On Happiness and Taking Inventory

Recognition is the first step on the way to architecting a life that brings you joy. It stares you in face 24/7 begging for you to take notice, but very few ever do.

Hundreds of millions of humans go through the monotony of everyday living with no awareness of the activities they’re performing.

The dull wave of life brings them into shore every night where they wash up into bed. Destined to start back over again tomorrow.

That is not joy. That is not getting to do what you love every day.

The first step to happiness is recognizing what you do everyday and taking inventory.

Inventory is counting and documenting items or activities. It is a way to check for accuracy. To assess the situation.

Companies do it to ensure they haven’t lost any items and we’ll do it to ensure we haven’t lost any joy.

Start out with a blank piece of paper or an excel file and label the left column with 30-minute slots. In the row above, label every day of the week. This is a seven day exercise.

You’ll be filling out every thirty minute time slot with what you did from when you wake up to when you go to sleep.

If you’re having trouble fitting what you did into the slots, you can generalize, but be honest!

Below is a sample of my common activities for some reference.

At the end of your week, analyze your results. You’ll be astounded to see where you spend the majority of your time.

Is it on things that bring you joy? Are you spending the majority of your workday driving towards a goal? Or are you answering email and on social media all day?

Knowing is half the battle. Taking action is the other half.

Once you have a firm idea of where your time is spent, it’s time to take your precious hours back.

My mantra is to get rid of the things in red and replace them with blue (based on my color coating above).

All of the things in blue directly correlate with what brings me joy. When I have a day that maximizes blue and green, I’m a happy human.

It’s time for you to take inventory and see if you’re the same.

Are you maximizing joy or just stuck?