The HARD Data

Trackyourhappiness.org Data

This chart shows how my happiness levels varied (1-100) based on my self reported sleep quality (ranked 1-10 with 1 being poor and 10 being great) from the night before. There's a very weak positive correlation.

This chart shows how my happiness levels (1-100) varied by the amount of sleep I got (hours 1-10) the night before. It shows a very weak positive correlation.

These two charts show how my happiness levels (1-100) varied by activity (left) and location (right). They are placed in order from happiest (top) to least happy (bottom).

This chart shows how my happiness levels(1-100) varied depending on the number of people I was interacting with at any given point in time.

This chart shows how happiness levels (1-100) varied by day of the week. Wednesdays were my happiest days, while Thursdays were my least happy days.

My Personal Data

This data includes the personal logs that I kept every week as well as the averages in each category from the week.

Interpretation

That's certainly a lot of information to swallow, so it may help if I break it down a bit more. The overall trends that I noticed in the trackyourhappiness.org app were as follows:

1. I enjoy being with people (the more, the better)

And this makes sense! I've always known this about myself, but this definitely proves it. It's this exact reason why I decided I'll could never be happy living in isolation from others. I thrive in social settings with big groups of people, and I feed off of their energy. It's not that I don't enjoy one-on-one conversations, but there's just something about being with a large group that makes you feel like somebody's got your back no matter what.

2. I like things that have to do with exercise & eating (Interesting combination, but I'll take it!)

I definitely knew that I liked to eat, but who knew I thought exercising was so awesome, too?? Of all of the things that I reported doing, exercising scored third only to walking around and touring a law school that I loved. Hmm.. In fact, it was even rated higher than talking, coaching, and watching TV. I guess the next time I decide I don't feel like exercising, I should remember how much I must actually have while doing it! And as an added bonus, it may offset my apparent LOVE for eating ;)

3. I'm happier outside

This one actually did surprise me quite a bit. I'll be the first to admit that I'm not exactly as outdoors-y as they come, but I've always been okay with that. I'm choosing to enterpret this as a general love for fresh air and good smelling flowers, which FINALLY did begin to bloom towards the end of the month!

4. It's more about the QUALITY of sleep than the QUANTITY of sleep

This makes sense, but threw me off a bit. I expected to see a much bigger correlation between hours of sleep and happiness, because I know how cranky I can get when I don't get a good nights sleep. But I suppose 6 consecutive hours is much better than 8 restless hours. It may be in my best interest to stop drinking coffee after 5pm (HA! Yeah, right). #coffeeaddictforlife

5. I enjoy being busy

If there was one chart that had me floored by the results, this was it. It's actually hilarious to me, because I dread Wednesdays, my busiest day of the week. I'm scheduled from 7am-11pm basically straight through between working two jobs and class, so it's not usually filled with much fun. BUT ALAS! I must be having some fun, because I seem to be quite happy? STRANGE. What's more, my least busy day of the week, Thursdays, is when I find myself in a happiness slump. Maybe I like to feel productive and be on the move? Let's sure hope these results weren't a fluke, because I would like to think that I'll remain a happy, chipper person even next year while attending law school. Where freetime, procrastination, and fun go to die. JUST KIDDING. ;) A little..

So, what about my own data?

Okay, I admit it. I'm no professional logger (data, not the lumberjack kind). BUT! I did happen to find a couple of trends that prove that this project in fact did work!

For one: I SUCCEEDED. I am a happier person! According to my happiness reports, I went from an average weekly happiness level of 7.14-8.00, where my week by week averages steadily increased until the final week. AWESOME!

Secondly, I was able to decrease my overall Facebook use from 109 minutes/day on average (Week 1) to 55 minutes/day on average (Week 4). If you ask me, that's still way too much time, but I'll continue to work on this.

My daily average for exercising went from 30.7 minutes (Week 1) to 41.4 minutes (Week 4). I also was able to finally reach 5 times/week in the final week, which is great.

Finally, I was able to slightly increase the amount of sleep I got per night from an average of 8 hours/night to 8.36 hours/night; although I slipped a little in the middle two weeks, with 7.86 and 7.71 hours/night respectively.

Overall, I would consider this a HUGE success, and it was fun to look over my journal entires as well and see all of the personal progress I made throughout the month with my relationships and overall happiness levels.

Wrapping It Up