The Sunday Number
A goal with no weekly number is an open loop: you set it in January and feel bad in December. One number checked every Sunday closes the loop, and closed loops correct themselves without willpower.
How to run it
- Pick one number — One metric you influence directly this week. Two numbers become a dashboard and get abandoned.
- Choose an input, not an outcome — Conversations started beats revenue. Inputs respond to the week that just happened.
- Check it at the same time weekly — Fifteen minutes, same slot. Write it down and compare with last week.
- Ask one question — What would make next week higher? Then stop, because a long review gets skipped.
The problem with annual goals
Annual goals give feedback once, at the end, when nothing can be done about it. Everything between January and December feels identical whether you are on track or not, so there is no signal to correct against.
The result is the standard pattern: enthusiasm, drift, and a December assessment that arrives too late to be useful.
What a Sunday number is
One number. Measured weekly. Something you influence directly.
Bad: revenue. It is the outcome of things you did weeks ago and it moves for reasons outside the week.
Good: conversations started, proposals sent, articles published, hours of deliberate practice. These respond to what you did in the week that just happened, which is what makes them correctable.
Pick one. Two numbers become a dashboard, a dashboard becomes a chore, and the chore gets skipped by March.
The routine
Same time every week, fifteen minutes. Write the number down. Compare it to last week. Ask one question: what would make next week's number higher?
Then stop. The review is short on purpose — a long review is one you will eventually avoid, and consistency is the entire value of it. See the promise ratio.
Why weekly
A week is short enough to remember what you did and long enough to absorb a bad day. Daily is noise and produces overreaction. Monthly loses the detail and gives you twelve corrections a year instead of fifty-two.
Fifty-two small corrections beat one large annual reckoning, which is the whole argument. See compounding.
Questions
What is a Sunday number?
A single metric you influence directly, checked at the same time every week. It closes the feedback loop that annual goals leave open until December.
Why shouldn't you track revenue weekly?
Because revenue results from work done weeks earlier and moves for reasons outside the week. Input measures such as conversations started respond to what you actually did.
Why weekly rather than daily or monthly?
A week is short enough to remember what you did and long enough to absorb a bad day. It gives fifty-two corrections a year instead of twelve.