It's 9AM
It is hard.
How do you measure success?
Is it accolades?
Attaboys’?
Or if you sell books as a writer, is it the number of books sold?
Subs on Youtube, subs on Facebook, subs to a Newsletter?
Downloads of freebies, or clicks to a free story?
It is difficult at times to know what to measure and the more important question of why-
Especially if it doesn’t help reach a goal.
When I was in the corporate world, I talked a lot about the metrics that mattered.
There, we had to measure everything.
Numbers that told a story about how an employee spent their day.
And man, did Corporate hate the employees.
Biggest expense, lazy, clock milking wastes.
And that’s just what the VP called them.
I can’t imagine what they said in the Boardrooms.
I worked with sales, which is the engine of any place of business.
We used metrics to measure productivity and activity and somehow, someone convinced the powers that be that the two were connected.
Maybe it was an MBA class.
Maybe it was a misunderstanding somewhere up the chain.
But no if’s ands or maybe’s about it, they were wrong.
About a lot of it.
Not the lazy clock milking busy folks who were not productive.
We had those.
We have them still, in every business and every place.
They are a drain on resources.
And often take more resources than they deserve or earn.
Maybe that was part of it, because those busy bees get a majority of the spotlight.
In the news, in the break room, in the boardroom.
And everybody gets painted with that broad stroke of a brush.
I am as guilty of this as anyone.
Probably more so.
Yet, for my team, I was good at arguing about metrics and data points and why.
Why are we measuring these things that don’t matter.
I do it still.
Except now I’m debating the man in the mirror and wondering one thing.
Is this getting me closer to the goal?
Everything should be viewed through that lens.
Because of what happens when…
When Youtube hits 1000?
When Facebook grows or Substack grows or Amazon recommits?
All the books I’ve written are in Kobo now, and Barnes and Noble are getting added, and libraries and Overdrive and Apple.
Places and spaces where no one knows the name or series or even why to give it a try.
I’ve added them to payhip and a Square store and am setting up Shopify, because expansion means exposure.
But is it busy work?
Is it productive?
And should I just be there without measuring it, because the cost of it is so low?
I try to enjoy the journey.
Because every day is an adventure.
Except when it doesn’t work, as the metrics might suggest.
Back in the corporate world, I tried an experiment.
I treated my team like adults, and let them make their own schedule and come and go as they liked.
Felt like working five hours one day, and make up the time later.
Okay.
Want to work some in the morning and some in the evening?
Sure thing.
All I asked was to let me know.
We blew a lot of numbers out of the water, except for one.
An HR rule that said they had to work an 8 hour shift in a row, with a 1 hour break and 2 15 minute breaks, and hit their clock in time and clock out times without going over or being too early.
I got in trouble for it.
For treating people like adults.
A metric that can’t be measured.
Part of the adventure out here in building this business now is not measuring.
It’s the making.
I want to make more.
You can help. If you are getting any pleasure out of It’s 9AM, can you send me $1?
Come Join Me on Facebook
https://www.facebook.com/ChrisLowrybooks
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I wrote this for you: The Orion Factor
And This: The Nebula Conspiracy
Don’t forget, $1. Tomorrow, I’ll tell you what I’m doing with it.
