- Tools
- Life OS Snapshot
Run a status check on your whole life
Twelve questions across eight pillars, all on one board. Each answer sets a pillar's status, and the weakest one becomes your bottleneck, with one next step for this week.
- 12 questions
- 8 pillars
- Free, no account
How it works
About three minutes. Answer for how things have felt lately, not on your best day.
-
Answer on one board
All twelve questions sit on one screen, grouped by pillar, four answers each. Change any of them whenever you like; nothing is locked in.
-
Read the bottleneck
Each pillar shows its status as soon as you answer. The weakest is marked as the bottleneck, with one next step, a tool and a book for it.
-
Save and compare
Save a dated snapshot when you are done. Next time, every pillar shows a strip of its past statuses and what moved since your last check.
Four statuses, borrowed from a status page
Answers run from 1 to 4. A pillar's status is the average of its answers, so a pillar with two questions can sit between levels.
-
OperationalAverage 3.5 to 4
Holding up. Leave it alone this week and spend the attention elsewhere.
-
DegradedAverage 2.5 to 3.4
It works, but it costs you something. Worth watching from one snapshot to the next.
-
Partial outageAverage 1.75 to 2.4
Part of it has stopped working. If it is the weakest pillar, it is your bottleneck.
-
Major outageAverage below 1.75
Failing most days. Fix this before you add anything new to the other seven.
Rating the areas of a life side by side is the wheel of life, usually credited to Paul J. Meyer, who founded the Success Motivation Institute in 1960. Picking one weakest link to work on first comes from Eliyahu Goldratt's theory of constraints in The Goal (1984): a system moves only as fast as its bottleneck. The four statuses are the ones software status pages use for each of their components.
The eight pillars
What each one asks, and where the snapshot sends you when it is the bottleneck.
-
Health
Body, energy, sleep, recovery- How steady has your energy felt most days?
- How consistent are sleep, movement and recovery?
Tool: Burnout & Energy Audit
Book: The Circadian Code -
Time
Attention, calendar, priorities- How much of your week is yours to direct?
- How often do low-value commitments crowd out the important thing?
Tool: Time Audit
Book: Four Thousand Weeks -
Money
Clarity, agency, options- How clear are you on where your money goes?
Tool: Life Cost Calculator
Book: The Psychology of Money -
Work
Direction, craft, progress- How obvious is the work that matters most right now?
- How much progress are you making on work you would be proud to repeat?
Tool: Goal Clarity Builder
Book: Deep Work -
Relationships
Connection, repair, belonging- How connected do your closest relationships feel?
- When tension appears, how quickly do you repair it?
Tool: Relationship Conversation Generator
Book: Nonviolent Communication -
Mind
Stress, emotion, decision quality- How quickly do you recover after stress?
Tool: Decision Helper
Book: 10% Happier -
Growth
Learning turned into behaviour- How often do ideas turn into real behaviour?
Tool: Book-to-Action Converter
Book: Atomic Habits -
Environment
Spaces that support the next right action- How well does your space support the person you want to be?
Tool: Habit Environment Audit
Book: Goodbye
Questions
-
How does the Life OS Snapshot work?
It asks 12 questions across eight pillars of a life, all on one board. Each answer sets that pillar's status, from operational to major outage, the moment you pick it. The weakest pillar is marked as the bottleneck, with one next step, one tool and one book for it. Change any answer and the board updates.
-
What decides which pillar is the bottleneck?
The pillar with the lowest average answer. If two are level, the one with the lowest single answer wins, and after that the order of the board, which starts with health. The snapshot names one pillar on purpose, because one fix you make this week beats eight you plan.
-
What do the statuses mean?
They borrow the four levels of a software status page. Operational means the pillar is holding up. Degraded means it works but costs you something. Partial outage means part of it has stopped working. Major outage means it is failing most days. Pillars with two questions use the average of both.
-
Where are my answers saved?
In this browser, after every change, so a reload keeps them. If you are signed in, they are also saved to your HourLife account, so they open on your other devices, and you can delete them there in Settings. Signed out, nothing is sent to HourLife or anyone else. Clearing your browser's site data removes the answers and the snapshot log, so download a PNG or copy the Markdown to keep a copy.
-
Can I track how my life changes over time?
Yes. Save a snapshot when all 12 questions are answered and it joins a dated log in this browser. Each pillar shows a strip of its past statuses, and the board compares today with your last snapshot from an earlier day, pillar by pillar. Saving twice on the same day replaces that day's entry.
-
Is this a personality test or a clinical assessment?
Neither. It is a quick self-check of how the main areas of your life feel right now, in your own words. It cannot diagnose anything. If the mind or health pillar has been in outage for a long time, talk to a doctor or a counsellor.
-
How is it different from the Personal Growth Quiz?
The quiz asks one question per screen and ends on a result. The snapshot keeps every answer on one board, so you can see all eight pillars at once, change your mind and watch the bottleneck move, and come back next month to compare.
Related tools and books
Find the pillar holding the rest back
Your answers and snapshots are saved in this browser as you go. Nothing you enter is sent anywhere.
Keep this going in the app.
HourLife turns these ideas into a daily system — goals, habits, focus, and reflection in one private place.
