Don't waste your time chasing numbers

Every once in a while I’ll see people share their goals. “I want to have XXX$ MRR by the end of the year” or “I want to increase my daily downloads by X” or if they’re trying to build an audience on social media they’ll have some goal of how much they want to grow their audience.

I believe these kinds of goals set you up to focus on the wrong things.

Sure, it’s great when you can increase your conversion rates or if you can vastly increase your income. That’s fantastic and something that everybody should aim to do to some degree.

However, I feel like setting goals that chase numbers aren’t actionable. You can’t sit down on daily or weekly basis and just “grow your numbers”.

Growth is always a result of the actions you take. Whether that’s shipping a new feature for your app every week, or it’s sharing a thoughtful tip on Twitter every couple of days it’s your actions that facilitate your growth; not having the goal of growth.

I’ve written about how I don’t really set goals for myself before. I want growth, I want improvement, and of course I have some sense of how much growth means that the actions I take every day are effective. But growth is never my primary goal; it should come as a result of other actions.

Usually the goals I have involve publishing something, or do things that have a pretty immediate effect. I tweet daily, I try to publish at least one blog post a week, I aim to record one video for YouTube every week, I host one workshop every month, etc. For most of these, effects are visible pretty quickly and I’m able to determine whether or not I’m happy with the results.

This week though, I’ve set myself a new goal. I want to improve accessibility for my blog a little bit every other day.

Usually this will mean going through my old blog posts and making sure that every link has a title, and that every image has a description. But I’ve also started to incorporate more best practices surrounding how links should look (underlined rather than only stand out through color) and more. This is a goal that I won’t be able to measure as much, it’s just knowing that this will make a difference for some that had me set the goal.

Overall I think this effort won’t lead to any explosive growth. I do believe that it matters, and that there will be some compound result down the line where a more accessible website means that more people can enjoy my posts. I might not be able to measure that directly, but knowing that I did my part feels good.

What are some habits that you’re working on that will most likely benefit you in the long run without focussing on numbers directly?

Cheers!
Donny

Ps. On Monday April 29th I’m hosting a workshop on Swift Concurrency. There are still tickets left so make sure you don’t miss out and grab your ticket here: Getting Started With Swift Concurrency

Practical Bundle

Level up your development skills with my Practical Bundle. The bundle contains all three of my Practical books. You will get Practical Combine, Practical Core Data, and Practical Swift Concurrency in a single convenient purchase. The bundle saves you about $15 compared to buying all three of my books. It's a great deal, and a fantastic way to deepen your development knowledge.

🎶 Currently on repeat 🎶

If you follow me on Twitter you probably know that I play guitar. I'm a huge music lover and want to share this with you. In this section I will share a new album that I've been enjoying a lot every week.

Architects - Lost Forever // Lost Together Earlier this week I rewatched a live stream that Architects did during the COVID-19 pandemic. It reminded me of this album which I hadn’t listened to for quite a while, and it reminded me how much Architects’ have changed their sound over the years. I like both the old and the new stuff a lot but it’s nice listening to some of the old stuff for a bit. Listen on Spotify Listen on Apple Music

Other content that I really want to share with you

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Video: How to use experimental Swift versions and features in Xcode?

In this video that accompanies my blog post with the same name you’ll learn how you can install new Swift toolchains that allow you to test out news and upcoming features inside of your existing Xcode installation.

Getting started with Swift Concurrency April 2024

This workshop is an online workshop that will be held on Zoom. The format alternates between a theoretical explanation with presentations and coding examples, and performing tasks alone, and / or in groups. After each task we go over the solution and there will be tons of room for questions.

Hybrid vs. Native Apps - How to make the right choice for your team

On April 30th I will be part of this panel to discuss how and when you should make a choice between Hybrid and Native. Believe me when I say that it’s going to be a fun and good discussion!

COURSE: Practical Swift Concurrency - The videos

In this video course you’ll learn everything you need to know about Swift Concurrency to start using it in your apps. The course is a mix of lectures/presentations and assignments for you to work on. The course is in a pre-enrollment state which means that not all content is there. Currently, the first section of the course is available for viewing.