More than a month ago I started a 30 days challenge, called “#5words”. In short, I set myself up to write down each day, around noon, a short description, consisting of only 5 words, of how the day went out so far. I also posted this on Facebook, with a hastag #5words, so other people could join in and share their own 5 words. It’s time now to see how the challenge went and what were the benefits.
First of all, here’s the list of my words, for the full 30 days:
- 21 Oct calesita, parada, pitching, reading, mantaining
- 22 Oct coffee, sunshine, work, exercise, play
- 23 Oct tea, tango, community, talking, sunshine
- 24 Oct openconnect, energy, recharging, autumn, work
- 25 Oct value, clarity, discipline, beauty, tango
- 26 Oct recovery, park, attention, curiosity, relationships
- 27 Oct play, cooking, curiosity, theater, walking
- 28 Oct community, coffee, tango, business, clarity
- 29 Oct fussy, delays, discipline, tango, management
- 30 Oct mentoring, tango, conversation, warmth, walking
- 31 Oct openconnect, annoyance, fatigue, delays, acceptance
- 1 Nov interaction, opportunity, confusion, tango, delays
- 2 Nov incubator, interaction, workshop, confusion, karma
- 3 Nov coffee, comedy, withdrawal, preparation, lucidity
- 4 Nov meetings, Bia, limitations, stupidity, acceptance
- 5 Nov toothache, postponing, meetings, warmth, connection
- 6 Nov delays, housekeeping, Bia, adjustment, tango
- 7 Nov openconnect, fun, interaction, value, independence
- 8 Nov trip, parents, decompress, planning, tango
- 9 Nov coffee, movies, walking, wholeness, giving
- 10 Nov 43, connections, joy, relaxation, recap
- 11 Nov work, opportunities, milonga, planning, exercise
- 12 Nov commitment, work, opportunities, expansion, laughter
- 13 Nov words incubator, stories, friends, grip, tango
- 14 Nov words openconnect, grip, energy, relaxation, friend
- 15 Nov change, balance, awareness, tango, astrology
- 16 Nov coffee, walking, talking, emptiness, miracles
- 17 Nov reading, insights, change, tango, comedy
- 18 Nov change, clarity, resources, relationships, tango
- 19 Nov paranormal, limitations, beginnings, honesty, opportunities
- 20 Nov hectic, help, meetings, balance, tango
The Methodology
It may sound a bit pretentious to use “methodology” for the way I’m choosing to interpret these results, but I confess I didn’t find another word. So, after I listed all the words together, I counted the occurence for each of them. Here’s what I got in the first pass:
- tango 13
- coffee 5
- work 4
- walking 4
- openconnect 4
- delays 4
- meetings 3
- opportunites 3
- clarity 3
- interaction 3
- change 3
- limitations 2
- curiosity 2
- bia 2
- grip 2
- talking 2
- comedy 2
- acceptance 2
- community 2
- words 2
- value 2
- confusion 2
- sunshine 2
- play 2
- exercise 2
- relationships 2
- balance 2
- reading 2
- discipline 2
- relaxation 2
- planning 2
- incubator 2
- warmth 2
- energy 2
- fun 1
- recovery 1
- attention 1
- honesty 1
- parents 1
- emptiness 1
- miracles 1
- recap 1
- annoyance 1
- adjustment 1
- laughter 1
- help 1
- calesita 1
- independence 1
- tea 1
- 43 1
- milonga 1
- pitching 1
- connections 1
- karma 1
- park 1
- stupidity 1
- beginnings 1
- toothache 1
- fatigue 1
- withdrawal 1
- movies 1
- expansion 1
- decompress 1
- insights 1
- beauty 1
- fussy 1
- trip 1
- friends 2
- recharging 1
- cooking 1
- parada 1
- opportunity 1
- preparation 1
- hectic 1
- connection 1
- wholeness 1
- commitment 1
- astrology 1
- housekeeping 1
- mentoring 1
- resources 1
- lucidity 1
- paranormal 1
- giving 1
- awareness 1
- theather 1
- joy 1
- workshop 1
- postponing 1
- conversation 1
- management 1
- friends 1
- business 1
- autumn 1
- maintaining 1
And then, I normalised the results, both semantically and grammatically. Meaning I combined plurals and singulars and grouped together words with a very common meaning:
- friends / friend -> 2
- calesita, milonga, parada -> tango 16
- connection / connections -> 2
- opportunity / opportunities -> 2
Here’s the updated list:
- tango 16
- coffee 5
- work 4
- walking 4
- openconnect 4
- delays 4
- opportunites 4
- meetings 3
- clarity 3
- interaction 3
- change 3
- limitations 2
- connections 2
- curiosity 2
- bia 2
- grip 2
- talking 2
- comedy 2
- acceptance 2
- community 2
- words 2
- value 2
- confusion 2
- sunshine 2
- play 2
- exercise 2
- relationships 2
- balance 2
- reading 2
- discipline 2
- relaxation 2
- planning 2
- incubator 2
- warmth 2
- energy 2
- friends 2
- fun 1
- recovery 1
- attention 1
- honesty 1
- parents 1
- emptiness 1
- miracles 1
- recap 1
- annoyance 1
- adjustment 1
- laughter 1
- help 1
- independence 1
- tea 1
- 43 1
- pitching 1
- karma 1
- park 1
- stupidity 1
- beginnings 1
- toothache 1
- fatigue 1
- withdrawal 1
- movies 1
- expansion 1
- decompress 1
- insights 1
- beauty 1
- fussy 1
- trip 1
- recharging 1
- cooking 1
- preparation 1
- hectic 1
- wholeness 1
- commitment 1
- astrology 1
- housekeeping 1
- mentoring 1
- resources 1
- lucidity 1
- paranormal 1
- giving 1
- awareness 1
- theater 1
- joy 1
- workshop 1
- postponing 1
- conversation 1
- management 1
- business 1
- autumn 1
- maintaining 1
The Actual Results
As you can see there is a big winner, with 16 occurrences and that’s “tango“. I call this the “driver“.
