Action Audit

You can work all day and still avoid the work that would produce the result you want.

That is why I do not only want to hear how busy you are. I want to know what you produced.

Did you write the chapters? Make an offer? Get a yes or a no? Complete the workout you planned?

An action audit helps you examine the connection between your actions and your results. It brings your attention to what is actually happening rather than the story that you are trying hard and nothing works.

Own the result you are creating

In the Model, thoughts create feelings, feelings drive actions, and actions create results.

When someone is discouraged, they often present their results without owning them. They point to the industry, other people, or circumstances outside themselves.

A student asked how she could take responsibility for selling a course to a thousand people when those people had to choose to sign up.

I understood the question. But I wanted her to think about her own work: finding people she could help, letting them know, and making a compelling offer.

I do not wait for clients to find me. I take responsibility for going out and reaching people who want what I teach. Thinking that way keeps me taking action.

When I assign the result entirely to something outside me, I am more likely to wait.

Distinguish activity from result production

There is a difference between an action state and a result production state.

In an action state, you can list everything you have been doing. In a result production state, you look at the effect of that work.

I want to see results, positive or negative. A no can teach you something. An unsuccessful offer gives you information you can use.

Some people keep posting on social media without making offers that produce yeses or noes. They are busy, but they are not getting the feedback needed to learn.

It is like trying to climb a mountain while walking in circles. You are moving, but you are not learning which steps take you forward.

Find the actions with the greatest effect

I use the Pareto principle as a way to think about this: a relatively small share of inputs can produce a large share of outcomes.

The familiar formulation is that twenty percent of the inputs produce eighty percent of the outcomes.

Use that concept to examine your day. Which actions have the most effect on the results you want? Which actions create results you do not want?

A focused workout or coaching session may take a small portion of your day and have a significant effect on your health or motivation.

Meanwhile, much of the surrounding busyness may not be contributing.

The useful question is which actions matter most, so you can do more of those and change the ones that do not serve your goal.

Write down the results first

Choose a day, week, or month to review.

Write down what you produced. You may have gained two clients, gained none, or written three chapters. Be specific.

Then work backward.

For results you wanted, identify the exact actions that produced them. Look at the busywork around those actions and consider what you can remove.

For results you did not want, identify the actions contributing to them and find a way to change those actions.

You are not doing this to criticize yourself. You are finding information that helps you act more effectively.

Test a hypothesis and measure it

I use a simple process: make an educated guess about what will work, do it enough to get a result, measure that result, and evaluate.

If it produces what you want, repeat it. If it does not, change the approach and try again.

Suppose your hypothesis is that daily social media posts will bring clients. If that has not happened, look at another action. Perhaps emailing people on your list, creating an ad, or attending an event will produce a different result.

You do not know until you test and measure.

Also distinguish an approach that did not work from an approach you did not actually carry out. If you did not follow the plan, the first thing to examine is following through. If you did, you have information about the plan.

Decide how much time the work gets

The second concept I use is Parkinson's Law: work expands to fill the time allotted for its completion.

When I teach time management, I ask students to decide ahead of time how much time a task will get.

They often ask how they can know how long it will take. But how long it takes depends on focus, distraction, breaks, and the amount of time available.

Think about a school paper assigned weeks in advance. Many of us wrote it in a few hours the night before it was due. The deadline helped determine the work period.

I once talked with a friend who helped people write books in ninety days. She explained that she was concentrating the actual writing hours into that period, not reducing the writing itself.

Combine focus with an effective action

Once you find an action that produces the result you want, ask whether you can do it in less time with fewer distractions and a clear limit.

This is how I approach my own workouts: complete the planned work in a focused period, then measure what it produces. I am not counting time spent chatting or checking my phone as productive exercise.

I often feel more energized after producing results than after a day of confusion, worry, and distraction.

Knowing what I completed creates momentum.

Start with your audit. What did you produce? Which actions produced it? What needs to change? Use those answers to choose higher-quality actions and give them deliberate time.

Do not only measure how much work you do. Measure what your work creates.