Counting Words

Yesterday, I reached a major milestone. I took my millionth step this year. Like most other people who walk for exercise, my goal is 10,000 steps a day. That equates to two miles a day. That also works out to 3,000,000 steps a year. YIKES!

In order to make my 10,000 steps last spring, I went to our local park in the morning with Tux (my 10-year-old dog). then in the afternoon, I’d head to the Botanical Gardens. This summer I was out and in the park by 6:00 am. It was too hot to walk there at any other time of the day which meant it was too hot to walk in the Gardens as well. Now that fall is here, it’s back to the park and the Gardens again.

Of course, in order to make the 3,000,000 step goal, I should have reached the 1,000,000 step mark in April. I am not daunted, however. Hope springs eternal in my world.

I didn’t realize I was close to the million step mark, which made reaching the milestone that more amazing. There was, however, a minor downside. I then had to find out how many words I’ve written this year. Not as easy to come up with a number as it was to figure out the number of steps since I carry a pedometer in my pocket every day. It’s a very small thin pedometer from Omron. I simply record my steps on a spreadsheet every day.

In trying to figure out how many words, I’ve written this year I realized I wasn’t keeping track of all the words I wrote. For many months, I didn’t track the number of words I wrote for my blog, presentations, book reviews, etc. Going back to track those numbers seemed like a daunting task so I didn’t. I’ve written 250,000 words thus far this year, and I’ve started tracking ALL the words I write. Thank goodness for spreadsheet programs.

How about you? Do you track the number of words you write every day. Is there a reason to do it (outside of November and the NaNoWriMo)? Do you use a spreadsheet to track the numbers or some other method?