This is Stephen Robbins. Welcome to the Give It Done Guys' quick and dirty tips to work less and do more.

Today we're going to talk about how to choose what to measure to set yourself up for success.

Grandma Cuddles Daycare is in an uproar. Grandma recently started yoga classes. She's so happy with her newfound ability to touch her knees that she's decided to travel

to India to study directly with the Dalai Lama.

The staff tried to explain to her that the Dalai Lama isn't a yoga instructor, but she

insisted, and what Cuddles wants, cuddles gets.

Chip, the controller, will be taking over in her absence.

When Grandma's around, she rules the center with an iron fist, but she's taking the fist

with her, assuming she can get it through the metal detector at the airport, so Chip needs

to find other ways to keep things running.

The old adage is, what gets measured gets managed.

Chip intends to manage everything as best he can, and that means setting measurements.

But what to measure and what to do with the measures, he's a little bit less clear on.

Some jobs have natural numeric measurements. Salespeople, for example, can measure how many new

prospects they reach out to, what their close rate is, the average sales size, and so on. The

Cuddle sales team scours hospital birth records to find

prospects for the daycare center. They're ruthless when it comes to recruitment. A couple of years

later, early stage parenthood has taken a toll on the parents, and daycare suddenly becomes

not only a necessity but really attractive. And that's when the sales team swoops in like vultures

to capture the sale.

Monitor levels and changes.

Chip could choose to measure the number of new births entered into the system each day,

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