One idea for improving the quality of your ratings: instead of taking quantitative, numerical measurements, do qualitative observations (write a paragraph verbally describing how happy you’ve been lately). Then, after a while, look over your accumulated qualitative observations and try to cluster them or develop some kind of rubric or decision procedure that allows you to quickly code your happiness level. (For example, you might be able to do some kind of happiness binary search… if you know what your median level of happiness feels like, you could diff that against your current level of happiness and figure out which way the diff went, then after that diff yourself against the 25th/75th percentile level of happiness. That’d give you 4 buckets. Depending on the shape of your happiness distribution, you might find this percentile-based approach not all that useful, especially since the distribution of your happiness might change depending on the circumstances, etc.)
instead of taking quantitative, numerical measurements, do qualitative observations (write a paragraph verbally describing how happy you’ve been lately)
Part of my goal with tracking happiness is to better understand my in-the-moment experience of life as opposed to my remembered experience. This means any tracking probably needs to be quick and frequent.
I think part of the problem here, and why writing a qualitative description is a good idea, is that forcing yourself to “quantify” your happiness (an incredibly difficult thing to do even in the best of circumstances) is going to inherently lead to inaccuracies. I’d even consider making the argument that having to quantify your happiness could inadvertently lead to you actually being -less- happy. Imagine it—you feel fine one moment, then, as a result of a ping, you now have to evaluate exactly how you’re feeling and your day so far and turn it into a number. What if that number doesn’t come out the way you want it to? Now you’re unhappy.
That’s a lot harder to do with a qualitative observation, where you can quickly spitball how you feel at the immediate moment without in-depth contemplation.
Makes sense. I think this is still compatible with my suggestion though: you could write a paragraph describing how you feel in this moment. It would be slower for a while but if you followed the rest of my advice you could go back to quick tracking fairly soon.
I guess the problem is I’m not even willing to go through a single week where at random times I might need to write a paragraph on my phone? My current system is fast enough I can almost always immediately respond to a ping, and if it would be too socially awkward I can decide what I’m going to enter and then enter it in a minute or so when there’s a break.
One idea for improving the quality of your ratings: instead of taking quantitative, numerical measurements, do qualitative observations (write a paragraph verbally describing how happy you’ve been lately). Then, after a while, look over your accumulated qualitative observations and try to cluster them or develop some kind of rubric or decision procedure that allows you to quickly code your happiness level. (For example, you might be able to do some kind of happiness binary search… if you know what your median level of happiness feels like, you could diff that against your current level of happiness and figure out which way the diff went, then after that diff yourself against the 25th/75th percentile level of happiness. That’d give you 4 buckets. Depending on the shape of your happiness distribution, you might find this percentile-based approach not all that useful, especially since the distribution of your happiness might change depending on the circumstances, etc.)
Part of my goal with tracking happiness is to better understand my in-the-moment experience of life as opposed to my remembered experience. This means any tracking probably needs to be quick and frequent.
I think part of the problem here, and why writing a qualitative description is a good idea, is that forcing yourself to “quantify” your happiness (an incredibly difficult thing to do even in the best of circumstances) is going to inherently lead to inaccuracies. I’d even consider making the argument that having to quantify your happiness could inadvertently lead to you actually being -less- happy. Imagine it—you feel fine one moment, then, as a result of a ping, you now have to evaluate exactly how you’re feeling and your day so far and turn it into a number. What if that number doesn’t come out the way you want it to? Now you’re unhappy.
That’s a lot harder to do with a qualitative observation, where you can quickly spitball how you feel at the immediate moment without in-depth contemplation.
Makes sense. I think this is still compatible with my suggestion though: you could write a paragraph describing how you feel in this moment. It would be slower for a while but if you followed the rest of my advice you could go back to quick tracking fairly soon.
I guess the problem is I’m not even willing to go through a single week where at random times I might need to write a paragraph on my phone? My current system is fast enough I can almost always immediately respond to a ping, and if it would be too socially awkward I can decide what I’m going to enter and then enter it in a minute or so when there’s a break.