An hour of writing. Sometimes two. Sometimes more.
It worked for me for a long time.
I really got a lot of “work” done.
But lately, I’ve realized something.
Time spent isn’t always the same as progress made.
I could sit at my computer for two hours and technically call it a successful writing session. But how much did I actually write?
So recently, I changed the way I measure my writing.
Instead of telling myself I need to write for a certain amount of time, I’ve been giving myself a much simpler goal:
1,000 words.
That’s it.
Some days, a thousand words might take me an hour. Other days, it might take two.
But something interesting happened when I stopped watching the clock and started watching the word count.
I became more focused.
There was no prize for sitting at my desk longer. No reason to stretch the work to fill the time I’d given myself.
The only thing that mattered was moving the story forward.
And it got me thinking about how often we do the opposite in other areas of our lives.
We count hours worked instead of what we accomplished.
We count days we went to the gym instead of whether we’re actually getting healthier.
We count how many things we’ve crossed off our to-do list instead of whether any of those things actually moved us any closer to the life we’re trying to build.
Sometimes we get so good at measuring activity that we mistake it for progress.
But being busy and moving forward aren’t the same thing.
And I’m starting to realize that’s a lesson that applies to a lot more than writing.
So maybe instead of asking how much we did, we should ask whether any of it actually mattered. And maybe that’s the better question for all of us to ask ourselves.
Because in the end, that’s the only thing that’s worth counting. -Ken