We humans have an exceptional ability to turn progress into harm.
With the web, we can reach millions of people, and, by helping them, create exciting businesses. But, in the process, we get addicted to content analytics.
I've been creating content for 13 years. I got sucked in by the analytics every time I started on a new platform. But I also reemerged every time.
Today I want to help you find a healthy relationship with your analytics, to turn them into a resource, not into a waste of time and a threat to your mental health.
Don’t do this at home
In the last few weeks, I fell short of my standards. Badly.
I started publishing on Substack after collecting disappointments on other platforms. From day one, things went great: hundreds of views, dozens of thoughtful comments, an endless stream of new subscribers.
If your content has ever been successful, you know what this means - it feels like you've finally done something right, like you’re worthy. You figure yourself as a thought leader, a VIP with thousands, hundreds of thousands of followers. And a steady flow of passive income, of course.
So, if you want your dopamine fix, you just need to open the analytics page and find already a few more views, one more follower, one more like compared to ten minutes ago (when you last checked).
And I got my dopamine fixes. Constantly. For days.
I’m ashamed. This isn’t just a waste of time and a harmful distraction. It can also end badly. When my subscriber count stays stuck for too long, I think “Here we go. The party’s over.” From pleasure to pain in a single page load.
We can't keep going like this. Just as we can't drink wine all day or check social media all day. But the answer isn't to embrace Luddism en masse. We don’t want to burn all the servers and cancel the web.
We need analytics
I keep seeing posts proclaiming "Don't think about analytics, don't think about strategies, just write."
The approval is universal. Hundreds of likes, dozens of comments, boatloads of love. We all crave the permission to fully dedicate ourselves to our creativity, without the annoyance of promoting it.
Technological progress always brought adaptation struggles. Uncle Ben was right (spiderman’s uncle). We create powers that go beyond ourselves. We must step up to the challenge through self-awareness, better habits, and discipline.
But it just isn’t possible.
Even before the web, authors, artists, journalists, every creative, had to take into account the public's response. They had to make a living somehow.
Publishing online while ignoring the analytics is like talking to someone while ignoring their reactions. Online, we cannot see our interlocutors in real-time. We can only measure likes, comments, shares, views, and so on.
To avoid the addiction, only one solution works. And it’s nothing new, I’m sorry.
Set the right constraints
Healthy behaviors often come down to setting the right limits: avoid junk food, don’t look at screens too close to bedtime, stop working at 5PM… A healthy relationship with analytics is no different.
What are the right constraints? It depends on where you are in your journey.
In the beginning, when we don’t yet see positive trends, we are most vulnerable. We’re anxious to see our content break through. We’re afraid of having made the wrong decisions, for example about the niche or the platform.
But, ironically, it's precisely when checking analytics makes the least sense.
The numbers are small, so they don't tell you much, anyway. If one day you get five visits and the next day you get ten, you've doubled your traffic. But five more visits mean nothing.
In this phase:
Check your stats once a day. Just to throw a bone to your inner puppy craving recognition.
Spend some more time once a week to look for trends and patterns. This is not wasted time. It helps you decide where to take your content.
As you gain experience, you can also reduce the frequency. When my first blog was a year old, maybe more, I started forgetting to check the analytics.
Can you outsource self-control?
There are apps and browser extensions that can block sites and apps. Freedom and Cold Turkey are particularly effective.
But you can always unblock them. Or sometimes you can’t use them because you need other features of those distracting apps and websites. For example, I need my Substack dashboard to publish, besides checking my analytics. I can write somewhere else and postpone publishing, but it’s a cost.
There’s no self-improvement without self-discipline. No one can practice your healthy habits in your place.
So, I prefer to train myself to respect the constraints, instead of depending on external tools. It’s a valuable skill. It comes handy all the time, in every area of life.
Just start small. Don’t go cold turkey, set less stringent limits in the beginning and become stricter as you gain more self-discipline.
Over time, you’ll save time for your creativity, be less stressed but still be able to listen to your audience.
"Disappointment will come when your effort does not give you the expected return. If things don’t go as planned or if you face failure. Failure is extremely difficult to handle, but those that do come out stronger. What did this failure teach me? is the question you will need to ask. You will feel miserable. You will want to quit, like I wanted to when nine publishers rejected my first book. Some IITians kill themselves over low grades – how silly is that? But that is how much failure can hurt you. But it’s life. If challenges could always be overcome, they would cease to be a challenge. And remember – if you are failing at something, that means you are at your limit or potential. And that’s where you want to be.
Disappointment’ s cousin is Frustration, the second storm. Have you ever been frustrated? It happens when things are stuck. This is especially relevant in India. From traffic jams to getting that job you deserve, sometimes things take so long that you don’t know if you chose the right goal. After books, I set the goal of writing for Bollywood, as I thought they needed writers. I am called extremely lucky, but it took me five years to get close to a release. Frustration saps excitement, and turns your initial energy into something negative, making you a bitter person. How did I deal with it? A realistic assessment of the time involved – movies take a long time to make even though they are watched quickly, seeking a certain enjoyment in the process rather than the end result – at least I was learning how to write scripts, having a side plan – I had my third book to write and even something as simple as pleasurable distractions in your life – friends, food, travel can help you overcome it. Remember, nothing is to be taken seriously. Frustration is a sign somewhere, you took it too seriously."
— Chetan Bhagat
The pull of the numbers is real!
For me, it’s about understanding what the analytics is telling me, and not trying to fight the truth.
One tactic I keep from my startup days is focusing on growth RATE over total growth (number of subs, followers).
Sometimes it’s about keeping perspective on the right metrics.
I write about it more here: https://substack.com/@rickfoerster/note/c-58731306?r=3uceyo&utm_medium=ios&utm_source=notes-share-action