After 7 years, I am discontinuing the financial tracking that started in the military.
After 7 years, I am stopping financial tracking that started in the military.
As I approached my discharge from the military, I started tracking every shekel that came in and went out. I enjoyed working with Excel in my last roles in the military and needed to start thinking ahead.
One of the best decisions I ever made.
2 main advantages.
- Adding friction to spending money, because after every expense, you need to document it in a table in the file.
- Real-time and retrospective documentation for checking trends and extracting insights.
Results? What gets measured gets managed. Rising green graphs and falling red graphs are great feedback for the effort.
So why am I stopping?
In the past, this control was a powerful tool for decision-making at the time. In the past, I was living on the edge and also wanted to build a foundation.
Today, I'm happy to say I've moved up a level.
I've reached a scale and partnership (I got married) where I prefer to move from micro to macro.
Time and focus are precious resources.
Yes, I will continue to track, but not in real-time after every single action.
What are your past decisions that bore fruit years later? What do you track?
Originally posted on LinkedIn — join the discussion and share your thoughts in the comments.