Progress in our jobs is easy to measure thanks to pay raises and promotions.
When we get to relationships and health, progress is still harder to measure. The troubles here are in the zone of “when do you call yourself unfit/unhealthy?” and “when is a relationship failing?” The inherent danger is that by the time we realize something is wrong, it’s too late to fix it.
Progress in our intelligence is the hardest. Not reading books that expand our intelligence doesn’t hurt at all. We could go through our entire life never having really understood how our brain works, why our brain works the way it does, and how that translates to why we do what we do.
I remember failing to hit my daily 30 minutes of book reading target when I first attempted it as a university student. My elephant responded with “Maybe you are too busy doing other important things.”
And I clearly remember my rider responding in anger “More important that reading books and learning? Are you freakin’ kidding me? Who do you think you are.. The founder of Microsoft? Oh wait.. He reads 10x the number of books a normal person does.”
That settled the argument on book reading. The same argument repeated itself this year as I sought to make exercise a 5 times/week habit instead of 3 times/week.
What we tend to forget is that each of these – exercise, healthy relationships, and great books – play a massive role in making us more productive at our jobs. Stephen Covey masterfully called them PC or Production Capability activities – stuff that helps you P or Production get better.
The learning? Make twice as much effort to spend time on things that aren’t easily measured – exercise, reading books, sleeping 8 hours, and spending time on close relationships. If you ever find your elephant fooling you with “you are too busy doing other important things,” send me an email.
I’ll make sure I respond with “Are you FREAKIN’ KIDDING me?”
A Learning a Day 