September By The Numbers
Welcome to this month’s edition of By The Numbers, where I break down data from my watch and training log to reflect on the past month.
I track a few simple metrics—average sleep, daily steps, and total workouts. I’ve been doing this monthly check in for three years now. It’s been valuable. It’s taught me to look for patterns and trends, and ensures I have this chance to reflect each month. On the other hand, I’m becoming stick of knowing my sleep score. I keep saying Im flirting with going analog.
I’m not there yet, so here’s September by the Numbers.
Steps
Total: 287,467
Daily Average: 9688
Less than August! There has been three months in 2026 where I have averaged less than 10k step. February, August and September. Better get to stepping!
Sleep
Average Sleep Score: 81
Average Duration: 6 hours 51 minutes
An increase in sleep score! I’ve been trying my hardest to ignore these, and I did pretty good. Each good sleep score keeps me in the game though, and I want to quit. I did have a few really bad nights of sleep in September, and I tried to lock it in to increase the quality. In bed sooner, more reading/less phone, magnesium, perhaps my most talked about strategy, no stuffing my face with Cheerios before bed.
Seeing my sleep respond to those changes positively is what this type of tracking is all about - noticing how the small things adds up to big change.
Training
Total Workouts: 24
Just get it done. That’s been my workout theme. I hate playing the busy card, but I’ve been busy! Or maybe better said, training has not been a priority for me. You can get a lot done in 20-30 minutes—even if sometimes it doesn’t feel like enough.
Final Thoughts
While maybe the data is starting to get to me, I still think this is a valuable practice—especially if you’ve never done it before. If you aren’t measuring something, you’re guessing. And a lot of us tend of overestimate how many steps or hours of sleep we get. If you’re collecting this data, somewhere, somehow—take a look and see what you can learn about your habits and patterns.
—Justin Miner