In 2024, I applied The Four Disciplines of Execution to my life and business. I detailed the process for my 2024 plan in a blog post for each discipline:

1. 4DX: Applying the First Discipline (pick a goal)
2. 4DX: Applying the Second Discipline (identify and work on the leading indicators)
3. 4DX: Applying the Third Discipline (build a scoreboard to tell you if you are winning)
4. 4DX: Applying the Fourth Discipline (review with accountability)

The first discipline is to pick a single Wildly Important Goal (WIG), but that’s because they imagine that you are doing this only for work. I do it for three completely segregated areas of my life that I can stop from interfering with each other: Work, Personal Growth, and Fitness. I can always make time for each those three independent of the other two. This is important, because the enemy of your WIG (in the book) is the Whirlwind of activities you need to do just to keep going. My work Whirlwind will interfere with my work WIG, but (for me) it doesn’t stop me from working out or working on my personal growth WIGs.

This is just a brain dump of possible WIGs for 2025 in each category.

Personal: I have sold 0 copies of Pay Tech Debt to Go Faster Now (it’s not done), so I want to have it available for sale by end of Q1 2025 and sell 1,000 copies by the end of the year.

Alternatives: (1) Outsource the end tasks of the book and start a new one (2) Sell whatever I can and build a course based on the book that is the focus (3) Sell whatever I can and try to do workshops at tech conferences based on it.

Work: I have a working, but not useful MVP of a new web application, and am mid reconfiguration into a simpler (and somewhat different) mobile web app. I am trying to get to a new MVP by January 2025. My goal is to have paid customers by the end of Q1.

Alternatives: (1) Give up on this idea and try something else (2) Give up and don’t try to make a software product — e.g. turn the book into my business

Fitness: I am in a fitness stasis, which might be what I have to live with for my age. It’s fine. But I still want less than 20% body fat by the end of the year. The way to do it is radical change, which I will think about and perhaps aim for 20% by the end of Q1. The rest of the year will be about maintenance and sustainability. The answer is probably a combination of regular exercise (easy), daily walking (takes time, but could multitask with something), and a more significant calorie deficit accomplished with more careful eating (hardest).

Alternatives: (1) make maintenance the goal and just be happy with my level of fitness (2) make having fun the goal and go for more varied experiences.

This year looks a lot like 2024, but geared more finishing (where 2024 was about starting).

At the end of January, I realized that the actions I decided to take for my fitness goals weren’t working, so I decided to add more light-impact cardio.

So, it appears that for me, I might need more cardio. From my research, I know that this may inhibit muscle growth, but that effect is because of calorie deficit. So, I will add more cardio (but low stress activities like swimming, rowing, and the elliptical) and I need to find a good healthy source of extra calories

Right after I wrote that, I realized that more walking might also help and was very easy to fit into my days. It’s only been two weeks, but the effect was obvious enough that I decided to do much more walking than I planned.

I started with a daily goal of 12,500 total steps, but now I get over 20k most days. The extra walking is hundreds of calories, which I eat because I am trying to build muscle.

To get this many steps, I have added the following practices:

1. Almost all of my reading or video watching is on a treadmill. I don’t need to make time for this. I do it in whatever clothes I’m wearing and keep it at a slow enough pace.
2. Almost all podcast listening has to be done on an outside walk.
3. If I have to walk somewhere, I leave a little early and add at least 10 minutes more walking each way.
4. I installed Pedometer++ on my iPhone/Watch and use their widgets as my scoreboard. My current steps is in a complication I see all day.
5. I try to get close to 10,000 steps in the morning (to win the morning).

20k might unsustainable long term, but I always dedicate the first thirteen weeks of the year to try to make big changes in my life so I can see what the impact would be. Then, I size it to something I can keep on doing.

Using The Four Disciplines of Execution, I am trying to reach my goals by “playing a winnable game”. The strategy is to develop a lead measure that you can act on at any time (see 4DX: Applying the Second Discipline). But, I find that I win this game more often if I act in the morning.

For fitness, I am doing more strength workouts, incorporating long walks into my day, and eating a healthy high-protein breakfast. I work out at around 7am and eat breakfast soon afterwards, so this is usually done by 9. If I get up early enough, I do a long walk to the gym.

My other two goals have dedicated time allocated to them. I front-load that as much as possible, and move anything that could be distracting to late in the day (especially meetings). I want to work on the important tasks when I have the most energy for them.

According to When by Daniel Pink, for most people, the morning is good for deep work and the afternoon is better for collaboration and ideation. I am clearly one of the “most”, because this works well for me.

I’m using techniques from The Four Disciplines of Execution (4DX) this year to help me reach my important goals. I documented my setup process in these posts:

1. 4DX: Applying the First Discipline
2. 4DX: Applying the Second Discipline
3. 4DX: Applying the Third Discipline
4. 4DX: Applying the Fourth Discipline

The gist is that you (1) identify an important goal (2) design and act on lead measures — things you control that you can do at any time that will add up to that goal (3) create a compelling scoreboard and (4) have regular accountability.

I chose to have 3 goals in 3 separate areas of my life that have segregated time. The book stresses having only one goal, because they are imagining that you apply this to work—I do have only one work goal.

For my work and personal growth goals, I have done my lead measures at or more than the level I wanted and I am making progress. Things seem to be going fine there.

For my fitness goal, I am doing what I set out to do, but I am not seeing progress, so it’s time to rethink if my lead measures are right. In my case, I think they are generally good things to do, so I will keep doing them, but they are obviously not enough.

In 4DX, we are supposed to periodically make sure our lead measures are taking us where we want to go. So, I want to share my thinking. The point is not my specific fitness goals or process—if you disagree with my fitness approach, that’s fine—the point is that I am trying to incorporate new knowledge and try something else.

Here’s my thinking:

My fitness goal is to reduce body fat with the lead measures of strength training and higher protein breakfasts. The result so far is that I am getting stronger (can do more pullups, lift more), but my body fat % hasn’t changed at all. My weight also hasn’t changed, but I am ok with that. I have been using a body fat scale since 2019, so I looked at my history, and I see that my lowest body fat % was when I was doing the most running. This is frustrating.

I chose to lower the amount of running I do because I am trying to avoid knee problems. I don’t have any now, and I want to keep it that way. During my lowest body fat periods, I was training for half and full marathons, which I am not planning to ever do again.

So, it appears that for me, I might need more cardio. From my research, I know that this may inhibit muscle growth, but that effect is because of calorie deficit. So, I will add more cardio (but low stress activities like swimming, rowing, and the elliptical) and I need to find a good healthy source of extra calories. I hate to rely on protein shakes, but that will be part of it. I have also seen some research that would indicate that I should substitute whole starches for tofu and tempeh because of their high fat content.

So, my breakfast will have fewer tofu scrambles with tempeh bacon and I’ll have to come up with a bean/quinoa breakfast. I also make an egg substitute from mung beans that has better macros than Just Egg, which I’ve been having a lot of. I will also cut bread as much as I can—mostly this is a problem because I use plant burgers as an easy lunch—I’ll just have to have it with no bun.

So, my new lead measures are to keep the strength workouts, add three 30+ minute low-stress cardio workouts, and keep the breakfast, but lean more on beans/quinoa/mung beans and less on tofu and tempeh, and skip the bread as much as I can. I will need more calories, but I will find them in whole starches.

In any case, don’t let my fitness choices distract you. The point is to periodically look at your desired lag measures for your goal and make sure your lead measures are moving towards it. It’s not something you can see every day, but I think four weeks is enough.