The comedian Will Ferrell once told a student audience that bad days happen. Bad weeks and months are normal. He concluded that the 6-month mark of crappy times signals that a change has to be made. Bad years are not supposed to happen if one expects to grow according to Ferrell. Of course, most of us endure careers and relationships for years and decades —- maybe at the expense of our health.
To avoid this, there’s a push towards optimization and efficiency by using technology for self-measurement. Is it possible to maintain a manual lifelog in order to track how you are actually feeling? Yes, it’s possible and there’s tool for that. See the podcast below.
I’ve measured my life based on this hack. Some obviously positive years involved milestones. Some years were less exciting. Most were break even. Here are some less-than-obvious observations:
- Weather played a huge role in how I felt. Gloomy and cold winters in the Northeastern US and Seattle weren’t much worse than hot Texas summers. Weather affects mood and it’s worth moving for this reason alone. A popular trend is to keep your address and get away during the harshest weather season.
- More or less journaling in this blog signaled a positive or negative trend around life events. There was a downward trend when I took time off from blogging.
- Travel / events / major life milestones signaled positive trends.
- Lack of mobility and reduced daily exercise signaled a negative trend when checking the health app on my iPhone
To learn more about how you can try this, check out Tim Ferriss’ blog referencing author Jim Collin’s spreadsheeting trick:
customersuccessforgood.com 