The big idea: You find your direction by noticing what engages and energizes you, day by day, and then zooming in on exactly what makes those moments work.
In 60 seconds
- Wayfinding means noticing what engages and energizes you, not finding the perfect map.
- Log your activities for engagement and energy, then reflect on the patterns each week.
- Use AEIOU to zoom in on exactly what made your best moments work.
Do this: keep your Good Time Journal for three weeks and finish the AEIOU assignment.
How wayfinding works
You do not need a map with the destination marked. You need a way to tell whether you are heading in a good direction. Burnett and Evans call that wayfinding, and the Good Time Journal is how you do it: you log what you do, notice what engages and energizes you, and let the pattern point the way.
Engagement
How absorbed you are. Are you leaning in and paying attention, or watching the clock?
Log it: from bored to fully engaged.
Energy
Whether an activity fills you up or drains you, physically, mentally and emotionally.
Log it: more energy, no change or drained.
Flow
Engagement at its peak: so absorbed that time disappears, challenged but not overwhelmed.
Mark it: every time it happens.
Engagement and energy do not always move together. Building a model you love at 2 a.m. can be engaging and draining at once. Networking can be low on engagement and still give you energy. Those mismatches are some of your best clues.
Log
Most days, list specific activities and rate engagement and energy. Mark flow.
Weekly: keep it short
Reflect
At the end of each week, look across the log. What gives energy? What drains it? Any surprises?
Ask: what keeps showing up?
Annotate
Go back and mark the highs and lows. Add a few words on why.
Ask: what made that one different?
Zoom in
Use AEIOU on your best moments to find exactly what drives them.
Result: clues you can design around
AEIOU: five lenses for zooming in
The five lenses
- Activities. What were you actually doing? Was it structured or open? Were you leading or following?
- Environments. Where were you, and how did the place feel?
- Interactions. With people or with things? New or familiar? Formal or casual?
- Objects. What were you using: a spreadsheet, a whiteboard, tools, a phone?
- Users. Who else was there, and did they add to it or take away?
What it can reveal
- An accounting student learns she loves the audit, not the numbers: interviewing people about how a process really works.
- A supply chain student discovers the warehouse floor energizes him more than the office, because he can see problems directly.
- An economics student notices his flow moments are always small-team builds, never large meetings.
- An HR student finds that one-on-one coaching conversations give her energy; group trainings drain her.
How to log wellSpecific, quick and most days
- Be specific. “Class” hides the clue. “Presenting our team’s pricing analysis” does not.
- Log soon. Write it the same day, while you still remember how it felt.
- Include everything. Classes, jobs, workouts, meals with friends, chores, club meetings. Clues show up in odd places.
- Be honest about drains. Nobody grades your energy ratings. A drainer you admit is more useful than one you hide.
- Keep it short. Five minutes a day is enough. The free Good Time Journal activity log (opens in a new tab) gives you a blank template, and your workbook has its own pages.
What flow isAnd why it is such a strong clue
Flow is a term from psychologist Mihaly Csikszentmihalyi for a state of complete absorption, where the challenge matches your skill, you know what to do next and time seems to vanish. You can watch him explain it in his TED talk, Flow, the secret to happiness (opens in a new tab).
Flow moments matter for wayfinding because they show where your strengths and interests overlap. If you hit flow when you are building something, explaining something or solving a messy problem, look for work with more of that.
Reflecting and annotating each weekQuestions for the end of every week
- What are the three highest-energy entries this week? What do they have in common?
- What are the lowest? Is it the activity itself, or the people, place or timing?
- Where did engagement and energy disagree? Why?
- Did anything surprise you?
- What one thing will you pay attention to next week?
Write your answers in the workbook reflection pages. Your BUAD 427 private journal is a good place for the longer story behind them.
Mining your pastPeak experiences count too
You do not have to wait three weeks for clues. Think back to peak experiences: a project, a job, a trip or a season when you felt most alive. Run them through AEIOU the same way. If a summer job, a study abroad project or a team you led keeps coming up, it belongs in your reflections.
The life design ideas on this page come from Bill Burnett and Dave Evans of the Stanford Life Design Lab, explained here in our own words. Read the original in Designing Your Life (Knopf, 2016) and work through The Designing Your Life Workbook (Clarkson Potter, 2018).
Try it: Good Time Journal
Tool · BUAD 427
Good Time Journal
Log what you did and how engaged and energized you felt. Watch the pattern, then zoom in with AEIOU.
