[HN Gopher] Ten Years of Logging My Life
___________________________________________________________________
Ten Years of Logging My Life
Author : artnc
Score : 402 points
Date : 2021-12-26 13:04 UTC (1 days ago)
(HTM) web link (chaidarun.com)
(TXT) w3m dump (chaidarun.com)
| bambax wrote:
| I built something comparable for myself, that I already mentioned
| here:
|
| https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=28896170
|
| It sends an email a day and I just respond to it, and the
| response is stored in an Sqlite db.
|
| It's not a log, exactly, but could be used as one as I can
| respond multiple times for the same day.
|
| But I use it to store not just what I did each day, but also my
| thoughts, or my reactions to things I read, or little things I
| learn, etc.
|
| It took a little getting used to at first, but in the last 30
| months I have never missed a day.
|
| Although it's not the main use, it's fun to be able to tell
| friends, with near certainty, when exactly we did what.
| jcun4128 wrote:
| Haha I did this too. I wish I factored in line breaks.
| sasha_fishter wrote:
| This the future, but you will not be needed to enter data
| manually, everything will be automatically sooner or later.
| emptyparadise wrote:
| And then used against you.
| sasha_fishter wrote:
| It depends, but yes it's the high possibility :) Hopefully we
| are wrong :)
| artnc wrote:
| Author here. Thanks for reading - I'm happy to answer any (ok,
| most) questions!
| orzig wrote:
| I'm fascinated by inter-personal differences in sleep patterns.
| Could you dive more deeply into what you learned about your
| sleep habits? For example:
|
| 1. How did you defined it - horizontal/unconscious/etc 2.
| Whether there are any 'outcome variables' it seems to cause 3.
| Whether your needs changed by age, or exercise level, or
| previous sleep duration (ie 'sleep debt')
|
| Thanks for doing this! I always find them fascinating
| artnc wrote:
| 1. For tracking purposes, I assume that I fall asleep
| immediately after putting my phone down. That's generally
| true enough, although sometimes I do find myself still lying
| awake and having to add a "Not sleeping" entry before putting
| my phone down again (for hopefully the last time of the
| night)! After my alarm goes off or as soon as I'm otherwise
| conscious enough to do anything, I mark "Sleep" as over.
|
| 2. It's not surprising that lack of sleep can get you feeling
| down. But since starting to track myself, I've been more
| conscious of the fact that whenever I'm feeling down, it's
| almost always after a night or two of bad sleep! I now take
| sleep a lot more seriously and ask myself first whether I've
| been sleeping well whenever I'm feeling down (as opposed to
| blaming other people, etc). This is especially important
| since I tend to ignore what my body tries to tell me.
|
| 3. The 7.5 hour average has remained roughly constant month
| over month for the entire decade. It's hard to say how much
| of an effect that other variables like exercise have since I
| always aim for 7-8 hours regardless. I do notice that if I
| get like 4 hours one night, I'll end up sleeping more than
| usual for the next night or two.
| Jolter wrote:
| Would you define yourself as being anywhere on the autism
| spectrum?
|
| Sorry for the very personal question. You certainly don't owe
| me an answer. I just find it fascinating how some people care a
| lot about tracking their lives and others (like me) do not. I'm
| curious how it relates to personality types.
| artnc wrote:
| Hmm I've always been hesitant to self-diagnose stuff like
| that, partly because it feels like potentially trivializing
| others' experiences.
|
| I basically see myself as a garden variety introvert. I
| suppose that in an informal sense, I might be further along
| the spectrum than the median person off the street, but then
| again I suspect the same is true of many other software
| engineers - especially HN readers.
|
| So generally no, but technically maybe? IANAD
| wingerlang wrote:
| Do you ever think it's enough? For example:
|
| > I can make everyday plans with greater precision, knowing
| exactly how many minutes I'll need to shower or drive or buy
| groceries or do laundry or water the plants.
