the two question daily report

Summary

at 8 PM every day I get a text. one link, one short Google form. it takes me 60 seconds and it has changed how I run my life.

two questions.

1. rate today personally, 1 to 5.

2. rate today professionally, 1 to 5.

then one line of journal. context for the score, nothing fancy.

the only rule that makes this work is the rating system has to be strict. a 5 is a near perfect day. those are the days you want to study and replicate. if every day is a 4, the data is useless.

the setup is dumb simple. Google form, Zapier sends the text at 8 PM, answers land in a sheet. over months you start to see patterns, the inputs that lead to 5s, the patterns that lead to 2s, and you stop guessing about what’s actually working.

Transcript

introduction to life optimization

The most impactful business is the business that genuinely improves another human, a better human business. And to grow a business like this, you have to continually improve yourself. This podcast is a documentation of that thesis, scaling businesses and also personal growth. My goal is for you to shortcut this journey. So if you’re ready to try hard, subscribe. If you like what you’re hearing, please share and enjoy. All right. How can you optimize your life? How can you just get better at the daily life?

That’s all we get is every single day. So how can you do it? Well, today I’m going to go over a two question daily report that can absolutely change the game and optimize your life. This is the Better Human Business Podcast. I’m Jerred Moon. And before we dive in, I just want to remind everybody to go sign up for the newsletter. You can go to jared.com, J-E-R-R-E-D.com. And you can click on newsletter and sign up for any tidbits.

the significance of daily self-assessment

I’m sending out ideas, methods, strategies. All of that comes out via the newsletter. And if newsletters aren’t your thing, another option is to follow me on Instagram. I’m jared.moon, J-E-R-R-E-D.moon, M-O-O-N. Would love to have you there as well. But let’s dive in. There’s something I’ve been doing for a long time. And I go in waves of doing it and stopping just kind of to assess how things are doing. And I do this in a lot of areas.

It’s not necessarily like an inconsistency thing. It’s like when I track macros, like if I’m tracking macros in my diet, I don’t just want to track macros forever. I’ll track it for three months, two months, something like that. Kind of get an assessment. Hey, what am I taking in just on average with my diet? See if I need to make a few adjustments like, okay, you need to add a little bit more protein. Take this down a little bit.

implementing the two-question daily report

And then I just kind of make those adjustments and I stop tracking. But having known, now I know what the adjustments are and I keep moving forward with those adjustments. Then again, I might track for two, two months, a year later. So anyway, it’s not necessary to inconsistency. It’s just, I don’t want to have to be that disciplined all the time. I just kind of want to know what to work on and I’ll work on it and then I’ll come back, check in and see if everything’s good.

So that’s what the diet, but let’s talk about just your everyday life. Because what I noticed most people do is they put everything on a pedestal, right? Like, hey, I’m going to do this big thing next month or I’m going to do this big thing next year. And I’m all about strategic planning and all that kind of stuff. But some things just need to be started right now. You just need to get to work so you can fail faster, make the adjustments and, and start making progress because you need to be able to check in and make those adjustments.

explanation of the rating system

And so here’s how I, I do it. And I’ll kind of talk a little bit about the tech side of this as well. But it’s really easy. Every night I get a text message at 8 p.m. 8 p.m. I get this text message and it just says today, colon, and then it has a link and then the link is to a Google form. And I click on the Google form, I fill it out and it’s a two question Google form.

And I rate myself personally and professionally. OK, so it’s a it’s a rating, a one to five rating. So one professionally was like I was supposed to get work done today. I didn’t get anything done at all. And a five is like the best possible day. I’ll talk about those, the rating system in a minute. But I do that professionally and then same with personally. Personally, was I completely present? Was this an amazing day? All that kind of stuff.

That’s a five. If I wasn’t that good or whatever, then that’s a that’s a one. You know, maybe I was absent. I didn’t spend time with the family, something like that. I get a one. But then another thing I add to it is optional to fill out. You don’t have to. It’s just a one little like a small text box under each one. So it’s technically four question survey, but it’s rating professional one to five and then a small one line a day entry.

journal entries and their importance

So and I’m not like trying to have this massive journal, but I could just be like, say I rated it a five. I might put in just quick. Did this awesome thing, did this awesome thing, did this awesome thing. That’s why I read it. Or if I rated it one, I might, you know, just put why I rated it one, like completely not productive at all, got distracted, just like a like a short sentence. And the strategy behind that is called one line a day journaling.

It’s just like a super short line. So it can help you recall to be able to make the adjustments necessary, because if you just have, you know, a bunch of fives, which are fine, then you can like, how are you going to replicate a five or if you have a one, what are you going to fix? So I do recommend adding that. And then when you have the time putting that in. So anyway, I do that for professional.

