Be Careful What You Measure | Nerd Fitness

Last week, Wells Fargo laid off many of its remote employees.

It turned out that these employees were “simulating keyboard activity” (with a program/device that automatically typed keys or moved their mouse when they were not at their computer).

Why?

Because this is how these employees were evaluated:

Not based on how many clients they brought in, or how many relationships they built, but based on how many hours they were active on their computers.

So, that’s what these employees told him.

Remember, this is the same bank that told employees in 2017: “Sign up as many customers as possible for additional banking services.”

Result?

Credit cards, savings accounts and brokerage accounts were illegally created in the names of millions of unwitting customers, leading to millions of dollars in fines and destroying Wells Fargo’s reputation.

Why did these two ridiculous errors in judgement occur?

Bloomberg Matt Levine It is well said:

There are two basic principles of management, regulation and life:

1. What you measure is what you get.
2. Whatever you measure becomes a game.

It’s really just a principle: you get what you measure, but only what you measure. There’s no guarantee that you’ll get the general good thing you thought you were approximately measuring.

If you want hard-working people and measured working hours, you will find many employees surfing the Internet until midnight.

I came across this story by chance last week, and immediately thought about how this encouragement and unexpected outcome happens in our lives every day.

We download Duolingo to learn to talk in our language with a native speaker. Months later, we’re checking in daily so we don’t get yelled at by owls, desperate to keep our daily streak active… and all we can say is “I found a blue ostrich at the library.”

We’re lying in bed, shaking our hands madly above our heads, Because our Fitbit tells us we need to walk 500 more steps to reach 10,000 steps a day.The history of the 10k step rule is here By the way…)

I once “meditated” every day for 6 months So that I can focus in Headspace. Sometimes I would open the app and turn on the meditation so I would get credit for it, though I wasn’t meditating…That’s the whole reason I downloaded the app.

We tell ourselves we want to “read more”, But then we lose track of how many books we’ve read. This encourages us to read books as quickly as possible (without remembering any of them), rather than tackle bigger challenges like war and Peace Or reteach Read our favorite books to learn more lessons.

Why do we want to read more? To learn something or for fun! The number of books or which books, it does not matter,

Social media started as a way to connect with friends. These days social media has become a big business and Only A marketing tool for many creators. Because these companies track “time on app” and “attention”… social media has now become one hell of outrage.

The content that gets the most attention rises to the top: outrageous, factually incorrect, horrible content designed to anger and spread fear. Even most of my favorite wellness creators these days spend their time making reaction videos to the most disgusting wellness misinformation, because that’s the only content that gets any attention.

(No wonder so many people are avoiding it The Dark Forest of the Internet,

All of this paints a fascinating picture of how the human brain works, and how good it is at taking measurements and learning. Wrong Lessons from that metric!

What are you measuring?

Most people come to NerdFitness.com to “lose weight.”

This is a metric that everyone is used to tracking. Every ad talks about how to lose weight fast. They look at the number on the scale and let that number determine how they feel about themselves that day.

This is the wrong metric to focus on specifically:

We don’t really want to “lose weight.” What we want is to lose fat (or build muscle) while maintaining our muscle mass.

If our only goal is to lose weight, severe calorie restriction and endless cardio may lead to weight loss. BUT! If we don’t change our relationship with food, and don’t eat enough of the right macronutrients and micronutrients, we will feel sluggish, hungry and unhappy… and then as soon as life gets in the way, we will start to gorge ourselves.

If we do strength training while eating enough protein and creating a calorie deficit, we will actually lose weight Slower It’s better to starve ourselves and do hours of cardio. But, we’ll be losing fat while maintaining muscle.

The scale should only be a part of how we are Evaluate our progress,

Eventually, there will be a number on the scale day to day fluctuations,

• If we went out to eat last night.
• If we ate too much salt yesterday.
• If we are carrying excess water weight.
• If we are on menstruation.
• Any number of reasons.

So, once we know that what we choose to track is important, how can we use it to our advantage?

What to track, what not to track

Remember, what gets measured gets improved, so let’s be mindful of what we’re tracking.

We can ask, “What do I really want? Is this the right metric for that goal?”

• Trying to “eat better”: Track your protein intake and number of fruits/vegetables eaten daily. If these two things are first on your plate at every meal, you will begin to lose weight without you even noticing.
• I’m trying to build a “Beach body, Very good, let’s go Build some muscleTrack your workouts, and write down how many sets and reps you did. Then, do one more next time. The goal? Progressive overload for the win! Get stronger,
• Want to read more? Don’t track “books read”, which may result in you choosing shorter books or reading faster, but rather track “time spent reading”. This can include audiobooks, rereading old books, etc. Improve your reading list Like a river, not a to-do list,

Ultimately, there are many things we probably don’t need to track, or that we should be cautious about tracking.

There is an entire community of biohackers out there who prioritize tracking even the smallest details based on a variety of parameters, many of which may hold no significance, or could even have adverse consequences.

Here’s one thing we often get asked about:

Unless you are diabetic and your doctor has advised you to, you do not need to wear a continuous glucose monitor. It is perfectly normal for glucose to rise temporarily after eating.

,this podcast My friend Dr. Spencer Nadolsky explains very well why you don’t need a glucose monitor if you’re not a diabetic.

Here are some things I used to track but skipped:

I used to track my sleep regularly with the Oura ring and AppleWatch, but then I would get anxious in the middle of the night and worry that I was ruining my “sleep score”…which negatively impacted the very activity I was trying to improve through tracking. These days, I worry a lot less about tracking “good sleep” and just do what I can to get 8 hours in bed, whether I sleep or not.

And on a larger philosophy of life question:

Be aware of how social media is distorting the scorecard you use to track your progress in life! It’s very easy to get caught up in: “Work hard to make money and then spend it on things we don’t need so we can impress people we don’t even like” Success in life is not measured by the size of our house, or the value of our car, or the amount of money in our bank account.

Bringing everything together:

When it comes to personal growth or health improvement, it’s helpful to ask: “What am I optimizing for, and is it good for me?” In fact help me get the result In fact want?”

We can then determine if we’re playing with the right scorecard and if we’re focusing on the right metrics.

I would love to hear from you: What’s one metric you used to prioritize, but no longer track? And what’s one important metric you’re choosing to prioritize these days?

Reply to this and let me know!

-Steve