The 35,064-Hour Lesson: Why More Data Doesn’t Create Clarity

The Experiment That Didn’t Do What I Expected

At the beginning of 2025, I wrapped up a four-year experiment. I tracked every minute of my life across 25 categories. Work, rest, eating, skydiving, reading… even the 106 hours I spent playing board games in 2024.

35,064 hours logged.
A personal dashboard.
Charts for everything.
Patterns everywhere.

I assumed all of this would give me clarity. I assumed I would learn something about how to spend my time more intentionally.

What I found was something different and far more important.

The experiment didn’t change my life. But it did reveal why so many of us, especially leaders, feel overwhelmed, unfocused, or stuck despite having more information than ever.

Below are the three insights that reshaped how I think about clarity, choice, and leadership.

1. Measurement Takes Time (And We Rarely Admit That)

Over four years, I averaged about seventeen activity switches a day. At ten seconds per log, that added up to more than nine hours a year spent just documenting my life.

Nine hours to measure how I spent my time… while telling myself I didn’t have enough of it.

That irony forced a hard look in the mirror. Measurement creates the illusion of control, but it often turns into its own form of work. Leaders do this all the time:

• More dashboards.

• More reporting.

• More check-ins and surveys.

• More structure around the same problem.

It feels productive. It feels responsible. But it doesn’t necessarily improve anything.

Sometimes measurement is just procrastination in disguise.

2. Data Rarely Reveals Something Your Gut Doesn’t Already Know

My dashboards highlighted patterns, but none of them were surprises.

I already knew where I was overcommitted.
I already knew which obligations drained me.
I already knew where my time wasn’t aligned with my energy.

The data confirmed those feelings, but confirmation is not transformation.

And this is where leaders often get stuck.

Most leaders aren’t confused about what’s happening inside their teams. They can feel the misalignment long before the numbers show it:

• unclear expectations

• overwhelmed teams

• inconsistent follow-through

• priorities that keep shifting

The bottleneck is rarely information. It’s the reluctance to act on what we already know.

3. Tracking Isn’t the Same as Changing

This was the hardest lesson.

Tracking my life didn’t meaningfully reshape how I lived it. I made small adjustments, but nothing that reflected the level of insight I supposedly had. I still avoided decisions. I still spent time on things that didn’t matter. I still told myself the data would eventually force my hand.

But data doesn’t create discipline. And charts don’t create change.

What creates change is commitment and ownership, not measurement.

The experiment gave me visibility. But it did not give me momentum. Only action could do that. And this is where the leadership connection solidifies.

The Leadership Link: Clarity Isn’t a Data Problem

Inside teams, I see a familiar pattern:

• information increases

• visibility increases

• reporting increases

But alignment doesn’t. Leaders assume clarity will come from better data, when in reality clarity comes from:

• simplifying priorities

• communicating expectations

• reducing external noise

• making timely decisions

Information can inform you, but it cannot move your team forward. Only leadership can.

The turning point in my experiment wasn’t a graph or a metric. It was the moment I stopped tracking and started choosing action.

That shift, from documenting to deciding, is the shift most teams desperately need.

A Simple Framework: Three Questions for Real Clarity

If you want more impact this year, try trading information for clarity using these questions:

1. What decision am I avoiding?
   (Avoidance produces more drift than incompetence ever will.)

2. What priority needs to actually become the priority?
   (If everything matters, nothing does.)

3. What expectation have I left vague?
   (Most performance issues are clarity issues wearing a different label.)

Ask these privately. Ask them with your team. Ask them before you request another report.

Your year will feel very different if you do.

A 10-Minute Exercise to Start the Year With Intention

Set a timer for ten minutes.
Write down the top five areas where you feel pulled, stretched, or unclear.

Next to each one, write only one thing:
What do I already know, but haven’t acted on yet?

No dashboards.
No metrics.
No tracking apps.

Just honesty. Clarity begins when avoidance ends.

I tracked my life for four years thinking the data would change me. It didn’t. What changed me was realizing that I already knew what mattered. I just wasn’t choosing it.

Your team doesn’t need more data this year. They need more direction. And that direction starts with you.

Talk soon,
Joe
Lead With Intention. Grow With Purpose.

Got a question or a leadership challenge on your mind?
Reply directly or reach out anytime at [email protected]. I reply to every email.

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