How I am keeping track of my progress (and the tracker that took me 30 hours to build)
I spent almost thirty hours building a dashboard I barely open. Stick around to the end and I'll show it to you (or you can… you know… scroll). It's dumber than you'd think, but also perfect and I am so proud of her.
Why I wanted this (and why you might too)
Back in Issue 4 I put four kill numbers in writing. Each bet got a deadline and a number that ends it. Even my favorites. So, I built a ridiculous dashboard to hold myself accountable. Maybe you want to build something like this too?
In case you are keeping track (I had to re-look these up just to add them to this issue), here is the update on my standing across my bets:
Newsletter: 200 subscribers by month 6
Month 1 results: 8 subscribersFractional Consulting: 1 informational call by month 3
Month 1 results: 5 emails and zero callsAmazon FBA: profitable by month 6
Month 1 results: I have avoided this with the grace of a gorilla in a bunny suitDigital Products: 3 sales in 30 days
Month 1 results: Technically 4 sales, but they are my friends. I count this.
So… crushing it.
What I track, and why
Four things per bet. What each one is actually for:
Time spent. This is all about efficiency. But it turned into a sneaky confession: where my hours go is where my interest goes (look how little I've put into consulting and FBA). If I make $2,000 in a month but it costs me 400 hours, that's not a bet, that's a second job I'm losing money on. Time is my hardest constraint, so I measure it first.
Money made and spent. Obvious. Moving on.
Effective hourly rate. This one was Claude's idea. I said why not.
The battle to make it pretty
I had a very specific look in my head. I wanted the top-line results and then the metrics per bet and sub-bet. Who knew Claude would take hours to sort of achieve my vision? We fought. You decide if I won.
The nightmare of building it
Then I tried to host the damn thing so it'd update live. GitHub, then another platform, then another, because the Notion API kept dying the second I thought I was done. I became a backend engineer for a hobby project that tracks my hobby projects. Dumbest sentence I've written all year. Also true.
It was definitely not worth it, but I kind of loved building it.
So how does it look
Thirty hours, and here's the verdict: net income is -$732. I'm currently paying to work. But, it is pretty right?
Digital products is the only bet in the green, by twenty dollars. Because my one friend bought my no-bs playbook. And loved it by the way. Just saying.
So, it is not going well, but I have learned a lot about what doesn’t work.
Next issue: everything this dashboard does, minus the thirty hours and the meltdown. I built a stupid-simple version anyone can use to track their own bets. Friday.
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