|
| I used to think like this, I tracked how fast different routes
| took to work to optimize and decide. I optimized where I put
| what during laundry to make it less bothersome, and so on. But
| do you need 10 years of this? For me, after doing it a couple
| of times I basically got it.
|
| A shower, I don't need to track it to know I can do it between
| 2-15 minutes. Or less, if I REALLY need to get going.
|
| I've also built my apps, and used pre-built ones. But each time
| I've stopped, I haven't really missed it.
| WalterBright wrote:
| > A shower, I don't need to track it to know I can do it
| between 2-15 minutes. Or less, if I REALLY need to get going.
|
| I just put a big (so I can read it without my glasses)
| battery operated (no electric shock risk) cheap (cuz I'm
| cheap) clock visible from the shower.
| medstrom wrote:
| Counting in my head works too. When I aim to finish after
| 120 seconds (2 minutes) I'll wind up taking 300 seconds (5
| minutes), but that's better than taking three times that
| long.
| artnc wrote:
| Right, you certainly don't need to track yourself for 10
| years to figure out how long a shower takes!
|
| A rough analogy: you _can_ figure out from your HP bar how
| much damage you take from each hit, and it 's probably worth
| doing so if you're going to be fighting these same baddies
| forever and have no other way of knowing, but the HP bar also
| serves other important purposes related to resource
| management: it gives you a sense of how you're doing overall,
| and it constantly reminds you that HP management is even
| worth caring about.
| pps wrote:
| I see that you released it (thanks!), any idea why it starts to
| install, the progress bar goes to end and then it shows message
| that the app was not installed? Without bothering you too much
| with logs and stuff, if it's even available somewhere for not
| yet installed apps. Android 10 on Galaxy S9+.
| artnc wrote:
| See https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=29701546
|
| I've just uploaded a new APK that should hopefully work!
|
| https://github.com/artnc/chronofile/releases
| pps wrote:
| Yes, it works, thank you!
| Mwurk wrote:
| Would it be possible to add support for Android 9 and lower?
| armanboyaci wrote:
| I have a friend who also tracks his life:
| https://www.denizcemonduygu.com/portfolio/vital-signs/
|
| > What you see is some of the daily data I've collected during
| the last 7 years of my life (2,498 days between 01/03/2014 and
| 01/01/2021) charted as basically as possible in order to allow
| global readings and comparisons. (A nice method is just to scroll
| up and down with the mouse cursor pointing to the time of
| interest.) I update it every January. I started to log some
| topics later on, and there is a period where I did not log mood
| for some technical reasons in mid-2015. I have a lot more data on
| medical issues, food, people, and daily activities, which I chose
| not to show here.
| aetherspawn wrote:
| Without going quite to the extreme of the author, a good place to
| start understanding your habits is to use something like Xero to
| consolidate all your personal credit cards and bank accounts.
|
| Not only does this give you a good idea of what you did each day,
| but it's extremely beneficial for both budgeting and tax
| purposes.
|
| The base plan for $10/mo does this. You can use Microsoft Todo to
| set the habit of consolidating every morning with your coffee.
|
| I spent around $1200 on alcohol in the 2 year Melbourne lockdown,
| around $2000 on coffee, and a whopping $40 on entertainment
| venues (indoor sports, movies, tickets, etc). Aside this, I
| learnt that I spend less than I expected on eating out vs buying
| groceries, and all things considered it's probably cheaper for me
| to rent a car permanently than own one if I want a nice car.
| jmnicolas wrote:
| To me it doesn't feel right to let my financial data accessible
| to some random company. If i could hide to my bank, I would!
|
| I used a non connected Android app before, but since I moved to
| a phone without Google Play support, I'm writing my own app.
| twobitshifter wrote:
| You might be interested in the free Personal Capital app which
| can juggle investment accounts, credit cards, and checking
| accounts all in one app. I tried a few of these including
| Wealthfront and Personal Capital worked the best for me. They
| make money selling financial advice so you might get a couple
| of phone calls early on, but they seem to have stopped calling
| me.
