Tally text: intro / first page
Welcome to the computer-assisted version of Keeping Score.
This multiple choice test serves both as a tutorial and as an example of a life enhancement tool called a tally. A tally is part of a larger system of self-management that encourages activity-tracking and goal-setting.
In its original form, a Keeping Score tally is a paper list of potential tasks that you need -- or like -- to do. This list is first carefully designed to suit your life, then duplicated in bulk so that you may use a fresh tally to track your accomplishments every day.
Please see the bottom of the first and/or last page
for usage instructions and contact information.
What A Keeping Score Tally Does:
Using a tally provides you with four numerical scores.
The accomplishments score records your overall achievement within a 24 hour period.
The remaining scores measure how these accomplishments divide into three spheres of concern:
Health & Body explains itself. Sphere points earned here reflect the effort you expend to support your physical self.
Work & Home reflects your energy expenditure for maintaining your environment. Conventional tasks and chores show up here.
Mind & Soul measures activities that support your intellect and mood.
Tracking and comparing the three sphere scores over time allows you to determine if your daily activities are supporting your priorities and goals.
The process of setting up and keeping a personalized tally clarifies and simplifies goal setting. Once you are aware of your activity patterns, it is easy to see where you want to make changes.
How To Sample Tally-Keeping:
Creating a personalized tally requires some time and effort. Keeping a tally once it has been designed, on the other hand, is easily accomplished in just a couple of minutes each day.
To get a feel for what a tally of your own creation might be like, read through the next four pages of this test and check off any activities that you've done in the last 24 hours.
NOTE: This tutorial requires much more reading, tracks many more possibilities and features a broader score range than most working tallies do. The personalized tally of a single, childless, apartment-dwelling, 20-something, for example, would probably not include as many queries about home maintenance or child-rearing as the tutorial tally does. (It might instead include more queries that detail work, school or social activities.) In addition, a working tally does not need to include many examples and instructions regarding the various queries. As you try to visualize what a custom-made tally would look like, understand that all of the text written in this shade of blue could be removed from the questionnaire section of the tally.
Give it a try. You might be surprised to see what you've achieved in the last day.
How To Interpret Results:
At the end of this tutorial test, you will receive a score that looks something like this:
blue
190 accomplishments, 8 health and body, 17 work and home, and 113 mind and soul
190 -- 200
In order to extract personal meaning from this tally you will need to generate several sample scores by taking the test repeatedly and recording the results. This can be done in any manner that helps to establish a good baseline score. Some individuals might prefer to take the test once a day for several days (including at least one weekend day.) Others might prefer to take the test as if several days had passed.
Most people will start gathering hypothetical results by overestimating how much can be accomplished in a day. I recommend that testers yield to this temptation by deliberately checking off every task that the tester feels (s)he SHOULD be able to manage in a 24 hour period. This establishes an ideal score -- a score that could reflect a perfect day. Following this exercise with its opposite -- taking the test as though the tester was experiencing a particularly non-productive, obsessive or lazy day -- establishes a worst case scenario score. This result, too, is valuable in determining a healthy baseline score. Once those two scores have been recorded, complete the tally in a way that reflects a typical or average day. Play with the results by imagining different events, seasons and mood states. Generate scores that reflect the circumstances of your life. Eventually, patterns should emerge. Examining those patterns will allow you to determine a desired baseline result. Once the baseline score has been determined, future scores will be compared against it. Setting the baseline too high is a mistake; it's better to error by setting it too low. Reviewing your daily results should feel good.
The tutorial tally will produce a color result based on your accomplishments score as follows:
000-110 = Off the scale
115-125 = Black
130-140 = Charcoal
145-155 = Gray
160-170 = Violet
175-185 = Indigo
190-200 = Blue
205-215 = Blue-Green
220-240 = Green
245-255 = Yellow-Green
260-270 = Yellow
275-285 = Yellow-Orange
290-300 = Orange
305-315 = Red-Orange
320-330 = Red
Scores of 335 and higher do have colors assigned to them but most people will score in the above range.
On a personalized tally, your baseline score could be assigned the color "Green", which falls in the middle of the color spectrum. Then, by creating evenly spaced divisions, going in both directions from Baseline Green, a functionality scale develops. In other words, If a person's hypothetical experimentations shows a 300 point range, then the lowest likely score gets one end of the spectrum and the highest likely score gets the other -- with the spectrum divided into even segments between the two. That allows a yellow day to be a pretty darn good day no matter what the individual's natural score range is. On a personalized tally, the color-word may be replaced by terms such as "functional" "lazy" "achieving" "well done" or anything else that is meaningful to the test taker.
How Activities Generate Points:
Each potential activity on the tally is given a point value of
[05] [10] [15] or [20] points. (Fifteens and twenties are less common and are reserved for particularly challenging or time consuming activities.)
Each [05] point task also earns a point in one of the three spheres
Each [10] point task also earns 2 points within the three spheres
Each [15] point task also earns 3 points within the three spheres
Each [20] point task also earns 4 points within the three spheres
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From the author--
Keeping Score is:
intellectual property (n.)
A product of the intellect that has commercial value, including copyrighted property such as literary or artistic works, and ideational property, such as patents, appellations of origin, business methods, and industrial processes.
This system has been my baby for more than six years. Please respect my "maternal instinct" and drop me a line if you incorporate the system into your life.
If you regularly post Keeping Score in your blog or elsewhere, please preserve the link that is embedded in the test or provide a link to:
http://www.livejournal.com/community/keeping_score_2/
To learn more about Keeping Score, please visit:
Keeping Score at LiveJournal
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