How to Measure Money

You control what you do. You don't directly control what you get.

That's why we measure activities (the doing) instead of outcomes (the results).

Why this matters: If you measure outcomes, you're at the mercy of variables outside your control. If you measure activities, you're building a muscle of reliability - and reliability produces results.

Increase Measures

Track the Activity That Produces Growth
Want to increase something financially? Measure the activity that produces it.

Outcome: Build an emergency fund
Example Measure: Deposits to savings per week

Outcome: Increase investment portfolio
Example Measure: Investment contributions per month

Outcome: Improve financial awareness
Example Measure: Days tracking all expenses per week

You measure the doing (deposits, tracking, contributions), not the result (dollars saved, portfolio value).

Decrease Measures

Want to decrease something, like debt or spending?
You still measure an increase in the activity that produces the decrease.

The Pattern: Measure What You Do Instead instead of the Measuring the Decrease

Outcome: Reduce credit card debt by $3,000
Example Measure: Months making payments greater than spending.

Outcome: Reduce financial stress
Example Measure: Weekly money review sessions completed

Outcome: Lower monthly expenses
Example Measure: Subscription reviews per month, price comparison sessions per week

Why It Works This Way:

You can't reliably control stress levels. They fluctuate based on work pressure, life events, how much sleep you got, etc.  And you can't reliably control debt going down week-to-week (interest, timing, unexpected costs).  

You CAN control things like making payments, doing reviews, tracking spending, etc. - the activities that produce the decrease over time

The pattern: Measure what you do to solve the problem, not the problem getting smaller.

What makes it an activity? You're tracking the ACTION (depositing, paying), not the accumulated RESULT (total saved, total debt reduced).

The Rule

Decrease outcome = Measure the increase in the activity that produces the decrease

You're not measuring the problem getting smaller. You're measuring the solution getting stronger.