I tracked my mood every day for one year.

[00:00] Each night, I'd look back on my day and give myself a score. How many times did I get so frustrated that I plowed my head through drywall?

[00:15] of tracking your mood and happiness over the years. - Every single day I track how I feel zero to 10 - [Narrator] But I've never tried it up until now.

[00:28] and a greater sense of awareness over my feelings? This video is sponsored by Squarespace, - All right, so my very first step was to figure

[00:43] Now to create some consistency around this habit, I decided to set an alarm each night at 7:00 PM. reflect, and give it a score.

[00:55] on a five point scale from minus two to plus two. Minus two being awful, minus one being bad, zero being fine, I found out pretty early on

[01:09] It felt like I was "Did I have a good day today?" I mean, my mood varies so wildly from the time I wake up

[01:21] that it's really hard to tell. one thing that really helped me was to write down a summary a full paragraph.

[01:34] January 6th, spent six hours trying to screw eight holes March 20th, ate two donuts, played Last Of Us, October 13th, got Nat pregnant, score,

[01:47] plus two. by writing down this reflection summary, - I didn't realize until later

[02:00] as I looked back on my year and tried Top performers from different fields all of record keeping for years.

[02:15] Rob Dyrdek systematically tracks every minute of his day. and it pumps into a dashboard. So I could tell you exactly where I spend every single hour

[02:31] - [Narrator] He then ranks each day on a scale - This now gives me insight to what things would pull and take energy from the quality of my life through the lens

[02:43] of myself, and what's going on in my life. - I take it to a fanatical level. bestselling author of "Good to Great" tracks his day

[02:58] He talked about his approach on Tim Ferriss's podcast. I open a spreadsheet The first thing is just a simple accounting

[03:11] and then the second cell is the number and what this is a totally subjective, like Dyrdek and Collins get from tracking their mood,

[03:26] and if that time is being spent wisely. to things because you're looking at it through the lens of first, second, third order consequences.

[03:40] after they step back and analyze this data, After all, data doesn't really help - As impressed as I was

[03:52] I was really just doing this for one reason. I wanted to find out if I was as happy as I hoped I was. for the fact that we actually do a really bad job

[04:07] and that's because if we're in a funk, My life is miserable." - [Narrator] As someone who has struggled

[04:20] I frequently fall into these patterns I could look back and say, "Hey, you know what? to track each day, the good ones and the bad.

[04:32] - I don't know if I like it. (soft music) how much more self-aware I was over my feelings.

[04:46] Am I really going to let this ruin my day? I will definitely let this ruin my day.

[04:59] in September when Nat and I took a month off I had 24 days that were a plus one This was the first month that I'd ever taken off from work

[05:13] with taking weekends off, it was a really strong signal The year wasn't without its challenges. November was one of the worst months that I had all year.

[05:28] I logged 19 days with a score of zero or lower. Nat was sick from her first trimester of pregnancy so I wouldn't really worry too much

[05:42] (coughing) I realized the handwritten journaling system I was using

[05:54] So out of sheer necessity, I gave up the pen and paper This definitely made things easier and I felt a little bit more accountable each day

[06:09] from taking a step back after 365 days to spot bigger trends in my life and happiness. No, not a smooth transition into a YouTube advertisement,

[06:25] That's why I use Squarespace. I think they're amazing, and I think for the rest of your life and document it all

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[06:52] which is really easy because all of them are so beautiful. and tweak your fonts so they're just right. into losing your sanity because you've overcommitted

[07:09] From there, you can set up your online store, - [Narrator] Visit squarespace.com today for a free trial make sure you go to squarespace.com/mattdavella

[07:23] - Click the link in the description below Thanks so much to Squarespace for sponsoring this video. I tracked every single day for 365 days

[07:38] (accelerating sound) 69 amazing days, 169 good days, 98 fine days, 25 bad days,

[07:51] Using the five point scale, I could add up all (drum roll) that means that I had a good year.

[08:05] if there was anything I could learn So I pulled everything into this spreadsheet here. summary, and keywords.

[08:20] that I can now sort my daily scores to find trends and here are the biggest lessons that I learned. Work and productivity came up a lot, 119 times in total.

[08:35] up both on my very best days as well as my very worst days. because I burnt out from working over 12 hours in a day.

[08:47] many of my best days were rated plus two because of work. Simply sitting down at my desk, getting lost in my work, I already knew that I had a complicated relationship

[09:03] that I never ranked a day positively because I worked over 10 hours, but there were many negative days So this could really be one thing that I work

[09:18] on going forward slash continue to work on going forward Can I cut myself off before I reach that 10 hour mark? for 12 and a half hours now.

[09:30] - [Narrator] The one trend that surprised me the most is the keyword fun. 27% of my best days happened because I did something fun.

[09:43] and I tried to become an adult as fast as I could and leaving video games, travel, and sports behind. for fun by traveling with Nat, by learning how to golf,

[09:59] by joining a softball team for the first time in five years, - [Speaker] Fore. People who regularly track their mood

[10:12] and identify underlying issues and I think that's true. that forces you to confront the things The goal isn't to get rid of bad days entirely.

[10:25] to challenge yourself, to improve your circumstances, to the life you wanna live. And yes, if you were wondering, I do my own stunts.

[10:40] (smash)