A year ago, I announced a new productivity experiment and invited you to join in. I created a simple spreadsheet where I would track 3 areas of my life on a weekly basis:
- Challenges (like 30 day challenges to form new habits)
- Focus skills
- Books
A year has passed and so it's time to look back and asses: did this productivity experiment work? Should I have done things differently?
Let's find out!
More...
Mixed Results
As you can tell from the video, my results from this experiment were mixed. And they were mixed in ways I didn't expect.
First, I didn't follow through - I didn't keep using the spreadsheet for the entire year.
That's in part just a lack of consistency on my part (told you I have this problem) and it's in part because I felt like it just wasn't working for me.
But looking back, I can tell that while it felt like the productivity tracking sheet wasn't doing anything for me, it did clearly yield some positive results.
The only thing that really didn't work in the experiment was tracking challenges on a weekly basis. I use other tools to track challenges and habits on a day-by-day basis and that's just far more effective.
But both the "focus skills" and the "books" parts of the tracking sheet had a clear, positive effect for me. My 2018 was better thanks to using this tracking sheet for a few months. I read far more books than usual and I learnt some new physical skills, despite a fairly lackluster training regimen.
My Favorite Books of 2018
Speaking of books: 2018 was one of my best years in terms of finding, reading and being inspired by books.
Here's a short list of some of my favorite reads from the past year:
- Sapiens by Yuval Noah Harari - this book made me wish I could keep seeing the world as I saw it while I was immersed in reading. I mourn everything I forget about this book already.
- Selfie by Will Storr - this book surprised me. Look at the title and read the blurb and you'll expect a certain narrative from this book. Read the book and get much more than that.
- Ten Arguments for Deleting Your Social Media Accounts Right Now by Jaron Lanier - this book is required reading for anyone working online. Actually, it's required reading for anyone with a smartphone.
- Throwing Rocks at the Google Bus by Douglas Rushkoff - this book pairs perfectly with the one above. Jaron Lanier lays out the consumer perspective and Douglas Rushkoff reveals the business side of the problems in the tech industry.
- Why We Sleep by Matthew Walker - hands down the best resource on sleep you can get.
- The Culture Code by Daniel Coyle - if you work with teams, read this book. This is the book I wish I'd had, before I started hiring people.
- What Doesn't Kill Us by Scott Carney - an odd one out in this list (although by far not the oddest book I read in 2018). This is an entertaining read about physical extremes and how they can help the human body thrive.
The Real Treasure
The story cliché is that the treasure you sought was inside you all along. I have a similar conclusion to my 2018 experiment - which failed but still succeeded, somehow.
The real treasure isn't in the specific tracking sheet that I shared at the beginning of 2018. It's not in any of the tools I use to track my habits and keep myself productive. It's in a general attitude of experimentation. It's in a "mad scientist" approach to life: try things out, see what happens and keep making adjustments that steer you towards your goals.
That is, above all, what I encourage you to do. Create your own experiment for 2019. Give it a go, even if you're not sure whether it will be great or a total waste of time.
Leave a comment letting me know what you're experimenting with in 2019. And also: I'd love to hear about your favorite books from lately.

Shane,
Thank you for sharing your experiences!
This is a very timely post! I actually came across the spreadsheet template you mentioned while in my G Drive the other day…and I was feeling somewhat bad that I’d failed to follow through with trying out your “experiment!” ;-) LoL! Now I don’t feel so bad! :-)
It’s also very informative to hear your own processes, and what worked & what didn’t… Hearing about someone else’s experience always adds a sense of perspective! :-)
The biggest lesson for me from your transparency here is what you describe as “your greatest treasure” and your enthusiasm for experimenting and trying things out…especially in a relatively *public* forum! I know that making a public commitment is supposed to be a tactic to hold oneself accountable…but it’s always been scary for me!
So, to help me get over that obstacle, here’s mine for 2019:
I’m dedicated to using what I’ve learned in your productivity course every day! It’s already helped me see things differently & I feel less distracted and more focused! I actually accomplish things I set out to do! :-) Yay!
Thank you for your comment!
I’m happy that the course has been so helpful for you already. :)
Way to stick to the follow up 1 year later Shane! I’m experimenting with paid advertising to build my email list. I teach on Udemy, but know that I need to step up my marketing game. Thanks for your book suggestions!
Thank you for your comment! I hope you’ll find the books useful. Although this year, my favorites mostly aren’t very marketing or business strategy related. Still very much worth reading. :)
I highly recommend Greg Mc Keown book “Essentialism”. He was recently on Tim Feriss podcast and gave a great introduction to the book by applying the way he teaches on Tim Feriss` personal situation.
Thank you for the recommendation!
So interesting!
If I may, your comments about the weekly check-in made me think that it’s quite a personal preference, one that depends on what your life looks like. I, for one, have the opposite experience… I tried to use the 30-day challenge spreadsheet, as shown in the course, and gave up almost immediately. For the simple reason that there is no habit I wish to build, implement or track that I repeat every single day.
I believe that has a lot to do with having a child; my week is very much divided into workdays and holidays/family days. Sometimes I will move week tasks into the weekend, but at the very least, I need that flexibility. if I’m supposed to do something *every* day, then I will fail at the first bump in the road.
In fact, I think I do something quite like your “failsafe” idea (the minimal version of the morning routine): I give myself a minimum number of days to repeat something (like “yoga 4 times a week”), and if I can do more, then that’s great! But, more often than not, I can’t; plus I need the freedom to move things around within the week, in case of (frequent) unpredictable events.
This has made me notice that all my challenges are set on a weekly basis, rather than a daily one: train jiu-jitsu once a week, sketch twice a week, go on a date with my husband once a week, read one book a week, post on social media twice a week, etc. There isn’t any of these things that I could realistically do every day (or break down into daily parts/steps).
So, if I cross your results with mine, I’d say there just isn’t a one-size-fits-all when it comes to “tracking periodicity”. It all depends how you define the challenges and habits you wish to take up. Now, the next question is whether redundancy is ever helpful.
For example, I also track monthly goals, and that is equally important to me. But in a different way. I don’t think anything that can be tracked monthly qualifies as a “habit” in itself. It’s more of a way to measure my overall productivity, and plan for the future accordingly. Like, how did I come up with “yoga 4 times a week” (rather than 3, or 5)? Well, that comes from my monthly overview. That is how much I can expect to achieve consistently, week in, week out. 3 wouldn’t be challenging enough, and 5 would likely doom me to failure (however, who knows, if I reach this year’s goal, I may step it up next year!).
Perhaps that could be the use of a weekly tracking spreadsheet for people who work with daily habits. Not just checking a box every seven days that you’ve checked a daily box, but measuring the weekly total of a quantity that tends to vary from one day to the next.
This is interesting, thank you for sharing!
It’s definitely a general pattern for me that I find it much easier to do something every day or not at all. I’m an all-or-nothing kind of person, that way. But what you describe makes total sense. This is why I wanted to emphasize the benefit of being experimental in my video here. And why I also don’t always offer a one-size-fits-all solution in the course. Sometimes, we just need to try a few different approaches until we find one that sticks.
Hi Shane,
I’m trying to purchase Focus + Action, but noticed you don’t have PayPal as a payment option.
Could I possibly purchase it using PayPal?
Sorry, currently I can’t accept PayPal payments for the course.