After that, with way less occurrences, come words used 4-5 times: “coffee“, “work“, “walking“, “openconnect“, “delays“, “opportunities“. I call this “the visible scene“.
The 3 occurrences words are: “meetings“, “clarity“, “interaction“, “change“. I call this, the “support area“.
Ad then we have a consistent chunk of 2 occurrences words:
- limitations 2
- connections 2
- curiosity 2
- bia 2
- grip 2
- talking 2
- comedy 2
- acceptance 2
- community 2
- words 2
- value 2
- confusion 2
- sunshine 2
- play 2
- exercise 2
- relationships 2
- balance 2
- reading 2
- discipline 2
- relaxation 2
- planning 2
- incubator 2
- warmth 2
- energy 2
- friends 2
I call these words “the invisible activities“.
And then there’s the 1 occurrence words stream:
- fun 1
- recovery 1
- attention 1
- honesty 1
- parents 1
- emptiness 1
- miracles 1
- recap 1
- annoyance 1
- adjustment 1
- laughter 1
- help 1
- independence 1
- tea 1
- 43 1
- pitching 1
- karma 1
- park 1
- stupidity 1
- beginnings 1
- toothache 1
- fatigue 1
- withdrawal 1
- movies 1
- expansion 1
- decompress 1
- insights 1
- beauty 1
- fussy 1
- trip 1
- recharging 1
- cooking 1
- preparation 1
- hectic 1
- wholeness 1
- commitment 1
- astrology 1
- housekeeping 1
- mentoring 1
- resources 1
- lucidity 1
- paranormal 1
- giving 1
- awareness 1
- theater 1
- joy 1
- workshop 1
- postponing 1
- conversation 1
- management 1
- business 1
- autumn 1
- maintaining 1
I call them “random stuff“.
So, we have:
the “driver”
the “visible scene”
the “support area”
the “invisible activities”
the “random stuff“.
Here’s why I chose to call them like this and what’s the meaning of those denominations.
The “driver”
That’s the main theme. It’s the dominant activity of your life, wether you know it or not. In my case, during October – November the dominant activity was tango. That’s where my thoughts were most of the time. That’s what took my activities forward.
The “visible scene”
That’s what I set myself up to do. Each word was found four times during the entire 30 days which means there was some sort of a continuous internal reinforcement that pushed me to go through the meaning of those words. If I’d try a semantic interpretation, that would be: I focused on my “work“, while enjoying “coffee“, I kept “walking” (which is something I do constantly, like at least 10km per day), I involved myself in the “openconnect” event with discipline. But, at the same time I experienced a lot of “delays“. The last word, “opportunities“, needs a bit more of an explanation, and that’s where the support area comes into discussion.
The “support area”
That’s what happens more or less on a specific trigger, but not with the same focus like the “visible scene”. It’s like something that just tries to help or to take out some ambiguity. In my case, it helped me shed some light on the “opportunity” word from the “visible scene”. So, I triggered a lot of “meetings“, as a result of my “clarity“, which in turn created a lot of “interaction“, with my clear intent to “change“. As you can see, “opportunity” was more in the sense of “looking for it”, “trying to make it happen”, than “taking advantage of it”.
The “invisible activities”
These are activities performed more or less on autopilot. You can find words like: “confusion“, “sunshine“, “exercise“, which are just creating a larger scene. They’re not as meaningful as the “driver” or the “visible scene”. But a careful analysis or at least a re-reading could bring in some interesting insights. For instance, the word “relationships” is in that list, which means it was a background activity of some sort, or at least something that got my attention twice during the last 30 days. Twice means there was something going on. I would look at the list to see what where the things that were just “sitting in the back of my mind”.
The “random stuff”
These are words appearing only once. For instance, the word “43″ appears only once for a very good reason: I just turned 43 in that specific day. These are just things happening more or less hazardously, just as they come. But these are a bit of gold mine, if you see for instance, that the word “beauty” appears only once. I think I should make “beauty” more present in my life. I want it to upgrade it at least to the “invisible scene”
Accountability
All nice and shiny, very interesting results, but I can hear you back there: your main question is: will this go the same way for me, if I try to do this? I will end up with 5 levels that would be as easy to interpret like yours? The answer is: I don’t really know. But I would go for at least 3 layers: one about the driver, which should be the word with the higher number of “occurrences”, then I will shoot for a combination of “visible scene” and “support area”, while combining “invisible activities” with “random stuff”. That will give you at least 3 layers of interpretations. Usually, it should be enough to get a clear idea about where your life really goes and what you do about it. And what you can do to improve it, above all.
Conclusion
It was by far one of the most interesting and useful 30 days challenges I did in the last few years. I highly recommend it to everyone who wants to have a better idea about where exactly stands in his or her own life. You may be surprised. Really surprised.
