What is the best way to measure progress on soft skills? What metrics did you try, and what were your results? Suggestions are welcome!
Example #1: Negotiation. (Curriculum: Stuart Diamond, Getting More.)
The straightforward approach is to keep a daily journal what techniques you used and how to improve. Point any blogging autodata integration at the journal.
In an ideal world, I’d record interactions with coworkers (e.g. “how can we reduce scope of this project”). Then I’d step through samples and think up better responses.
For fuzzy goals, I often use a belt-and-braces approach to monitor different aspects of the same real-world goal. e.g. one goal that measures how often I do something, another to measure how much (or how much time) of it I do.
I’ve set up my dailies script and goal to do exactly this, though it’s set up to copy forward the same set of tasks day after day.
I should try that! Too many late nights when there had been plenty of time during the day if I’d buckled down…
I’ve tried several variations of do-it-before-lunch goals that haven’t been long-term successful. Though using the concept of ‘lunch’ rather than a fixed time-of-day was useful.