There are two ways to add Tracking Data to your metric:

Method 1: If you already have the metric’s information form open, go the Tracking tab, click anywhere in the Tracking Values grid area, then press your keyboard’s Insert key.  The Metric Tracking Entry form should appear to help you enter the tracking data. The date is defaulted to Today’s date.

You can add as many entries as you want using this method.

Method 2: Shortcut

If you are working from the Metrics tab in the main Achieve Planner form…

Step 1: Go to the Metrics tab (Go -> Metrics menu item)

Step 2: Click once, anywhere within the row of the metric to which you want to add tracking data

Step 3: Use the Actions -> Add Tracking Entry menu item.

The same Metric Tracking Entry dialog will appear so you can enter the tracking data.

This method is great when you just want to quickly make an entry and don’t want to view all the details of the metric.

Tracking Entry Information

The tracking entry for a metric consists of the following fields…

Value: The current value (in this example weight in pounds) that you want to enter

Target: The expected or target value for the metric at this point in time… we’ll come back to this in the next article. For now, leave it blank.

Date: The date the value was measured, whether it’s today’s date or a previous date.

Type (pull-down menu): Choices are “Cumulative”, “New Total”, or “Instance”.  We’ll explore “Instance” and “Cumulative” in future articles. For now choose “New Total”.

The type usually matches the Metric’s overall type and you usually don’t have to change it.

Our completed form now looks like this:

Click OK to add the tracking entry to the metric, which you can see in the Tracking tab of the Metric’s Information Form:

If you’ve been tracking your weight some other way (like Post-It notes or your previous dayplanner), the Achieve Planner Metrics feature can reduce your paper load, simplify your life, and make it easy to have all your information at your fingertips for weight tracking.

Adding Tracking Entries From The Metric Reminder Screen

Remember that if you set a metric tracking reminder it will only occur once each day, at the time you’ve set.  That reminder will look the same as reminders used for appointments/events:

If you have more than one reminder due at the same time, they will all appear in the window.

To enter a tracking entry for the metric from the Reminder Window, just dismiss the reminder. Achieve Planner will ask you if you want to add a tracking entry for the metric. Select Yes to add a tracking entry, No to skip it.

NOTE: Once you’ve added one or more tracking entries, you may see a graph on the main Metrics tab, below the rows of entries. We’ll discuss that graph and the ways it can be changed in a future article.

Snooze: just like your bedside alarm clock, you can highlight a particular reminder, choose a time from the drop down list, then click Snooze and the reminder will disappear for that length of time. Each reminder in the list can have a different snooze time.  Or you can highlight one or more reminders and set the same snooze time for all highlighted.

Mini-Break: clicking this button will automatically set the reminder to re-appear in 10 minutes – no additional time setting is needed.  (For more information on mini-breaks and their benefits see the Get More Done In Less Time ebook and course.)

If you’re using AP Metrics to track your weight or any other important things, how has it benefitted you?  We invite you to add your comments below.

Trusting that we will somehow have an inherent awareness of our progress might work for very simple jobs, like painting a room where we can easily see the status of the four walls around us, but this strategy can quickly fall apart if we use it for larger projects or goals that take time to complete.

A metric is a measurement of some kind that allows you to track your progress over time. For example, think of the odometer in your car which tells you how many miles you’ve traveled in a trip. That is one simple metric that almost everyone is familiar with.

Metrics are useful because they help you see your progress over time, which can be motivating, and they help you see when you are getting off-track so you can make a course correction.

Another good example of a metric is keeping track of your weight. Maybe you want to see the effects of a new diet or weight loss program, maybe you want to add a few extra pounds of muscle down at the gym, or maybe you just want to maintain and stay at your current weight.

It’s actually quite difficult to notice subtle weight gains or losses as they are happening if you don’t weigh yourself on a regular basis. Over the years, you can easily gain 10 or 20 pounds without even noticing. Even if you weigh yourself regularly, it’s difficult to see the fluctuations and overall patterns if you just keep track of it in your head.

Achieve Planner offers a simple but very useful Metrics tracking feature that makes it simple to keep track of what’s important to you.

You can access it using the Metrics tab (available from the Go menu). When you open the tab for the first time, you’ll see a blank slate, waiting for you to tell Achieve Planner what you want to track.

Let’s keep using the weight example to explore the Achieve Planner Metrics feature.

Creating a Metric

To add a new metric, press the Insert key or use the Insert menu.

By default, the following columns are displayed:

• Active – Whether the metric is active or inactive
• Priority – Allows you to prioritize and order metrics
• Title – Title for the metric
• Category – Category of the metric useful for filtering & grouping
• Question – The question that you’ll ask yourself to enter the new metric value. For example, “How much do I weigh today?”
• Target – The target value that you want to reach (for example, the weight that you want to reach)
• Last Value – The last value that you entered for the metric
• Status – The status of the metric (for example, if it’s overdue)

Personalizing Your Metric

Now that you’ve created a metric, it’s time to personalize it to help you track your weight.

Double-click anywhere on the new metric row to open up the Metric Information Form, which lets you customize your Metric in detail.

