Surrogate markers

I've been thinking about what makes me happy at the end of a 'typical' working week.

Because I am only paid when I'm in front of a client (ie actually delivering a programme), a 'typical' week is spent at my desk at home not getting paid.  So what does a 'good working week look like then?   Especially from a marketing / client liaison perspective?

In the absence of actual feedback from clients, I use surrogate markers to give me a sense of how my business is going.  This is the same logic as assessing a PR campaign, which is all about changing public perception (hard to measure) in 'column inches' (easy to measure).  

My preferred surrogate marker is comparing my email inbox and outbox at the end of the week (I file emails weekly).  A good week has as many client emails received as sent.  And if I'm filing incoming emails from 4-5 clients at different stages of the adoption cycle then I've had a very good week.

Because I always travel to the client to deliver a programme, a meaningful longer term marker is 'number of flights caught'.  More flights = more work.  More international flights = greater global reach.

Surrogate markers must be easy-to-measure, personally meaningful and offer a logical insight into the health of your actual business.  They are never as meaningful as actual feedback from a client or sales figures but at the end of a solipsistic week at home they're much better than nothing at all.