Key Wellness Indicators
KIWIs help us maintain our work-life balance.
The KIWIs are behaviors that we already do as part of a balanced everyday life. We only change our KIWIs (start or stop the behavior) when we are under significant stress. For example, for a person that regularly goes to bed at 10 pm, staying up late may be an indicator that work is becoming too much. Or, someone that regularly cooks homemade meals may identify fast food as an indicator of stress.
At Heron we track our KIWIs weekly so we can see when our behavior is starting to change before we feel the full effects of stress. We track our KIWIs in yellow or red when the behavior is off for a couple of weeks. The Heron user becomes aware that they are falling off balance and re-prioritizes. Good KIWI weeks are always tracked in green.
Specific behaviors. We want to assess the KIWI status for the previous week in a few seconds. Pick behaviors that are specific (e.g., One lunch or call with parents.) over ambiguous ones (e.g., Connect with parents.)
Already part of your life. KIWIs are not aspirational. They are things you are already doing (or not doing). Don’t write "Go to the gym 3X a week" if you usually go once; write instead "Go to the gym every week."
Easy to evaluate. Pick behaviors that are easy to recall, such as the number of times one goes to the gym. If you are using a metric (e.g., number of hours of sleep), we recommend using a tracker (e.g., Fitbit).
