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Subtleties in Tracking Happiness Jin Young Kim jink@microsoft.com / lifidea@gmail.com

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Happy families are all alike; every unhappy family is unhappy in its own way. Leo Tolstoy, Anna Karenina moments moment Jin Young Kim, Autobiography But there are repeated patterns!

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What if I can pull out the best from myself, every moment? LiFiDeA (Life+Idea) Project The key lies in understanding the nature of (un)happiness!

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About Jin Applied Researcher at Microsoft Bing Day Job: relevance (search quality) measurement A lots of number crunching + stat/math fun! Passion for Self-tracking for 10+ years Experimented with self-built S/W btw. 2002-2006 Keep on experimenting ever since Turns out two have much in common!

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Parallels between Search Quality vs. Happiness Measurement Search Quality How good are the quality of results we serve for users? Happiness How happy do I feel for given time-frame? Search QualityHappiness PurposeMax. searcher satisfactionMax. happiness Ground TruthRelevance judgment (Judges)Happiness judgment (myself) Next StepsAlgo. ranking improvementLifestyle improvement Both aim at objective results from subjective human measurements!

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MEASUREMENT METHOD

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What to Measure Happiness Self-reported 5-point Likert scale Perfect (LIFIDEA) to Nightmare Record 3 times a day Factors affecting Happiness Sleep / wake-up time / events / states Anything I believe to be correlated with H.

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Both sides of the H. coin How successful was it? Hard side of happiness Goal achievement Impact on myself/others Major factors Preparation/planning Task scope/breakdown How good did I feel? Soft side of happiness Sense of well-being Major factors Energy level Focus/awareness How can we turn this into the rating?

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Happiness Rating Matrix How good did I feel? AwesomePositiveSo Awful How successful was it? Very Successful Perfect [LIFIDEA] ExcellentGoodFair SuccessfulExcellentGoodFair So soGoodFair Bad UnsuccessfulFair BadNightmare Very unlikely

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MEASUREMENT PIPELINE

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Allows natural and easy entry of happiness rating and related factors Pipeline Overview Data Extraction in Ruby Statistics Calculation in R Journal Entry in Evernote Web Front-end in JQuery Allows real-time update of status anytime, anywhere

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LESSONS LEARNED FROM 2012

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Time-series of Happiness and Factors Per-day and per-week statistics of Wake-up time / Average score / Sleep time

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Score > 4 Score = 3 Score < 2 Happy times vs. Unhappy times

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Impact of Major Events Consistently more happy before/during major deadline/tasks Extended vacation is major source of unhappiness??? Vacation

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How wake-up time & location affects my happiness Early start is critical for happy morning! Better stay away from home if you want to be happy!

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Findings on my Happiness Initial condition matters a lot Discipline at early morning / work start is crucial Need to put yourself in the zone at the beginning Some structure/external stimuli helps Weekdays/Morning/Deadline induces happiness! Hard to be optimal in relaxed situations

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Findings on my Happiness Cyclical pattern is unavoidable Get loose after good times, vice versa Real question: how can I stay in the zone AMAP? Your rating affects yourself Beware of self-fulfilling prophecy Try to rate myself after the fact

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Conclusions & Next Steps Self-tracking has made tremendous impact On how I see myself and prioritize stuffs Need to turn the insights into results E.g., How can I achieve 3.5 average for this year? A lot of things to learn about myself & tracking I can probably write a book in the end!