Why it Works

The productivity sheets are a neat experiment, but even more importantly, they work. The process of entering in a series of numbers each day forces me to remember my goals. I’m constantly aware of whether I’m moving closer to my goals or slipping backwards. The constant reminder instills powerful habits. Although motivation can get you started, habits will keep you going. These habits have changed my life. I’ve become a stronger person. I’ve become a more musically talented person. I’ve become a more well read person. I’ve become a better person. The growth I’ve witnessed in the past year is in no small way attributed to these sheets. This simple excel document has fundamentally changed who I am.

It’s possible I would have kept as good track of my goals without this constant reminder. It’s possible I would be as thorough with my homework even without being rewarded for taking my time. It’s possible I would have remained as disciplined in achieving goals without a productivity rating to aim for.

It’s possible, but it’s unlikely.

Obviously I can’t show statistics from before and after tracking my goals, because there were no statistics before. However, after I began tracking certain aspects of my daily life, there was an enormous uptick in those aspects I valued.

On to the data.

If the excel sheets themselves had no actual bearing on my productivity, you might expect my productivity scores to somewhat a binomial or t-distribution. This would mean all I’m doing is going through my day normally, and indifferently charting my progress. However, this isn’t the case.

Graph represents what my productivity rating was when I earned it that day.

This happens because the data is in my control. If I’m currently at a three or four, I can meditate for a dozen minutes, read more of my book, or go to the gym to push myself into the five category. The graph demonstrates this. There are two groupings. The first group, in the zero to two range, makes up a decent chunk of the data. For the most part, these days occur when I am not thinking about the productivity sheets, and simply go about my day as normal. This is the closest approximation of how I would act without the productivity sheets. Positioned between these two mountainous groupings exist a valley between three and five. They occur infrequently because a productivity score in the three/four range is high enough it rarely happens accidentally. However, if I am cognizant of the sheets, I will likely work harder to make it into the second grouping. The second grouping consists of days where I’m cognizant of the sheet, and to some extent attempting to get a decent score.

This is what is particularly cool. If you believe that the first grouping (from zero to 3) demonstrates what would be my production without the sheets and the second grouping (from five up) exhibits my production with the sheets, then what you can deduce is insightful. The productivity rating works in a very simple manner. A score of 10 is twice the productivity of a score of 5, and a score of 8 is four times the productivity of 2. From this, we can show that my productivity triples or quintuples when I am aware of my productivity sheets.

Luckily, when I started using these sheets, I arbitrarily decided that I should get a miscellaneous score of at least 1 if I opened up the sheets that day. This became essential in showing the power of the simple excel document.

The left set of values represent days where I entered my aspects the day after.

To be fair, the miscellaneous variable didn’t only track whether or not I looked at the sheets. So although all the numbers on the left were definitely days where I didn’t look at my sheets, there are likely some days on the right side where I also didn’t check sheets, but entered other miscellaneous points the day after. That said, I rarely give myself miscellaneous points the day after and you’ll just have to trust me. Although it’s hard to deduce a ton from a graph this simple, it’s still obvious the difference between the two sides. The correlation is clear. If I checked my sheets on a given day, my productivity rating would be 3.5 points higher. To put this in more concrete terms, a productivity rating of 3.5 points translates to 940 pushups, meditating for 22 minutes, or doing homework for 3.5 hours. This difference is significant. If you aren’t convinced, the following graphs exhibit my productivity score when I checked sheets that day, versus mostly days where I did not check sheets. The two graphs also demonstrate the two groupings mentioned earlier.

Represents almost exclusively the days I checked sheets

Represents the productivity on the days I did not check my sheets

If you’re really into graphs check out this one.

All these graphs are simply data about collecting data…

What’s so special about these sheets is that they are something I created. They’re just a set of numbers reflecting what I did throughout the day. I’m not actually rewarded in any way when I score above a ten on a productivity rating. I don’t receive a sum of money; I don’t receive a congratulations, I don’t receive a pat on the back. No one knows, except for me. But, this arbitrary data strongly influences my actions. As Ghandi said, “Your actions become your habits, Your habits become your values, Your values become your destiny.”