I do that for personal. So I get that message 8 p.m. every single night, I fill it out and then I go about my life. It takes me, you know, two minutes, max two minutes, you know, maybe less than that because I kind of already I’ve just been in a habit of doing it. But what this helps me do and the reason I do it and I try to be consistent when I am doing it is because I jump in and I can make an adjustment tomorrow.

daily reflection and its impact on life optimization

Right. I can I can be like, hey, you’ve had a bunch of threes professionally lately. Like what’s what’s going on? If I let’s say I have three threes on the professional side and I’m like, OK, what am I going to do from here? What do why am I getting threes? And it’s, oh, well, you’re just not you’re not getting anything done. You’re you’re too distracted. You’re spending too much time doing other stuff, whatever. I can make those adjustment on the fourth day or even the next day to make sure that I have a better one.

What I don’t want to have happen is I go down this path unknowingly for a quarter, for six months, for a year. And then I’m like, oh, my gosh, this is I’ve gotten into some really bad habits. You know, I don’t want to get blindsided with that kind of stuff personally or professionally. So I want an assessment of today at the end of the end of the day. And the reason I do it daily is because and I try to make sure I do it that night, not the next day.

I want to know my true feelings, assessments at the end of the day when you’re a little bit tired, a little bit drained. Like, how would you really rate today? Because if I wait till the next day, the next morning, I might be a little more optimistic and I’d be like, hey, maybe you got some good stuff done. I want to know that day what I did right and what I did wrong. That way I can make the adjustments for the next day.

technical setup using Google forms and Zapier

OK, so that is that is how I do it. And that’s how I make these adjustments. Now, I said I would talk about the tech side because people are going to ask how you do this. Look, you get it. You make a Google form. Those are free. I kind of already told you what the questions are professionally rating one through five quick journal entry, like short text box for each one. So for professional and for personal.

So you create that Google form. Next, you go to Zapier and I pay for Zapier. I think this is probably paid service. But what Zapier can send text messages to you, so you have to get your number verified or whatever, because you can’t just text anyone through Zapier. So to send a text message through you, you can set it up to every day at 8 p.m. send this text message and then it will send the text message I want, which, like I said, is basically just a link to that Google form.

And then, boom. It sends to me every day, 8 p.m. and never misses, and then I fill it out. So that’s the tech side of getting it done. But this will help you optimize, but only if you are willing to implement and take action. And so what I want to end with is how the rating system should work and how it works for me. So one is obviously terrible. And so you it’s just it was a bad day in all areas.

standards of rating: what each score represents

One’s I definitely want to journal. I want to figure out what I did wrong. That way I can immediately avoid it that next day or just never do it again. Now, fives, I also I almost never rate anything a five. Now, you have your own rating system. You can do whatever you want, but I need fives to be. This was a damn near perfect day. I got damn near perfect day as a five for me because I’m not going to have a damn near perfect day very often.

And so then I can go back to these occasional fives over the course of a quarter and look at all these fives. Let’s say there were five fives in the course of a quarter. And I’m like, OK, what happened on these days? Why did you rate them a five? I can go look at my calendar, which what tasks were you doing? Because you felt like it was a five day. You know, what did the journal entries say?

What made that day a five? You know, and when you look at it that way, it’s a lot better than just this blanket. You know, every day is a five. I was productive and I didn’t yell at my kids. So five professionally, five personally. You need to be a little bit more strict with your standards or this whole process isn’t going to be very useful. Another thing that I try to check in professionally is not just my productivity, but my leadership style.

invitation to adopt the two-question daily report

And that’s often our just leadership in general. And that’s a big thing I’m rating myself on is, did you lead today? What did you do? And again, it prompts me to do something to make sure I lead because it’s very easy not to lead. So that’s another thing I’m assessing myself on professionally is like productivity, leadership. And then personally, everybody’s going to have their own thing. But again, personally, I don’t rate myself a five very often because, again, five are those perfect days where just like everything’s clicking in all your relationships.

You felt good. You had a great day. Again, look back. What happened? The activities. What are the journal entries say for this five? I’m very stingent, you know, stingy with my fives. I don’t get them out very often. That way, when I do have one, I’m like, ah, this is something I want to reverse engineer, replicate and try to get more of them this next month, this court, this next quarter. So that is how you implement a two question daily report that can help you absolutely optimize your life.

So my question for you is, do you have it in you to ask yourself two questions each day that could optimize your life? It’s a new habit. And honestly, it sounds easy, but it’s going to be hard to stick with. So I’m just going to have to tell you to try harder.