- 1Log
- 2Spot
- 3Zoom in
Engagement and energy map
All checks
Put it to work: your Good Time Journal and AEIOU assignments
Wayfinding runs over several weeks of the course and several workbook assignments: the Good Time Journal and its weekly reflections, annotating your Good Time Journal and the AEIOU assignment. They are part of the pass/fail leadership assignment and feed directly into class discussion. Read chapter 3 of Designing Your Life first.
Week 1: start the log
Log activities most days. Rate engagement and energy and mark flow. Use the tool or the workbook pages, whichever you will actually keep up.
Your deliverable: the first week of Good Time Journal pages and reflections in your workbook.
Week 2: keep going and reflect
Keep logging. At the end of the week, answer the reflection questions. Is a pattern showing up?
Your deliverable: the second week of log pages and reflections.
Week 3: annotate
Mark your highs and lows across all three weeks. Write a few words on why each one stood out.
Your deliverable: annotated Good Time Journal pages.
Zoom in with AEIOU
Pick your best moments and run each through Activities, Environments, Interactions, Objects and Users.
Your deliverable: the completed AEIOU assignment in your workbook.
Bring your pattern to class
Write one or two sentences: “I get energy when… because…” Bring the log and your sentence to discussion.
Your deliverable: a pattern statement you can share and test with classmates.
How this connects to the rest of the courseAssessments, mind maps and Odyssey Plans
- Leadership self-assessments: compare what your journal shows with what your assessments say. Evidence from real days keeps you from treating a label as the full story. See Know Yourself: Leadership Self-Assessments.
- Mind mapping: your energizers and flow moments become the center words of your mind maps. See Getting Unstuck.
- Odyssey Plans: the plans you sketch later should include more of what this journal says gives you energy.
Do this, not thatHabits that make the log worth keeping
Do this
- Log most days, even briefly.
- Name specific activities.
- Rate drains truthfully.
- Mark flow when it happens, even in a hobby.
- Reflect at the end of each week, not only at the end.
Not that
- Filling in three weeks the night before class.
- One entry per day called “school.”
- Rating everything a 3 to stay safe.
- Only logging resume activities.
- Treating one bad week as the final answer.
Before classCheck your workbook pages
- [ ] Good Time Journal pages logged most days for the week assigned.
- [ ] Each entry is specific and rated for engagement and energy.
- [ ] Weekly reflection questions answered.
- [ ] Highs and lows annotated with a reason.
- [ ] AEIOU completed for at least one high point.
- [ ] A one- or two-sentence pattern statement ready to share.
Go deeper
Back to all BUAD 427 topics · Next: Know Yourself: Leadership Self-Assessments
Part of BUAD 427 Designing Your Life and Career, taught by Lane Morris, PhD, in the Smith GLS human-centered leadership program, toward the Human Centered Consulting Certificate.
Frequently asked questions
What is the Good Time Journal?
The Good Time Journal is a Designing Your Life exercise where you log your daily activities for several weeks and rate how engaged and how energized each one made you feel. You mark moments of flow, reflect each week and look for patterns. Over time the log shows which kinds of work and settings bring out your best.
How do you fill out a Good Time Journal?
Most days, list specific activities, not whole days. Rate engagement from bored to fully engaged and energy from drained to energized, and mark any flow moments. At the end of each week, answer reflection questions about highs, lows and surprises. After a few weeks, annotate the highs and lows and zoom in on the best ones.
What does AEIOU stand for in Designing Your Life?
AEIOU stands for Activities, Environments, Interactions, Objects and Users. It is a set of five lenses for zooming in on a moment from your Good Time Journal: what you were doing, where you were, how you interacted, what you were using and who else was there. It helps you find exactly what made a moment energizing or draining.
What is the difference between engagement and energy?
Engagement is how absorbed you are in an activity. Energy is whether the activity fills you up or drains you. They often move together but not always. Something can be absorbing and exhausting at the same time, or calm but restoring. Mismatches between the two are useful clues about what parts of an activity suit you.
What is flow and why does it matter for career choices?
Flow is psychologist Mihaly Csikszentmihalyi's term for complete absorption, when the challenge matches your skill and time seems to disappear. Flow moments show where your strengths and interests overlap. If you regularly hit flow while building, explaining or solving messy problems, that is a strong clue to look for work with more of that activity.