Feeling the Metrics Creep

Largely from being introduced to stoic philosophy, I have learned to group experiences or situations into two groups.

1. The things that are directly within my control.
2. The things that are not directly within my control.

If an item is placed into the first group, I figure out what to do about it.

If an item is placed into the second group, I aim to dismiss it from my mind as quickly as possible. There’s no use giving mental space to an item that will happen however it happens, regardless of my actions.

These days, there are metrics on so many different parts of life to the point where it can be quite overwhelming. I have found this to be the case when it comes to statistics for anything that I release on the Internet. I can quickly see the number of views I get on a video, the number of people that open a newsletter, or the number of likes that I receive on a IG photo or a tweet.

If we go back to the exercise of choosing a group for these metrics, I believe that they are firmly within Group 2 (Note: I can control them indirectly by producing stuff that people find valuable, but the actual stats themselves, i.e. people choosing to view, open, or like, is not within my power).

Even though they are in Group 2, I have not been dismissing them quickly. On the contrary, they have been living in my head rent free for the last few weeks!

Knowing that to be the case, I started to ask myself one of my favorite questions:

“What are you going to do about it?”

This question always helps me to make slight adjustments to my mindset when I am stagnant and considering myself a victim of circumstance by bringing my focus to those things which I have the ability to change.

Knowing myself and the fact that structure helps me to find freedom, I decided to set up some rules for the next six months (August 4, 2021 - February 4, 2022) surrounding the way that I engage with the various statistics of how my work is perceived.

The idea is that these will take my focus away from the actions of others so that it can be placed on what is within my control - simply creating the best work that I possibly can.

Now, these are subject to get stricter moving forward if I feel as though I need more guard rails, but here they are for the time being:

1. When posting any video on YouTube, I have to wait 48 hours to check on any response (or lack thereof 😆). This pretty much means not checking YouTube Studio. Simple enough. (I am not yet regularly posting videos on TikTok or Instagram, but this rule will go into effect one I start doing that.)
2. When releasing a new Museletter chapter, I have to wait 48 hours to engage with any feedback. Though my audience is so small (love to each of you that are on that journey with me ❤️), I have caught myself looking through the metrics of open rate and engagement with the different links WAY too often so I am not allowed to check on them for the full two days.
3. When sending a tweet or posting a picture on Instagram, I am not allowed to check for feedback on it for a full 48 hours (but I’ll see how long I can go each time). At the end of the day, why do I even care about likes anyway? This is a chance for me to show through my actions what is important to me.

In addition, I have too often found myself resting on my laurels after releasing some work that I made (which, let’s be honest, none of my stuff is even in the realm of “good” yet so I’m not quite sure why I do this 🤨), so I have tacked along these two extra rules to help keep the momentum moving forward (they were supposed to be 4 and 5, but I couldn't get the formatting right 😅):

1. On days where I post a video on YouTube, I must start recording something that will be used on the next. This could be either the A-roll, the B-roll, or work on the thumbnail, but it needs to be one of those three, i.e. making it this specific so that I don’t cop out and say “I’ll just work a little bit on the script today”.
2. On Mondays when I release a Museletter chapter, I must spend at least 30 minutes that day writing the next chapter or writing a blog post. Either one works. Just keep writing.

Life is a big experiment so this is just another one I am trying out.

If you have any tips for how you keep focused on the work itself instead of feedback from the world, I’d love to get your thoughts! Feel free to email me at kumusta@mattagustin.com or reach out any other way that you know to reach me 😄

Hope you are positively thriving today, friends!

Love,

Matt