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.

Why it works

Goldsmith’s question list includes wellbeing questions precisely because they are often the most neglected in achievement-focused people. "Did I do my best to be happy today?" is active-question framing applied to wellbeing: it treats happiness as partly within voluntary control (the effort to pursue it) rather than as a passive outcome of circumstances. Research on savoring, engagement, and hedonic adaptation shows that brief daily attention to positive experiences increases positive affect independent of objective circumstances.

How to do it

1. Add "Did I do my best to find something meaningful or enjoyable today?" to your question list.
2. Score it daily as you would any other question.
3. When it scores low, ask: "What would have made it score higher? Did I build any recovery or pleasure into the day?"
4. Use the score as a leading indicator of burnout risk — several consecutive low happiness scores while productivity scores are high is a warning sign.

Evidence

Savoring and positive engagement practices increase wellbeing in experimental and observational research; daily attention to positive experiences counteracts hedonic adaptation. (observational)

The "did my best to be happy" question is Goldsmith’s framing; the underlying savoring research supports daily positive-engagement attention but is not a direct validation of this specific question format.

Sources

• Bryant & Veroff (2007), savoring: a new model of positive experience

Common mistake

Treating a low happiness score as a problem requiring a solution rather than as information — on high-demand days, a moderate score is appropriate and expected; the concern is only when low scores become the trend.