First, give the Metric a descriptive name, like “My Weight.”  Skip the Owner field for now and move on to the Category field, where you can choose to type in a Category name. This helps you group or filter related metrics together. For this example, a good category name might be “Health” or “Weight Tracking” if you want to be more specific.

Using a more specific category might be useful if you want to keep a handle on other metrics related to your weight tracking experience, like “minutes spent riding the bike.”

The next field is Recurrence, and to edit this field you will have to click on the Set Recurrence button beside the grayed out text box.  This will pop up a screen that allows you to control how often you want to track this Metric, with daily, weekly, monthly and even yearly options.

If you want, you can also choose a time range that begins and ends the tracking period for the Metric.  Most people tracking their weight would do so on a daily or weekly basis, so choose one of those options and then click the OK button.

After setting the recurrence pattern for the metric, you have to decide whether you want Achieve Planner to remind you about tracking the Metric or not.

Checking the Has Reminder checkbox will let you schedule a daily reminder at a specific time.

The remaining two fields on the screen, Description and Reason allow you to describe the metric in more detail and specify why you want to keep track of this particular Metric.

Tracking Data For Your Metric

The Tracking tab helps you specify the type of metric that you are tracking and what kind of tracking information you want to maintain.

We’ll go over this tab in more detail in another article, but for now, we are going to focus on the Type, Question and Units.

From the Type combo, we are going to select Total because we want to track our total weight (current weight) over time.

Next is the Question, where you can type a question that the Metric will ask you when it’s time to input data.  Let’s go with “What is my weight today?”

Next, we’ll define the Units, which simply serve as a reminder of the units of measurement you are tracking. You can use Pounds, Kg or anything else you like.

Once you are finished, click the Save and Close button.  You should now be back at the Metrics tab, with your new Metric showing on the screen.

So far, we’ve only set up the Metric so that we can start to keep track of it. In future articles, you’ll learn how to enter tracking data, how to set target values you want to reach and how to use other types of metrics.

1. They analyze the way they use their time and think about better ways of using it,
2. They find wasteful and unproductive uses of their time and reduce them systematically,
3. They consolidate their time into large chunks that they can use for their most important work.

Let’s take a closer look at each step and two possible approaches for implementing them. I’ll call the two implementation options the “recording” and “planning” approaches.

Step # 1 – Analyze the way you use your time and think about better ways of using it

Instead of starting with the tasks that you need to do, Drucker recommends that you take a step back and analyze the way you are spending your time.

Are you focusing on important things or are you wasting your time on low value busywork? How could you spend your time in better ways? What would you need to change?

Recording Approach: To implement this step using a recording approach, you would start by using a time log to record and document how you are actually spending your time right now.

Every time you switch to a different activity throughout the day, you would record that in your time log. At the end of the day, you would look back over your time log and decide if you spent your time effectively or not.

After keeping a time log for a few days, most people are very surprised by how they actually spend their time – and how much of it is actually wasted on unproductive busywork or distractions.

You only need to log your time for 3-5 days to get a very good sampling of how you actually spend your time on a “typical” day.

Planning Approach: To implement this step using a planning approach, you would start by identifying the outcomes or projects that you are working toward, and then prioritizing them based on how important they are.

This will give you a better idea of what outcomes/projects you are spending your time on, and which ones represent good uses of your time and which ones do not.

Step # 2 – Find wasteful and unproductive uses of your time and reduce them systematically

Once you have a better understanding of how you are spending your time, you would start finding wasteful and unproductive activities and begin reducing them systematically to “free up” more time for the important stuff.

In this step, you are transitioning from “How am I spending my time?” to “How SHOULD I be spending my time?”

Recording Approach: In the recording approach, you would go over your time log and circle all the wasteful and unproductive uses of your time. You would figure out ways to eliminate the wasteful activities, or delegate them to someone else, or at least reduce them in some way.

Planning Approach: With the planning approach, you would start with your prioritized Master Project List, and figure out which projects really deserve your time and focus, and which ones do not.

You would also identify, write down and prioritize other more important projects that you COULD be spending your time on instead.

By doing this, you are reducing the wasteful/unproductive projects by “starving” them of your time, energy and focus, and shifting that time toward more important projects.

Step # 3 – Consolidate your time into large chunks that you can use for your most important work

This is very important, because as Peter Durcker points out, most people NEED large chunks of unbroken time to do creative knowledge work effectively and productively.

Drucker uses the example of preparing a report. Can you imagine how long it would take to write a report if you had to do it in 15-minute chunks of time?

Well, it would take you much longer than if you could devote several one-hour chunks to the same project.

Why?

Because knowledge work requires you to have a “mental context” of the work you are doing in order to be productive, and this “mental context” usually takes some time to form (as much as 10 minutes.)

In the example of the report, you would need to know where you are in the report (what you’ve already written and what’s left to do), who the audience is, what you are trying to communicate in each section, how the different parts of the report tie to each other, and other information you need to include (facts, figures, etc.)

If you only had 15-minutes to work on the report, you would have to stop working on it and do something else just as you’re getting into your “productivity groove,” so it would be a very inefficient way to work.

Recording Approach: With the recording approach, you would look at your schedule and start moving things around so you can create these large chunks of time to devote to your important projects.

