We weren’t fortune-tellers, but at some level we’d known something like this would happen. Before we started tracking, we’d thought we might succumb to unanticipated temptations. We estimated that our unintended expenses would come in, collectively, at just under $1,600. But in reality, our tracking proved that we spent far more. Our group spent about $2,400 mindlessly in this two-week period, which was amazing because only half of us in the group had a regular job.
That $800 separating expectation from reality had real impact. For me personally, in the twelve days I was really keeping track, I spent $75.30 that I hadn’t planned to. That’s more than pocket change for sure, though not a sum that would be a real financial strain. But when I converted it into currency that was even more meaningful, the expense was painful. At New York City rates, I’d spent the equivalent of five babysitting hours without thinking about it. That’s like two date nights I just tossed away. Or four Zumba classes I could have attended, which could have burned about four thousand calories that I could have reallocated toward many more fig-and-pecan bars—without the guilt. Each of those thoughtless choices tallied up to something tangible.
My students, too, felt the impact of their splurges only when they took a step back and looked at the total bill. One woman tallied up how much she felt she’d tossed away. “I could have put that money toward saving up for something nice,” she told me, “or, more realistically, spent it on makeup.” One caffeine junkie realized how much cheaper sleeping would have been, and another was disappointed in himself for spending so much on something that just kept him up later than he wanted; he could have instead bought a lot of nachos at the movies. One man realized that his impulsive purchases in this two-week period could have translated into three tickets to see the New York Rangers hockey team, two and a half tickets to The Lion King at the student discount rate, or two nights in a hotel room in the Financial District in Lower Manhattan. He would even have had enough money left over for room service.
The process of tracking expenses and stepping back was, for some, like reconciliation for a Catholic over Lent. For those plagued with guilt, the experience illuminated the financial misgivings that were easy to ignore day-to-day. For others, though, the experience was satisfying. Two students felt more in control and less stressed now that they knew the source of their bad habits. Another was happy to learn that her actual expenditures confirmed her suspicions about her own spending and aligned well with her budget. A fourth was certain she was a secret chocolate binger, but was delighted to discover that she ate far less than she thought.
The pleasant aspects of tracking my own expenses were lost on me, though. From one day to the next, none of those feelings changed what I did or the choices that my students were making. Despite my remorse, I still ate the whole pastry. And I went on to buy another the day after.
There are many reasons for our unintended purchases. For one, we’re good at rationalizing these minor acts of transgression against our wallet. One woman realized that she had six go-to justifications she gave herself as she dialed up the car service rather than stepping down into a subway station—including the small price of luxury and an irrational fear of catching bedbugs underground. Perhaps an even bigger explanation, though, is that the consequences of any single decision tend to be too small to compel different behavior the next time around. Each of the choices I made felt like momentary blips or errors, but not major failures.
Of course, scientists have documented that the process of observing can change the behavior of the observed. Employees work more efficiently when they know employers are watching. Kids as young as five are less likely to steal stickers from a friend when observed by others their same age. Museum patrons move through galleries slower when people are watching them. But eventually the feeling of being in the spotlight fades and people revert to their usual way of being.
It was not enough to just log what went out of my wallet or into my mouth. Though all of those fiscal and caloric expenditures were memorialized, bearing witness to them did little to change what I or my students did one day to the next. When I looked back at the numbers, I saw that I spent 60 percent more money in the second half of my own case study than I did in the first half. Why? Taking note of behaviors does little to change them because that act alone keeps the reporter narrowly focused. Recording how much money I spent on that sushi snack from the corner convenience store (a risky choice of venue to patronize for raw fish, I am aware) led me to think only about that expenditure, not the total spent that week.
This was the moment when I wondered if the ineffectiveness of annotating my expenditures was unique to my fiscal health. Might annotating be more helpful in another area of my life? Say, my aspirations for single-song stardom on the drums?
I turned my sights on how I spent my time instead of my money. I set my phone to ask me once, twice, or three times a day—as it wished, over the course of a month—whether I had practiced the drums since the last time it had asked me. My phone also asked me how I felt about myself after each session concluded, if I had indeed practiced in the elapsed time span. I filed away each of my reports in the same way that I save our tax documents after April 15—all in one big file without much thought and with very little organizing; I generally know where they are, but I’m glad the IRS hasn’t asked to see anything specific. As soon as I’ve sent off the returns, I am definitely not looking for them again.
Until the day that I actually did go hunting for those daily practice reports. After my one-month period of data collection had expired, I headed off to my office, opened my door, and sat down at my desk. I had my phone export the reports to my computer so I could crunch the numbers and compile the results. I saw that I had responded to my phone’s questions on average twice a day, though some days I left no notes to self. I’m sure on those days my musical development was back-burnered. Had I practiced, I’m certain I would have given myself credit for it. Nonetheless, I discovered that I had in fact gotten in ten practice sessions in that thirty-day span. That’s the equivalent of two or three times each weekend! This shocked me, and I literally patted myself on the back. Which is of course the exact instant that one of my students walked past my open door and caught me in this moment of self-congratulatory exuberance. We had a brief chat about self-esteem versus hubris.
I settled back in to examine the trajectory of my emotional states. That analysis started off easily, because the first three times my phone asked me how I felt after I practiced, I pled the Fifth. I left the response box blank. I’m guessing that my reactions, had I annotated them, would have involved a word not fit to print here. After my fourth practice session, I noted, I had cried. I’m surmising that this reaction stemmed from some mix of anxiety and pride, because I also noted that Pete told me during that practice period, “You’re great! And I’m not [expletive]ing bull[expletive]ing you.”
The choice of words shocked me, because he had previously reserved this kind of language for only the most maddening days at the office—the kind that lead to broken screens on cells when you forget that slamming the phone down when you hang up on someone in contemporary times is far more likely to lead to permanent device damage, and doesn’t have the same oomph it did when we all used landlines. So maybe I cried from confusion. Or maybe from the powerful nature of his compliment. I’m not sure now. But, I can see from my reports that, following his enthusiastic praise, my own satisfaction with my improvements increased dramatically. The session after, I felt better, then kinda proud, followed by definitely better. An upward trajectory if ever I’ve seen one. I capped off this progress with one of the proudest moments of my drumming life to date. The data on my phone stamped the moment—9:35 p.m. on February 10—but I think I will remember it even without the notes: Mattie, for the first time, danced to the sounds he heard me make! After I got over the initial guilt inspired by being reminded I had let my infant child stay up that late just to hear me practice, the unfalsifiable evidence that I was now making music really lifted my spirits. After that, I felt inspired to try for the next level. In my next practice session, I attempted coordinating three limbs to enact separate and unique movements simultaneously. I told my phone that I felt like I was at the edges of my brain—but not enough that it shut down or anything of that nature, because over the course of the next two sessions I was happy that I felt quite a bit less awkward. As the thirty-day period came to an end, I closed out my reporting feeling proud. I think I rocked pretty hard. And though it didn’t happen while I personally was sitting behind the kit, three sticks were broken in one night. Maybe I loosened up the wood grain for Pete.