Coaching practices for Daily Active Questions
Describe almost anything you are working through and IX Coach finds the practices whose real-world fit is closest. For Daily Active Questions, these are the strongest matches in the current practice library.
Does this sound like the set of challenges you might be facing?
- I’ve tried other people’s checklists and they always track things I don’t actually care about right now
- I’m hitting every productivity target and somehow feeling emptier by the week
- When I check in on myself it’s always "how did the day go," and the answer always seems to ride on things outside my hands
- When it’s just me, I let myself off the hook quietly
- Some of what I’m tracking has quietly become just who I am now
Practices that may help
- The Morning Questions
Marshall Goldsmith’s morning questions are a daily active question routine in which you score yourself each morning on whether you "did your best" to pursue specific values-based commitments the previous day. The practice reframes self-monitoring from passive measurement ("how did X go?") to active responsibility ("did I try?"), which research on active questions suggests produces greater engagement and honest self-assessment. The evidence base is practitioner-clinical; large-scale trials are limited. - Design a personal question list that matches your current growth goals
Build a short list of active questions that track the behaviors most relevant to your life right now — not a fixed template.
The Morning Questions - Include a happiness question — not as an outcome goal but as a signal
Add "Did I do my best to be happy today?" to the list — not as a target, but as a daily quality-of-life sensor.
The Morning Questions - Reframe passive questions as active questions
Ask "did I do my best to...?" rather than "how was my...?" — the word "try" changes what the question measures.
The Morning Questions - Sharing scores with an accountability partner
Send your daily scores to someone — the act of disclosure meaningfully increases follow-through.
The Morning Questions - Graduating a question when the behavior becomes automatic
Retire a question from the list when it scores consistently 8 or above — mastery earned is bandwidth freed.
The Morning Questions - Identify your highest-value hours and protect them
Name the 3–5 activities that generate the most value in your work and life, and build the week around them.
The Time Audit - Weekly trend analysis from daily scores
Review your scores at the end of each week to spot patterns rather than reacting to single-day noise.
The Morning Questions - Ask open-ended questions
Replace yes/no questions with ones that invite the speaker to open up.
Active Listening, Made Practical - The Daily Examen: Reviewing the Day
The Examen is a short, structured evening review from the Ignatian tradition: you replay the day with gratitude and honest attention to where you felt drawn toward or away from your values, then carry one resolve into tomorrow. It is a centuries-old contemplative practice; its benefits are best described as mechanistically plausible and widely reported rather than established by controlled trials.
Related concerns
- Goldsmith Daily Questions
Marshall Goldsmith’s morning questions are a daily active question routine in which you score yourself each morning on whether you "did your best" to pursue specific values-based commitments the previous day. The practice reframes self-monitoring from passive measurement ("how did X go?") to active responsibility ("did I try?"), which research on active questions suggests produces greater engagement and honest self-assessment. The evidence base is practitioner-clinical; large-scale trials are limited.
- Marshall Goldsmith Morning Questions
Marshall Goldsmith’s morning questions are a daily active question routine in which you score yourself each morning on whether you "did your best" to pursue specific values-based commitments the previous day. The practice reframes self-monitoring from passive measurement ("how did X go?") to active responsibility ("did I try?"), which research on active questions suggests produces greater engagement and honest self-assessment. The evidence base is practitioner-clinical; large-scale trials are limited.
- The Morning Questions For My Teenager
Marshall Goldsmith’s morning questions are a daily active question routine in which you score yourself each morning on whether you "did your best" to pursue specific values-based commitments the previous day. The practice reframes self-monitoring from passive measurement ("how did X go?") to active responsibility ("did I try?"), which research on active questions suggests produces greater engagement and honest self-assessment. The evidence base is practitioner-clinical; large-scale trials are limited.
- The Morning Questions As A Caregiver
Marshall Goldsmith’s morning questions are a daily active question routine in which you score yourself each morning on whether you "did your best" to pursue specific values-based commitments the previous day. The practice reframes self-monitoring from passive measurement ("how did X go?") to active responsibility ("did I try?"), which research on active questions suggests produces greater engagement and honest self-assessment. The evidence base is practitioner-clinical; large-scale trials are limited.
- The Morning Questions When Burned Out
Marshall Goldsmith’s morning questions are a daily active question routine in which you score yourself each morning on whether you "did your best" to pursue specific values-based commitments the previous day. The practice reframes self-monitoring from passive measurement ("how did X go?") to active responsibility ("did I try?"), which research on active questions suggests produces greater engagement and honest self-assessment. The evidence base is practitioner-clinical; large-scale trials are limited.
- Daily Why Practice
The Stoic daily review is a structured morning-and-evening self-examination practice — rooted in Marcus Aurelius, Seneca, and Epictetus — that trains attention on what is within your control, builds honest self-knowledge, and interrupts reactive patterns before they compound. Evidence is largely mechanistic and clinical; no randomized trials exist, but the underlying cognitive mechanisms align with modern research on self-monitoring and reflection.
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