Breaking the Adsense Habit - how not to obsess over stats

I should probably start this post with a confession: Hi, my name's Amber and I'm addicted to Google Adsense. Also: Statcounter, Google Analytics and my Feedburner stats page. Yes, I have myself a problem.

When you make a living online, it can be pretty hard not to obsess over how well you're doing. Sometimes it's even fun: I mean, who doesn't love getting up in the morning and switching on the computer to find that you made money overnight while you were sleeping? But once you've got into the habit of obsessive checking, it can be a hard one to break. Trust me, I know.

My typical morning routine, for instance, goes something like this:

1.  Wake up, check Adsense and overnight stats. (Yes, sometimes even before visiting the bathroom. Sorry for over-sharing.)

2.  Make coffee, check Adsense. Because, you know, I could have totally made a small fortune in the time it took to boil the kettle! Never have, of course, but you never know! And if I don't keep checking, I will never know...

3. Shower. Check adsense. That was a long shower, you see. A lot can happen in that amount of time.

4. Makeup, hair, clothes. Adsense. Because... well, you get the picture.

I'm exaggerating here, of course, but only a little. I even used to have an Adsense widget installed in my toolbar, but I went cold turkey with it. Not that I don't miss it, of course...

The fact is that I check my stats compulsively - sometimes to the detriment of my work, because I can spend so much time analysing how well I'm doing that I don't have time to do anything else. Such over-analysis also leads to a tendency to read too much into every slight blip on the stat radar.

So, as a recovering Adsense/Statcounter addict, here's why you should try to break the habit, if you possibly can:

1. Obsessive stat checking keeps you from your "real" work

I had to put the obvious reason first. If you try and work out how much time you spend logging into stat programmes every day, you could be surprised. And horrified.

2. Obsessive stat checking leads to lack of perspective

Yes, that slight drop in traffic between 11am and 2pm could mean the end of your career as you know it, but it could also just be one of things that you wouldn't even notice if you weren't checking every few minutes.

3. It might just depress you

If your stats aren't looking as good as you'd like them to, you could end up destroying your productivity and losing your motivation for what you're doing. That's not to say you should ignore the stats altogether, but try to look for long-term trends rather than focusing on the small details.

I'm now trying out a "once a day" only policy, in a bid to try and reduce my dependency. Is it working? Well, sort of. But like I said, baby steps...

Are you a stat addict?

Comments

[Sophia Levis]

I have the same problem. So much so that I actually swore off checking adsense (and other types of statistics) for lent!

I feel ya.