"You hit your sleep goal 11X in the last two weeks," my Apple Watch announced as I turned off my Saturday morning alarm. ⏰ I shake my fist at that 6:30 am alarm on Saturday, but it's still basketball season for the kiddos.🏀

"What does this mean?" I wondered as I clicked on the notification, breaking my rule of not looking at my phone until after I've had my coffee.

I completely forgot that my watch tracks my sleep. 😴
Right at my fingertips was a log of 6 months' sleep data – down to the minute.

"On average, you spent less than 1% awake after you fell asleep (who knew most people end up awake at some point in the night!), 20% in REM sleep, 6% in core sleep, and 10% in deep sleep."

I experience deep sleep in the first sixty minutes of falling asleep. So, basically, a bulldozer could drive through my living room, and I wouldn't hear it—not in my deep sleep, anyway.

I kept reading the data and clicking on the information icons to understand what this all meant. "Your average time actually asleep adds up to 8 hours and 2 min."

Now, I could turn this into a lecture or motivational speech on "why sleep is important" and why it's non-negotiable for me to be in bed and fall asleep by 9 pm every night, but the most critical message here is data insights.

Over the years, I've learned that what gets tracked gets more attention. 📊

There's even a famous quote attributed to businessman Peter Drucker…

"What's gets measured, gets managed."

Now, I don't know ol' Pete personally, so I don't know if he really said that or if he was the first one to say that, but it makes sense.

I used to pop into Buzzsprout to check out my podcast stats (daily!), but I wasn't measuring or tracking my numbers.

How could I? I was looking to see, "Did they go up or down?" 📈 📉

It's the same with my other content, just different metrics…

• YouTube watch time, 🎥
• Email subscribers, 📨
• Click-thru rates, or 🖱️
• Conversion rates on sales pages. 💰

I could go on a deep dive talking about metrics, but my numbers will mean different things than yours.

Why?
We might have different goals, benchmarks, or milestones we want to hit this year. 🏆

But if you're not tracking them properly, I'm here to tell you that you'll have difficulty learning anything from your numbers.

Which is why I've created custom trackers for my content and business.

Over time, I've adapted these trackers to customize them to my needs, content, and workflows. Plus, I've been able to create better dashboards so I know exactly how my last launch went or what emails I sent and how they performed so that I can better analyze launch campaigns and content performance year over year. 🗓️

(If you want to peek at my trackers, reply "TRACKER" to this email. If there's enough interest, I may package all of them into a small bundle. 😉)

Content is a long-game approach.
​And your numbers are an essential part of the equation.

Consider your numbers in 3, 6, or 12-month increments.

Don't just look at last week's downloads and think, "Well, that's better than the previous seven days." 🤷

Remember, the more you measure, the more you'll be able to manage.

Focus on measuring and managing what you have today to prepare your content and your business for the bigger things ahead. ✨

To Measuring, Managing, AND Growing,

Krystal

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NEW RESOURCES THIS WEEK

"Did you know you can change a title after you publish it?"

I worked hard to solidify everything for this week's YouTube video. I drafted the artwork for the thumbnail, found the right title and tags, hit publish, and then…everything felt wrong. 😞 So, I changed it. 🙂

This is your gentle reminder that you don't always have to keep everything the "exact way" you thought it would be when you created it.

This week's YouTube video is from a group coaching call inside Proffitt Podcasting, where we discussed podcast seasons, private vs. public shows, and limited series. We talk about how podcast seasons can be like traditional television and what that looks like. Watch the video here or listen to the podcast version wherever you get your podcasts. 🎧