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Concept

Lead Measures

Lead measures are measures of the behaviours that drive a goal, such as hours of deep work, which you can influence directly and track as you go, unlike lag measures, which record the final result only when it is too late to change it.

The distinction comes from the four disciplines of execution, the framework by Chris McChesney, Sean Covey and Jim Huling, and Cal Newport puts it at the centre of his advice in Deep Work. A lag measure describes the thing you ultimately want: a published paper, a signed client, a finished product. It matters, but it arrives late, and by the time it disappoints you, the weeks that produced it are gone. A lead measure tracks the behaviour that moves the lag measure, and it has two properties: it predicts the result, and you can affect it today. For knowledge workers trying to work deeply, Newport's choice is simple: the time spent in a state of deep work dedicated to the goal. Counting hours sounds crude, but it shifts attention from outcomes you cannot command to effort you can, and it quickly exposes whether the depth you intend is actually happening. The common mistake is to pick a lead measure that is really another lag measure, such as chapters finished, or one so loose it can be gamed, such as time spent at your desk. A good lead measure is honest: if the number goes up, the work is genuinely getting done.

A real-life example

Ceren, a doctoral student in Samsun, used to judge each week by whether a chapter was done, which meant most weeks felt like failure. She switched to a lead measure: hours of deep work on the thesis, marked as tally lines on a card taped to her monitor. The first week showed four hours, not the twenty she had imagined. That honest number told her what to change; by the second month the chapters were arriving.

How to use it

  1. 1Write your goal's lag measure, the result you want, and then the one behaviour that most directly produces it.
  2. 2Turn that behaviour into a number you can count daily, such as deep hours on the goal, and record it the moment a block ends.
  3. 3Compare the lead measure with the lag measure every week; if the hours rise and the result does not move, the behaviour is wrong, not the counting.