Impact Calendar Theory

The super simple strategy I use to make any project addictive

This strategy scales down to a single personal habit and all the way up to team projects of any size and scope.

I call it the impact calendar.

The 1-step minimum viable impact calendar is just a paper desktop calendar.

And it's all you need to get incredible results.

Most of the time...

But for the biggest projects you need this:

This 4-step impact calendar (with annotations) tracks the progress of the Redis database project since the start.

If you can already see ALL 4 steps in the chart, then feel free to bounce šŸ˜Š

But if you want to know more about each step, read on...

First...

YES:

If you squint hard enough, impact calendars are just a temporal heatmap.

(And I certainly didnā€™t invent this use of them, either.)

But the reality is:

Impact calendars make it possible to gamify anything (GAMIFICATION, not gaming as in "cheating the system".)

Impact calendars are the least project tracking that could workā€¦

And thus: the most reliable, flexible, versatile, and scalable.

Impact calendars are Seinfeld calendars (ā€œDonā€™t break the chain!ā€) on STEROIDS.

Impact calendars are how you guarantee you reach Malcolm Gladwell's 10,000 hours.

Andrej Karpathy:

Impact calendars are great for accountability to your own goals and great for shared accountability to team goals.

Impact calendars are great for tracking actions and great for tracking outcomes.

Impact calendars are great for offense (exponential upside) and great for defense (infinite downside).

Impact calendars are perfect for staying on top of chores and perfect for driving growth.

Impact calendars make highlighting causal lift effortless.

Impact calendars make correlating key inputs to performance a breeze.

What this means:

Itā€™s dead simple to align your team on a common vision.

There are just 4 steps.

Here's how it works:

THE 4 STEPS:

  1. Track activities: "Don't break the chain!"
  2. Measure outcomes: What's the pay-off?
  3. Align teamwork: Transparent signals
  4. Adjust key drivers: Causal lift

And frankly...

You almost never need all four. I'll tell you why in a minute.

Question:

Let's say you manage the Redis database project, one of the most successful databases of all time.

How would you track progress on it without feeling hopelessly overwhelmed?

In this post, I'll show you step-by-step what it looks like to manage a project like Redis using impact calendar theory.

Let's dive in!

Step 1: Track activities ("Don't break the chain!")

It's really easy to measure activity on a software project because we can track the code.

Here's what the initial progress on Redis looked like as a desktop calendar:

First two months of Redis development

You may know this as a habit. Companies call it a process.

As soon as the project began, activity on Redis was consistent [even on weekends!]

If a project is important, I try to work on it every day.

Now:

Paper desktop calendars are fantastic for a single project.

But they get SUPER tedious when scaling out to lots of habits and processes.

Luckily, it's really easy to make your own calendars on computers.

This is what the first year of Redis looked like:

First year of Redis development

For the whole first year more often than not something is happening on Redis.

So:

Step 1 is plenty good enough for:

Most of the time...

In fact, if you're trying to get to 10,000 hours, Step 1 is all you need!

Just staying in touch with a project every day will, over time, make you a master.

Guaranteed.

But:

Sometimes you want even more tracking.

Step 2: Measure outcomes (What's the pay-off?)

If your project has big dreams, you'll eventually want to measure outcomes.

One of the best things about impact calendars is that you can track metrics in exactly the same way you track activity.

For an open source software project like Redis, a great metric is GitHub Stars.

Redis development vs GitHub stars

The green impact calendar is average daily code commits and the purple impact calendar is average new daily GitHub stars.

Upshot?

The rate of GitHub stars grew throughout its first 11 years of development.

Nice.

Redis wasn't just spinning its wheels, clients and prospects loved what they were doing.

Step 3: Align Teamwork (Transparent signals)

Past a certain point, the way you scale a project is by hiring people.

But the more people you add, the harder it is to focus their work.

Luckily, impact calendars give you lots of ways to cope with this.

One way is to create a simple team scorebard by adding a breakdown dimension for people doing the same sort of work.

Here's what that looks like for Redis:

Redis progress by contributor

Now everyone is aligned on the vision.

If you're a team or a company, the message is: This is what's important to us.

(Hopefully you have some good ideas about what's important to you!)

Step 4: Adjust Key Drivers (Causal lift)

So, remember the first graphic at the top of the page?

Annotated impact calendar for Redis

 

This correlated impact calendar highlights that antirez is THE key driver of Redis.

Here's how to read this:

From the start antirez (real name: Salvatore Sanfilippo) was the biggest contributor to Redis.

BUT LOOK:

After 2020, anitrez STOPPED contributing (because he left the project).

...and from 2021 through 2024, GitHub stars declined.

In January of 2025, antirez rejoined the project:

...since then, GitHub stars rebounded.

After realizing the impact antirez had on the project, Redis management adjusted their key drivers and made a deal with antirez to return to the project.

OH, BY THE WAY:

Breakdown dimensions on impact calendars are good for a lot more than this!

For example:

Your key drivers might not be people.

If your project is a fitness program, your activities breakdown could be by exercise.

Or your key drivers might be in your outcome metrics, not your activities, like franchise revenue.

Breakdown impact calendars work great for these too...

What Next?

Look, if we're going to have to do things anyway, it's easier if it's fun.

That's the magic of impact calendars: It turns any project into an addictive video game.

FINALLY:

At this point you're probably wondering:

"How do I make my own impact calendars?"

I've built impact calendars in all of these:

Along the way, I've picked up a few tips and tricks.

In my next post, I'll show you every way I know to make impact calendars so you can start using them in your daily life.

Thoughts? Email me at me@michaelterry.io