I commend you for deciding to stay away from the stats and stick to it for an entire month!

While I don't check my stats multiple times a day or anything like that, I look at them as a way of gauging things - what topics/titles etc are doing well and also what posts need addl promotions and where it is best to promote them - as you know curation is out as are avatars and just hoping readers will happen upon it may not be a great strategy in the future