Planning Approach: With the planning approach, you would create these large chunks of time ahead of time by looking at your master project list, deciding how much time to spend on different projects, and scheduling one-hour blocks in your calendar just like if they were appointments or meetings (these are your project blocks).

Then you let everything else fill the gaps between your already scheduled blocks.

In the end, both approaches help you analyze how you spend your time, reduce or eliminate wasteful unproductive activities, and consolidate your time to create large uninterrupted blocks of time.

The planning approach gives you the benefits of analyzing, reducing and consolidating your time automatically as you work the system, but you also get other important benefits like your Master Project List and the one-hour project blocks in your schedule.

Then, you can use a time log to help you analyze, reduce and consolidate your time even further using the recording approach.

Other people may find that starting with the recording approach feels more natural, intuitive and suitable to their working style and preferences. There really is no RIGHT answer that will work the same for everyone.

You may even want to blend the two approaches as you go through each step.

My ‘How To Use A Time Log To Get More Done‘ report shows you step-by-step how to keep, use and analyze a time log. It also includes simple templates to help you get started as quickly as possible.

Let me know which approach you think would work best for you and why.

The Quick Task Entry feature provides a simple entry box where you can capture new projects, tasks and ideas for later processing.

The Quick Task Entry form is available by right-clicking on the Achieve Planner icon in the system tray area and selecting the command from the menu.

You can also use the Quick Task Entry HotKey defined in the general tab of the Options dialog (Tools  ->Options menu item.) This HotKey is available even while working on other applications. The default HotKey is Alt+Win+T key combination.

The following Quick Task Entry dialog appears when you use the HotKey or notify icon context menu.

This tutorial video walks you through the quick task entry process.

Click Here to View the Tutorial

How To Enter Multiple Tasks At Once

If you check the Enter multiple tasks… checkbox, then you can enter multiple tasks (one per line) and use indentation (spaces) to create subtasks at any level.

For example, if you enter the following tasks (replace (Space) with an actual space character):

Task # 1

(Space)(Space)Task # 2

(Space)(Space)Task # 3

Task #2 and Task # 3 will be children of Task # 1.

By default, Achieve Planner inserts the new tasks into a project called “<New Tasks>” (which by default is under the <Inbox> project.) You can also directly specify the parent for the new tasks using the Project button.

The default mode is to enter the task details into the box and then process them later, but if you already know the project where the new task belongs, you can specify it here as well.

This entry box doesn’t distinguish between projects and tasks, but you can make that distinction later during the processing step.

Check the Activate Achieve Planner… box if you want to activate the main Achieve Planner window when you add the tasks. Leave it unchecked if you want to return to the application you were working on after you add the tasks.

How To Add Notes To Tasks When Using Quick Task Entry

You can add notes to the new tasks by using ## to separate the task name from the note text.

For example,

Task 1.1##These are the notes that will be associated with the task.

Note: The Quick Task Entry HotKey can only be associated with a single Achieve Planner main window. If you have multiple files open simultaneously, the HotKey will only work for one of them. If you find that the HotKey is not working once you close all other Achieve Planner windows, invoke the Quick Task Entry from the system tray icon context menu to “rehook” the hot key.

You can use the “zooming” feature (also called hoisting in Outlining applications) to zoom-in on a specific project and only look at it’s sub-projects and their tasks together in one place.

For example, if you only want to see projects in the Work result area, you can use zooming to only view this particular branch of the outline.

1. Select the row of the outline where you want to zoom in by clicking on the row header. This row will be the new root of the hierarchy after you zoom in. In this case, select the Work result area row
2. Select the Outline->Zoom In command.

The outline should now be zoomed in on the Work result area, showing only its children. You can tell when the outline is zoomed because the caption of the outline grid displays the root of the zoom hierarchy.

Zoom: Work (Result Area)

If you want to see more of the hierarchy, you can use the Outline->Zoom Out and Outline->Clear Zoom commands.

• Zoom Out – This command zooms out by one increment to the parent of the current zoom root
• Clear Zoom – This command clears the zoom completely and returns the outline to its normal state

To continue:

1. Select the Outline->Clear Zoom command.

The normal outline should now be displayed once again.

You can zoom to a specific item in the Outline using the Outline -> Zoom to Item… command. This command displays a dialog box that lets you select the item that you want to use as the new zoom root in the Outline and is a handy way to switch from one zoom root to another.

Click Here to View the Tutorial

To convert a Task into a Project (in either the Outline or Tasks tabs):

1. Select the Task(s) that you want to convert
2. Use the Actions -> Convert into Project menu item to convert the task(s) into project(s)

NOTE: When you convert a task into a project, it will automatically become a sub-project of whatever project (or result area) the task was part of.

To convert a Project into a Task (in either the Outline or Projects tabs):

1. Select the Project(s) that you want to convert
2. Use the Actions -> Convert into Task menu item to convert the project(s) into task(s)

NOTE: When you convert a sub-project into a task, it will automatically become a task of it’s parent project. Any sub-projects (or tasks) of the project being converted will also become sub-tasks of the converted task.

Click Here to View the Tutorial