Experiments

Personal KPI generatorThree numbers
that only move if you do the work.

Personal KPIs go wrong in a predictable way: people pick the outcome as the measure. Weight, revenue, followers. Those are lagging indicators — they move weeks after the behaviour that caused them, so a week of doing everything right shows nothing and a week of doing nothing shows nothing either, and by the time the number moves the information is stale.

Free, no sign-up. Worked out in your browser, nothing sent anywhere, and the result imports into EvyOS.

Name the goal.

Everything is worked out in this page and saved in this browser only. Nothing is sent anywhere.

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✦ How to use it

Three things that make it work.

1
Name the outcome first

The lagging measure. It belongs in the plan, just not as the weekly score.

2
Take the leading ones

Two or three you control directly and can count on a Friday.

3
Apply the fakeability test

If a number could rise during a week of entirely wrong work, drop it.

What works is a small number of leading indicators: things you control directly, that move this week, and that cannot rise while you are busy doing the wrong things. This takes a goal and proposes them, with the lagging measure kept as context rather than as the score.

The rule it applies most usefully is the fakeability test. If a number can go up during a week spent on entirely the wrong work, it is worse than no measurement at all, because it will reassure you at exactly the wrong moment.

✦ The limit

An answer is not a record.

This works something out and then forgets it. It cannot tell you whether the number moved, because it has no memory of the last time you ran it and no idea what you did in between. Every calculator on the internet has that limit, and if it has never bothered you then this one is yours for free for good.

EvyOS is the same structure with the work recorded against it. Send the result across and it becomes real goals, tasks or habits with their dates — then the next answer is computed from what actually happened rather than from what you remember typing.

Questions

Personal KPI generator, answered.

A lagging indicator is the outcome — weight, revenue, followers. It moves weeks after the behaviour that caused it, so a perfect week and a wasted one look identical on it. A leading indicator is the behaviour: sessions completed, conversations had, things shipped. You control it and it moves this week.
Three or four. More than that and you are administering a dashboard rather than doing the work, and the tracking itself becomes the thing you are proud of.
Ask whether the number could go up during a week spent entirely on the wrong work. Hours at the desk, tasks closed and emails answered all can, which makes them worse than no measurement at all — they reassure you at precisely the wrong moment.
Then the theory connecting them to the outcome is wrong, and that is a genuinely valuable finding after three months rather than after a year. Change the leading indicators, not the effort.
Send them across and each becomes a weekly habit in EvyOS with the count kept for you, which is the difference between a number you maintain and a number that maintains itself.

Keep the answer.
And the record of doing it.

Goals, projects, tasks, habits and skills in one system, with the work logged against what it belonged to.

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