Subtleties in Tracking Happiness -- Seattle QS#10

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Subtleties in Tracking Happiness Jin Young Kim [email protected] / [email protected]

Transcript of Subtleties in Tracking Happiness -- Seattle QS#10

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Subtleties in Tracking Happiness

Jin Young [email protected] / [email protected]

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Happy fami l ies are a l l a l ike ; every unhappy fami ly i s unhappy in i t s own way.

Leo Tolstoy, Anna Karenina

momentsmoment

Jin Young Kim, Autobiography

But there are repeated patterns!

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What if I can pull out the best from myself, every moment?

LiFiDeA (Life+Idea) Project

The key lies in understanding the nature of (un)happiness!

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About Jin

• Applied Researcher at Microsoft Bing– Day Job: relevance (search quality) measurement– A lots of number crunching + stat/math fun!

• Passion for Self-tracking for 10+ years– Experimented with self-built S/W btw. 2002-2006– Keep on experimenting ever since…

Turns out two have much in common!

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Parallels between Search Quality vs. Happiness Measurement

Search Quality• How good are the quality of

results we serve for users?

Happiness• How happy do I feel for

given time-frame?

Search Quality Happiness

Purpose Max. searcher satisfaction Max. happiness

Ground Truth Relevance judgment (Judges)

Happiness judgment (my-self)

Next Steps Algo. ranking improvement Lifestyle improvement

Both aim at objective results from subjective human measurements!

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MEASUREMENT METHOD

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What to Measure

• Happiness– Self-reported 5-point Likert scale• Perfect (LIFIDEA) to Nightmare• Record 3 times a day

• Factors affecting Happiness– Sleep / wake-up time / events / states• Anything I believe to be correlated with H.

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Both sides of the H. coin

How successful was it?• Hard side of happiness

– Goal achievement– Impact on myself/others

• Major factors– Preparation/planning– Task scope/breakdown

How good did I feel?• Soft side of happiness

– Sense of well-being

• Major factors– Energy level– Focus/awareness

How can we turn this into the rating?

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Happiness Rating Matrix

How good did I feel?

Awesome Positive So So Awful

How succes

sful was it?

Very Successful

Perfect[LIFIDEA] Excellent Good Fair

Successful Excellent Good Fair Fair

So so Good Fair Fair Bad

Unsuccessful Fair Fair Bad Nightmare

Very unlikely

Very unlikely

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MEASUREMENT PIPELINE

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Allows natural and easy entry of happiness rating

and related factors

Pipeline Overview

Data Extraction in Ruby

Statistics Calculation in R

Journal Entry in Evernote

Web Front-end in JQuery

Allows real-time update of status anytime, anywhere

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LESSONS LEARNED FROM 2012

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Time-series of Happiness and Factors

• Per-day and per-week statistics of Wake-up time / Average score / Sleep time

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Score > 4

Score = 3

Score < 2

Happy times vs. Unhappy times

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Impact of Major Events

• Consistently more happy before/during major deadline/tasks

• Extended vacation is major source of unhappiness???

Vacation

Vacation

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How wake-up time & location affects my happiness

• Early start is critical for happy morning!

• Better stay away from home if you want to be happy!

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Findings on my Happiness

• ‘Initial condition’ matters a lot– Discipline at early morning / work start is crucial– Need to put yourself in the zone at the beginning

• Some structure/external stimuli helps– Weekdays/Morning/Deadline induces happiness!– Hard to be ‘optimal’ in relaxed situations

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Findings on my Happiness

• Cyclical pattern is unavoidable– Get loose after good times, vice versa– Real question: how can I stay in the zone AMAP?

• Your rating affects yourself– Beware of self-fulfilling prophecy– Try to rate myself after the fact

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Conclusions & Next Steps

• Self-tracking has made tremendous impact– On how I see myself and prioritize stuffs

• Need to turn the insights into results– E.g., How can I achieve 3.5 average for this year?

• A lot of things to learn about myself & tracking– I can probably write a book in the end!

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OPTIONAL

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Other Findings

• Tracking improves planning / awareness– Initial ‘shininess’ effect in January

• Timely (weekly) review / feedback is critical– Otherwise, the motivation for tracking is soon lost

• Implementing changes is still challenging– May work better in a (support) group

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LOOKING ONWARD

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Architecture of Happiness