Make progress visible by tallying minutes of real strain each week

When people say they’re “working on it,” they often mean they’re thinking about it, talking about it, or rearranging the same tasks. I learned this the hard way while wrestling a complex problem that kept slipping to tomorrow. Then I set up a one-page tally on my wall and decided I’d only count minutes of genuine strain—the kind where my brain felt warm and my shoulders crept up a notch.

The first week, my total was 85 minutes. Embarrassing, but honest. I caught myself logging a meeting and scratched it out. Not the rules. The second week, I blocked a 45-minute morning session, phone face down, and dug into the stubborn part of the work. After, I jotted, “Killed two dead ends, found a promising angle.” My coffee had gone cold. The box for that day read 46.

By week three, the scoreboard felt like a coach. I glanced at it when I reached for the easy stuff. That small nudge changed my day. A colleague tried it and noticed the same effect. She said, “It’s like a step counter for thinking. I don’t want to go to bed with a zero.” We weren’t logging hours, we were logging hard minutes. The numbers didn’t lie.

There’s behavioral science behind this. Visible metrics nudge behavior through self-accountability and commitment. Clear rules about what counts prevent scorecard theater. Over time, the practice builds competence, which fuels motivation. You get a quiet confidence that replaces vague guilt. The tally is simple, but it’s a lever.

Print a weekly strain scoreboard and decide what counts as real, edge-of-ability work in your world, then place it somewhere you see every day. After each focused session, jot the minutes and one sentence about what moved so your brain links effort to impact. On Friday, circle your total, notice patterns, and set one small target for next week, like adding 30 minutes or starting earlier. Keep it humble and consistent, because the point isn’t to perform for others, it’s to see the truth and make it better. Start your first box today.