While building products, I was introduced to the world of diagnostics early on. There are several metrics tracked and monitored to provide visibility on how various components of the system or the product are doing, so that concerned people can be alerted in advance of something going very wrong and taking down the system with it.

These metrics and diagnostic tools are designed to both provide feedback that everything is running as expected and alert to any unexpected spikes in traffic, errors, etc.

I've tried to incorporate such diagnostics to the things I pursue - my goals. These are merely managed manually out of a Google Sheet and aren't sophisticated at all. 

Nonetheless, they provide a weekly and monthly view into whether I'm going about things as expected and alert me if I'm not. 

On both fronts, I've seen that the availability of such diagnostics can be powerful. 

We can only take corrective action if we know that things aren't on track.