Stop Constantly Measuring Progress

Hey Artist,

If you are on a workout program, do you weigh yourself after every workout, every salad, every hour? Do you adjust your diet from keto, to carnivore, to south beach within the same day?

If you are, you will be sad to find out about lagging indicators.

As a working artist, you are doing everything you can, to get the most out of your time. Between posting, creating, selling, and customer service we are used to analyzing everything we do to make it 1% better.

But there is a problem with that.

Analytics take time.

Just as it takes weeks or months to see if a diet or exercise program is working; it takes just as long to see what works in your art business.

If you are doing an A/B split test between two different ads, you have to give it a few weeks to see results. Otherwise, your data can be skewed.

Like a driver constantly changing routes at the first sign of traffic, it's easy to get caught up in details and detours that take you away from your destination.

Maybe you want to try a social media platform you haven't been on before. Well, there's going to be a learning curve using it, on top of the time that it takes to generate data.

You waste time and stress yourself out by constantly checking to see if what you are doing is working.

I don't believe that you shouldn't quit anything. Some things may not be for you. But if you are going to try something in your art, marketing, or life; give it at least 3 months without adjustments before you decide to tweak it or stop it altogether.

(It should go without saying that if you find out that you are breaking a rule of the platform, or you find out that you are breaking a law, you should make an immediate change.)

Even minor changes, (EG: I think my website should be yellow with comic sans lettering) should at least get a week or two.

So adapt, change, grow! But give it some time to breathe before you change it again.

Kick Ass Today,

E