The Benefits of Tracking Your Life: Productivity + Awareness + Acceptance

I’ve started reading @lucianop’s blogpost about his 6 favorite productivity principles, but only got to no. 5 called “Tracking”. Reading about that felt like someone hit the nail on the head. That’s exactly what was missing in my current life situation.

I know a lot, have a lot of solutions and know what action is necessary to take to reach my goals. But I don’t implement even 20% of my knowlegde and stay mostly where I am. I do not critize myself for that, but also do not push me out of my comfort zone right now. I’m happy to stay calm and at peace with me most of the time, so I have no need to “punish” myself for my own behaviour. I know what I’m doing (or not doing in this case).

But. If I would track my actions, it would be much harder for me to face the reality. Would I see reality black on white, it would be much easier for me to act on it. It would be something I could change immediately because of the data I’ve got. To addition, I would be rather motivated to improve my life situation instead of drifting away, because I love charts and statistics. Any progress would be directly visible to me. If I eat less food today, I won’t notice anything on my body or the weight I guess. But if I track it, write it down, make a chart to be able to look at it, there would be some kind of satisfaction in that action.

Nevertheless, I’ve though a bit about tracking in general and noticed those 3 principles which apply to it perfectly. Let’s take a look at each of them:

Productivity

Surely, I will become productive tracking my actions. It motivates me like I mentioned above. It also forces me to face reality completely, which leads to more dissatisfaction or awareness (depending on my judgment) and can force me to act on it. Using a chart can be much more effective to involve others into your goals, letting them watch your progress live on the kitchen wall or creating a website which they can visit daily. You gain motivational support from them and the pressure to keep going even if it’s hard.

Awareness

Awareness is the key to living in the present. It creates peace, inner silence and joy. Awareness is independent of any judgment, because it just notices what is. This is the second benefit of tracking. You gain clarity of your current life situation instead of living in denial. If you deny your own life, you deny your ability to change whatever you like, you deny your own power. Awareness brings clarity which brings your power back to you. Awareness can envolve into a zen-like stadium of inner peace, without judgment, leading to the third benefit.

Acceptance

If you are aware of what is, you have the choice to fight it – and feel burdened, or to accept it and feel free. If you feel resistance towards what is, you can’t create something new because you resist your own creation. First you need to accept what your actions have brought you to. Only then you can choose to act differently. You dont need to love your current life situation, but you need to accept it to solve the resistance.

My first attempt

Well, now where I’ve layed down all the benefits of tracking, it would be a shame if I would not start applying it by myself! So, to be a great example I lay down to you what I want to track starting today. hehe.

• my eating habits
• my sleeping habits
• the time I spend online

I think this should be enough, or I won’t have any time left for living. I chose this three areas, because they affect my life quality in many ways. I bet it will be interesting to share it with all of you. Brings positive pressure (;

Geschrieben am Dienstag, 08. Juni 2010 und abgelegt unter conscious living. Verfolgen Sie die Diskussion zu diesem Beitrag per RSS 2.0 Feed. Sie können diesen Beitrag kommentieren oder einen Trackback von Ihrer eigenen Webseite setzen.