Tracking your ROI and other fun jargon
Oh, hi friends!
The phrase return on investment was mentioned in the office today.
And I started to think about that ROI when it comes to my own investments.
Your investment can be the time it takes to do your work: research, interview sources, write a draft.
Your investment can be a two-mile run. Or making a giant salad for lunch.
Or your investment could be taking the weekend off. Going on a vacation. Eating a fistful of M&Ms.
The return for each of these is different. But the thing to track is your rate of return—what you’re getting in exchange for your time and energy. Do you feel like you’re getting enough for the investment you’re putting in? If not, why? And what can you do to change it? Can you lower your investment—or can you ask for a better return?
Dichotomy!
"Your energy must go to what you desire, not what you dread."
From this piece “Advice To My 26-Year-Old Self” by Joan Juliet Buck, linked to in the great newsletter Deez Links, and forwarded to me by the great Jane Frye. (Thus confirming my long-held belief that if you can’t read everything, the cream of the crop will find you, thanks to eagle-eyed friends.) The piece hit me like a ton of <insert something less cliched than bricks here>
Here’s Elaine Stritch singing “Ladies Who Lunch” from the documentary Company: Original Cast Album. They (including Sondheim) kept asking her to sing it again…and again…and again. She wasn’t getting it. She was frustrated. She screamed. Then, the next day, she nailed it. Thinking of this the next time I get in a pickle with my own work.
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Thanks, as always, for reading.
Love, Kara