Friday has landed.

Could how you feel right now be a signal?

For years, Jim Collins has had a practice of giving himself a score at the end of each day, rating how he felt, from -2 to 2. In his interview with Tim Ferriss, he explained that tracking his emotional state, along with a few notes on what went down that day, allows him to decipher patterns.

The types of days that go well. The ones that don't.

Which now allows him to apply a "more of" or "less of" rubric to design his days.

I love the idiosyncratic nature of this. He's methodically working out what works for him. He's invested in it. Which not only deepens his insight, it deepens his motivation to actually do something about it.

In his interview he shared about his "Bug Book." A journal he kept in his earlier years, capturing observations about himself as if he were a scientist examining a bug. A detached observer.

The guy is committed to examining what is actually going on in his life. A commitment to seeing and deciphering the patterns.

This week I've been thinking about patterns in a different context. In a Masterclass we delved into how our performance in the moments that test us at work turns up in patterns. And yet, if we can't see those patterns, how are we going to shape them? We can't design for what we can't see.

It's making me think about the unseen patterns of this past week... but also how an emotional high or low (the -2 or the +2) could be a trigger. An invitation to stop. Pop the hood. And see if there's a pattern hiding in there.

If we examined ourselves like a bug this past week, what patterns would we notice?

(oh, and the picture captured exactly how I felt at the end of running the Paparoa Track over Christmas... spent but happy. A sign of a good adventure... and maybe a good week too?)