Today I want to describe another aspect of my bullet journaling, my weekly review. This is the first week I’ve taken a data analysis approach, and I am pleased with the results. I took a quick picture, which shows last week’s charts. (The page wasn’t flat, so the edges are blurry but legible.)
As you can see, the picture consists of three sections. The left chart is a hyperdex, just like the ones I use for my daily entries (see my initial bullet journaling post for details). Here, I take an average of the entries for the 7 days. The legend is:
| Color | Meaning |
|---|---|
| Blue | Highly productive |
| White | Mildly productive |
| Red | Unproductive |
| Green | Relaxing |
I tend to track time in 15 minute increments, though I’m not strict about it. Under the hyperdex, I show the order of precedence. If an hour in a day is classified into multiple categories, I choose the first color in order. So a half-blue, half-white hour is counted as blue. I then use the most common color in the week, with order of precedence breaking any ties.
This graph shows that more often than not, I’m sleeping between the hours of 11pm and 6am, and that I’m usually productive from 8am to 4pm. I found the red hour from 9pm to 10pm interesting, too. I don’t have enough data to discern a pattern yet.
The center section accumulates the niko-niko data into a bar chart. I first learned about them during my days as a scrum master, and they are a great data point to gather about teams (see also Agile Trail). A niko-niko chart is a simple rating of happiness on a scale. I use five values: very unhappy, unhappy, meh, happy, and very happy. Another popular variation is to eliminate the middle, neutral face. I kept it so that I wouldn’t have to weigh whether a day is slightly happy or unhappy on days when I’m feeling a mix of emotions.
Last week, I was happy four out of seven days, which honestly was more than I was expecting. When I look back at my week, I tend to focus on more negative items. By asking myself this question every day, it caused me to gain a new perspective.
The right figure is a radar chart based on Zig Ziglar’s Wheel of Life. Ziglar came up with seven categories, with a section in the middle for yourself. I moved that section to its own sector, which gives the circle eight pieces and is thus easier to draw.
Those sectors are: enrichment (the center “you” piece, fun, life-enhancing experiences), social (friends, community), work (including career), family (which I subdivide into wife and children/other), spiritual (faith), financial, mind (learning, intellectual pursuits), and health (including exercise).
When I do my weekly review, I rate each area on the same niko-niko scale as I do each day. That 5-point scale translates to filling in 0-4 segments. The blue area shows the current value. The green areas show growth from the previous week. If there were shrinkage, those would be shown in red. I’m pleased to see growth but no withering.