The ObservatoryHappiness and joy
How often and how strongly you experience pleasure.
Questions to ask yourself
- 1How often do you feel genuinely happy?
- 2What last sparked real joy in you?
- 3What most often stands in the way of joy: time, energy, worry, something else?
- 4Which kind of joy do you miss most: calm, laughter, wonder or flow?
- 5What would give joy an honest chance this week?
In the app, you rate the area 0–10, answer the questions, and watch how your answers shift over time.
Getting started
Exercise
Joy list
List twenty things that bring you joy, keep the five simplest, and put one of them in your calendar already this week.
10 min · Compassion
Exercise
The joy schedule
Don't wait for the urge. Joy usually comes after you start, not before. So you schedule it.
11 min · Discipline
Article
Why 'feeling good' is the wrong thing to aim for
The harder you chase happiness, the more it tends to slip away. Research points toward something less glamorous, and more lasting.
2 min · Rationality
Exercise
Action before motivation
Low mood says: do nothing until you feel like it. The research says the opposite — action comes first, the wish follows. An exercise in starting from the right end.
12 min · Discipline
Exercise
Hold on to the good
An exercise in catching a good moment before it slips past. Not afterwards, but while you wait for it or while you are in it
9 min · Discipline
Tool
The enjoyment log
A standing place to record good moments, so the pattern of what actually fills you up becomes visible over time
7 min · Compassion
Exercise
One minute: count today's kindnesses
Count the small kindnesses you have done yourself today. They are easy to miss.
1 min · Compassion