The Unexpected Lesson My New Year’s Resolutions Taught Me About Data

Hey, it’s March! How are your New Year’s resolutions going? All the exercise goals you wanted to crush?  All the weight you wanted to lose? For law firm lawyers, all the $$$ you wanted to make - ahem - all the time that you wanted to bill for the year?  

If you aren’t where you wanted to be, you’re not alone. Research shows that 43% give up by the end of January. In fact, the second Friday in January is often referred to as "Quitter's Day" because it’s the point when most people’s initial motivation begins to wane. By the time mid-March rolls around, most resolutions are done - the average resolution only lasts about 3.7 months.

But if you’re reading this post, you are indubitably a high achiever, both in your personal and professional life.  You were born to crush your goals!  For example, losing 10 pounds in 6 months!  Running 13.1 miles in a half marathon!  In my role as an Advisor to Billables AI, listen to how I achieved these goals through data tracking and data insights.  Both of which, by the way, Billables AI does in a professional context for law firms billing hours and maximizing client relationships.

Data Tracking

“What is measured, is treasured.”  If you treasure goals, you need to measure progress towards these goals.  Accurately, automatically and continuously.

So, for weight goals – over 6 months, I tracked my macros (carbs, protein, fat, calories) for everything I ate on a nutrition app.  By tracking how much I ate, I was able to calibrate my caloric intake to a modest deficit that led to sustainable weight loss - down 10 pounds, to the same weight I was in law school.  For my half marathon, my fitness watch training plan told me how far, how fast, and how often I needed to run to make it to the finish line in time - and then tracked all that data automatically for me.  

Because data tracking is empowering.  If you don’t have data on your performance, whether it is business revenue or weight loss or exercise, you are just running around without being able to measure progress or calibrate behaviors towards your goal.  And if you don’t see progress, you are more likely to drop out, and be one of the average folks who ends their New Year’s goals by mid-March.

Studies suggest that the more often you track your progress, the greater the likelihood that you will succeed. Some data suggests this can increase achievement rates by up to 70%.  Tracking works by transforming abstract intentions (“I want to run a half marathon fast”) into concrete data (“After three months of training, my average running pace has decreased 30 seconds / mile”).  Tracking progress is a powerful motivator that keeps you on goal - and automatic and continuous tracking systems like a fitness watch ensure accountability and accuracy.  

Similarly, for law firm lawyers billing hours, you want a tracking system that is automatic, accurate and continuous.  No more guesstimates, or reconstructing time from scrawled notes and scattered timers the morning after.  Billables AI is that solution, automatically and accurately tracking billable time from your activities, staying in the background so you can focus on your work and not the number of elapsed tenths of an hour!

Data Insights

Data tracking is the prerequisite for data insights.  For example, my kid brought home Girl Scout Cookies from school, and I couldn’t resist the Thin Mints.  My nutrition app dutifully notified me that I overate my daily quota by 260 calories, and in my next weigh-in, I found I was 0.6 pounds over baseline.  True story. 😂 Without data tracking, I would not have had the quantifiable insights that eating too many Girl Scout Cookies leads to weight gain.  (Unfortunately, not all quantifiable insights are surprising or life changing).

Or in the context of exercise, I notice that my fitness watch tracks a ~2:00 increase in average pace / mile when I run up hills.  That data tracking gives me the insight to estimate how the 400 feet of elevation gain on my next half marathon course will affect my projected finish time.  Otherwise, I would just feel a decrease in performance but not be able to adjust my behavior and my expectations based on quantifiable data - I would just literally be running around without knowing what is going on.

And finally, bringing it home - if you are a law firm lawyer, you need data insights like attorney utilization, billing patterns, and team performance to serve your clients more effectively and efficiently.  These data insights are all built on Billables AI’s automatic, accurate, and continuous billable activity data tracking.  If I can lose weight and run half marathons through data tracking and insights, you can crush your revenue goals through data tracking and insights too.  Check out the Billables AI demo today.