How To Reach Your Goals, Eventually

 

I’m 10 pounds overweight.

I sleep 5½ hours a night.

I spend more money than I make.

It is not what I want. I’ve been trying to improve these three areas for over a year. No luck. I’m still where I was a year ago.

I think I finally found the solution to my problems though.

What if I improved my weekly average a little bit every week?

I weigh myself every morning. My average weight last week was 172.2 pounds. Can I make the average this week 172.0 or less?

I use a FitBit to track my sleep. I slept an average of 5 hours and 34 minutes last week. Can I make an average of at least 5 hours and 35 minutes this week?

I track my spending on a spreadsheet. I spent $679 last week. Can I spend $678 or less this week?

Tracking weekly averages is better than tracking daily numbers. Daily numbers can jump up or down. They don’t make much sense unless you step back and look at the averages.

When you track weekly averages, you can make easier adjustments. If I see that I’m on track to lose more weight than expected, but spend more than anticipated, I can adjust it. I can ease off on the diet and exercise. I can tighten my spending.

This system is especially useful to me because I often don’t have time to do everything I set out to do each day. It would be nice to know where I have been putting too much effort and where I need to focus on. Perhaps I don’t have to go to the gym for an hour today. I could use that time for eliminating some expenses.