Scoreboard

Not long ago, our hospital outpatient clinic has been equipped with electronic queue management system. That means we don’t have to use a microphone to call patients at the waiting hall; the automated audio system will do.

It didn’t take long for me to find out the perks of this tracking system. Patient tracking can become its own form of reward. And for good reason.

Let me explain. If you haven’t yet heard about the Canadian stockbroker named Trent Dyrsmid, go read James Clear’s hands-on book Atomic Habits. Dyrsmid began each morning with two jars on his desk. One was filled with 120 paper clips. Soon after making a sales call, he would move one paper clip from the full jar to the empty jar. One by one. Day by day. He kept dialing until he’d moved them all to the second jar. Thanks to the visual cues of moving paper clips, Dyrsmid made brisk progress and good fortune.

In fact, we had been also relying on the paper clip counts to keep a tally of patients we had seen at the end of each clinic session. It works, I know. On the other hand, I'd much prefer an automated system with the real-time computer screen display of the names of patients seen. I fall in love with chasing my scores with rapt attention. The thing is, it is way more satisfying to watch your results grow - the size of your investment portfolio, the number of pages you have read, the number of patients attended - and if it feels good, then you're more likely to endure. Visual proof is immediately gratifying. Gratification of watching the computer screen reminds me of the scoreboard for sportsmen in a stadium. With time, I stick with the habit of recording or tracking the "score" during and after each clinic session. Even if you aren't the type of person who enjoys recording your data, you'll find the measurements insightful. This is why I feel satisfying to track my progress.

The more rewarding it feels to track our progress, in other words, the more our brains’ reward system will spur us toward getting things done.

What if everyone turns out to be too obsessed with the numbers in our data-driven world? In Atomic Habits, James Clear reminds us the measurement is not the only thing that matters. In other words, if we focus solely on that number, our motivation will sag. High scores or not, no measurable data will stay interesting forever. At some point, we are advised to shift our focus to something different and not that measurable. The smiling faces of doctor colleagues who can finish clinic early after my extra hand, for example, are ephemeral but much more meaningful. Ditto for a grateful patient whose name might not appear on my scoreboard.