Removing The Metrics

...or how to stop "the algorithm" from ruining your life

It took me a long time to learn an important lesson and I hope I don’t soon forget it. But before I tell you the lesson, let me back up a bit so you understand where I’m coming from.

Ever since middle school I always have some kind of crazy business idea or side project I’m working on. I’ve made my own video games, done affiliate marketing, dabbled in SEO, built a couple small businesses that fizzled out, wrote a book, wrote a ton on Quora, started a YouTube channel, put out an album of original music, and the list goes on and on. I’ve come to accept that I’m always going to be building something.

Creating new things is great. I find it to be one of the most satisfying ways to spend my time. Making something new, trying something different, seeing what happens.

At the same time, I’m stuck with this computer in my brain that wants to see the numbers go up. Ever since I was a kid playing Dragon Warrior, Chrono Trigger, and Final Fantasy, I found a love for making the numbers go up. In school I got the highest grades I could. At my first job (Chick-fil-a) I tried to always have the highest check average when I worked the cash register. When I’m programming I like to see the code perform faster or better somehow.

Years later I found out via personality tests that I have “achiever” as a strong part of my personality. And that fits. I like achieving things. I set goals and work toward them. Nobody has to tell me to do it. Sometimes I even obsess over other people’s goals because I want them to win too!

Creating things is great. Achieving things is great. Mixing the two is not.

Here’s the problem…

There is an energy to creating things. Part of it is getting into flow. Some of it is inspiration. And another part is facing your fears and insecurities. We all go through some kind of struggle to create new things. Doesn’t matter if it’s code, music, writing, business, whatever. It’s all the same struggle in a different form. Those are the “birthing pains” of creating something. It’s all part of the process.

Without the right energy, creating something new is difficult. This is why some people struggle create and others flourish. Different people have different energy, different process, and different stresses.

One area that I found creates profound creative stress (for me) is metrics. This is ironic because I’m an achiever and I love seeing the number go up.

Here is what happens. Say I start a new YouTube channel. My default is not just to make cool videos. It’s to make the number go up, and YouTube is full of numbers. Subscriber count, view count, watch time, thumbnail click through rate, and so on are all metrics on YouTube. But there’s more…

You see, it’s not only YouTube metrics, it’s also website metrics via Google Analytics and the hundreds of little metrics they provide. Oh and then there’s newsletter metrics - subscribers, open rate, # of link clicks, funnel metrics. And what about paid products? Are they selling? How much? Is that enough?

As a creator, it’s easy to drown in the metrics. But it doesn’t stop there. Having metrics is the beginning of the trouble, not the end.

Once I got deep enough into the metrics on any one project I could feel the metrics shape my creation. For example, on YouTube, you’ve heard the phrase “leave a comment and smash the like button for the YouTube algorithm”. Isn’t that a weird thing to say in a video? But now it’s so ingrained into the platform that everybody does it. It is now part of the “YouTube Format” in the way that a “happy little cloud” is part of a Bob Ross painting.

The problem is at some point it becomes an exercise in chasing metrics instead of creating something you can be proud of.

For me, I am especially prone to this. Making a video or writing an article wasn’t only about expressing myself. It became about the numbers. Instead of following my instinct and desire to create things, I was chasing an algorithm.

The real danger in chasing an algorithm is you only get the end result of that algorithm. So, if you chase the YouTube algorithm you get views, likes, and subscribers. But that’s all you get. It’s not designed to give you creative satisfaction.

In many projects I stopped creating what I wanted to create and started to pander to what I thought other people wanted, or what the algorithm wanted. And I started to burn out on the entire thing. It wasn’t fun or interesting anymore. It became a kind of unsatisfying low-wage job instead of a form of creative play.

I’m sure you’ve seen creators burn out of platforms like YouTube or whatever all the time. They chase an algorithm so hard that they forget why they started making videos in the first place. That is so common it’s a sub-genre of content - the “burnout confession” video/essay/tweet/post/etc.

I don’t think chasing an algorithm is healthy for the human spirit. At least, it wasn’t healthy for my spirit.

Now, I’m talking about creative work here. In your job or sport, it’s a different thing. Performance based achievement by default has metrics and a scoreboard. There is no way around that.

But when you’re talking about expressing some part of your soul through creative work… I don’t believe there are great metrics for that.

How do you measure creative expression? And more important, should you? The older I get, the more that feels like a trap.

So here is the fix - no more metrics!

The way I got myself out of this mess is to turn off the metrics for all my side projects. And then I shut down my side businesses. Now I make stuff whenever the spirit moves me.

This feels completely different to me. There is no schedule to it. I’m not obsessing over numbers. And it doesn’t matter when the next thing goes out the door. If nobody sees it or cares, that’s fine.

I mean that. If nobody reads this, that’s okay.

I’m happy to write and share. It’s a much healthier mindset to create from.

In some ways I’m a little bummed that it took shutting everything down and removing all the metrics to be able to create from a position of peace. In other ways I’m excited that I’m untethered from the expectations of results. It feels more generous and honest.

What’s exciting is how simple everything is from this point of view. The only thing to chase is inspiration. Making the next crazy idea happen. Over and over again. No expectation of a result beyond creating whatever is in my head.

I’m glad I removed the metrics from my creative projects. I learned that lesson the hard way, but maybe that was the only way for me to learn this lesson.

I hope that you find some value in this as well. Until next time!

-Brian