August 2020 in Review
Page Contents
So, for this month, I tried to keep a log of daily reflection to keep track of my daily life. For now, I use the following questions
- Highlight(s) and whether I achieve it
- What made me happy today?
- What am I grateful for today?
- What makes me excited today?
- What made me unhappy today?
- Mood level (1 being extremely unhappy, 10 being extremely happy)
- Overall grade (1 being extremely bad day, 10 being extremely good day)
Highlight(s)
For highlights, I keep track everyday on what is my highlight because in the past I tend to cram too much highlights in my day which made it harder for me make time for.
I started doing highlights log after I read the book “Make Time” and while the goal was to have highlights that you focus on achieving for that day, cramming too much highlights will create stress.
By keeping a log of my daily highlights, I will notice if I crammed too much highlights in my day.
I am happy to report that I have not overload my days with highlights and I have consistently achieved my daily highlights.
For this month, my highlights pretty much consists of
- Reading at least 3 books with Mason
- Running & stretching
- Researching and planning on a certain business opportunity that I have been keeping on the back burner
What Made me Happy Today?
I am one of those people who have to be constantly on the move and ever since I had a baby, my days start to feel like whirlwind of emotions. By keeping track of this event, it makes me focus on the simple things (or even large things) that makes me happy.
This daily log of “What made me happy today” often times give me the “Aha” moment of realizing that my day was not as bad as I thought.
What I noticed is on most days, I answered
- Hanging out with my brother and having a good talk
- Hanging out with family
- Having a good proper lazy day so I can rest
There are a few days where my source of happiness is my employees showing improvement in their work or other things involved with work, but those days are rare. I am actually quite pleased that work is not my only source of happiness
As planned, this question makes me think on simple things that made me happy, for example on 15 August, it was “Playing hide & seek with Mason” or on 24 August, it was “Mason’s excited expression when he realized I am done with work and we are going to play”. Even now, as I am writing this, I remember his expression again and it makes me happy.
What am I Grateful for Today?
Similar to what made me happy today, what am I grateful for today is for those events where you are not happy but you are grateful for like “Family and the safe space it creates”
I am going to sound very cheesy, but I did put down “Family” on the top every day. I am grateful that no matter how much of a bad day I have, my son will always be excited to show me his toys when I walk through the door. No matter if I don’t feel like eating dinner, my wife will always have a home cooked meal for me that she doesn’t pressure me to eat (I eat it, always)
What Made me Excited Today?
This is to keep track whether I am moving “forward” or not. By having something that excites you, you are moving forward because excitement implies something in the future.
I am happy to say that I always have something that makes me excited every day. I am currently researching a business opportunity (which I will write about if it comes to fruition) and it has been keeping me excited.
What Made me Unhappy Today?
Pretty self-explanatory. Often times, we don’t realize something is a big source of unhappiness until we force ourselves to realize it.
It was from Steve Jobs’ biography where he said something along the line if something makes you unhappy for a quite period of time, it’s time for you to change your situation.
Unfortunately for this one, most of my unhappiness comes from work and usually from the problems that I have to solve for the company.
Mood Level
This may make me sound like a depressed person, but keeping track of my mood makes me think on why I am grading my daily mood level a certain way.
As of August, I graded my mood levels on average a 7/10 and I am pretty happy with it. I am not trying to have an every day of 10/10 because I wouldn’t think that’s normal. Nobody is happy all the time, and nobody should be sad all the time.
A 7/10 means that on average my mood is pretty neutral while leaning more toward happy.
Overall Grade
This is similar to my mood level but while mood is intrinsic, overall grade will have extrinsic factors calculated. I can have an unhappy day but if I achieve what I set out to achieve, just maybe not in the way I preferred, my overall grade will be higher than my mood level.
I noticed there are a few days that my overall grade is higher than my mood level because I have busy days that I cannot spend enough time with my family but I was productive. On average, however, my overall grade usually matches my mood level and I am fine with that.
So, What did I learn?
I am glad I decided to do this daily journal even if I did not expect much from it in the beginning. The reasons being:
Daily Logs Help Shape your Day
Knowing that I have to fill out this daily logs make me plan my day that I don’t want to answer it with something I will regret.
I have a bad habit of going straight to my computer to work after dinner, but after filling out the questionnaire for a few days, I realize my family is my source of happiness and work can wait another 12 hours
Doing Logs for a Month Re-aligns my Value
Even as I am writing this, I realize where my values lie. Sometimes when you are in the habit of doing things, you forgot why you do it in the first place.
Why do I always work? well, it’s because I want to make sure even after I am gone, my family will be taken care of as much as possible. But, there are days where I am working just because that’s what I do. Instead of spending time with my family while I can, I was working to make sure that they have enough when I am no longer able to spend time with them. You see what I mean? it’s a circular reasoning that I am not proud of.
What’s Next?
Honestly, I don’t think I will continue to do this log every month but I am planning to do it once in a while for the reasons above. Let me know what you think.