| kinduff wrote:
| I recently found Stethoscope.js [0] which looks pretty neat and
| the plugin system is done using Javascript with a simple
| interface.
|
| I've been looking to automate my tracking somehow for a bit, my
| best bet could be using the Google Fit API which already logs
| most of the stuff I want based on other devices I have (a
| smartwatch, for example).
|
| My ideal setup would be something that can be self-hosted,
| exportable, and resilient, but haven't found the right recipe.
| I'm not good at logging things manually.
|
| [0]: https://stethoscope.js.org
| giansegato wrote:
| I did the same, but with a far less complex system. It's a
| markdown file synced using iCloud, where input happens using
| Apple Shortcut. Works quite well. Screenshots here [1].
|
| [1]:
| https://mobile.twitter.com/giansegato/status/146896340342311...
| 58x14 wrote:
| Incredible. My favorite line is the last: "they're both tools
| that do nothing more than show me the results of my own
| decisions."
|
| I've unsuccessfully attempted various implementations of life
| logging for _years_ and I wonder, how much of those failures were
| due not to poor system design, but rather a poor relationship
| with myself throughout time? I have some theories to test
| starting in a few days.
|
| Some questions I have for OP and anyone else with similar habits:
| Do you journal regularly alongside / in addition to your activity
| logging? How are you recording emotional variables like stress?
| Any plans to expand your data capture to encompass more signal?
| artnc wrote:
| OP here. Great question! I've never journaled or recorded
| emotional variables partly because that takes much more time
| and partly because they're harder to analyze.
|
| For example, I could record stress on a 1-10 scale. Do I just
| put 11 for a day of unprecedented stress? Or should 10 always
| represent the global maximum thus far? More generally, how do I
| ensure consistency with myself?
|
| I do vividly remember the stressful times in my life and can
| see their effects in the blog post's charts. I figured it's
| probably best to preserve at least some of my own privacy,
| although I did touch on this a bit when discussing music.
|
| All that said, I have friends who journal and I might end up
| trying it too out of fear of losing data (even if it's
| squishy). Maybe once a week would be a sustainable cadence?
| pkrotich wrote:
| What inspired you to start? You've always been a data/metrics
| person?
| artnc wrote:
| You could say that. More concretely, it was a stressful
| first semester of college and I felt like adding more
| structure to my life would help.
| 58x14 wrote:
| I've been attempting to solve this as well. I think stress is
| particularly difficult to measure as a simple number, as
| there are multiple forms of stress. For me, I've noticed
| urgency (stress on time), difficulty (stress on cognition),
| uncertainty (stress on confidence), and guilt (stress on
| emotions) make up my 'stress matrix'. I'm often able to
| identify the key strain during stream of consciousness, but
| only once I've made the conscious effort to backtrace.
|
| I'm also a musician, and ironically, I will often _increase_
| my total stress levels by procrastinating certain tasks,
| using an instrument as my weapon of distraction. Sometimes
| this has instigated negative feedback loops, causing me to
| avoid playing for an extended period.
|
| So my plan is to allocate a few minutes in the beginning and
| at the end of my day where I will reflect on the previous and
| upcoming cycle, including tasks and goals. Here I will have a
| -1, 0, 1 flag where -1 is "I am stressed," 0 is "I am
| relaxed," and 1 is "I am excited." I can either set these
| flags for an entire period (hour, day, week) or I can set
| them per object (task, goal). The default state is 0, as I'm
| more likely to set a flag if I'm experiencing emotion in
| either direction. Importantly, I will also set these flags
| retrospectively; so in the morning, I might flag a task as
| -1, but in the evening, it might be +1.
|
| There are some useful data points here that I should be able
| to achieve with minimal friction. 1) how often am I stressed
| or excited? 2) how often can I easily identify the source(s)
| of emotion? 3) how consistent are my emotional flags over
| periods of time?
|
| I also wonder what quantifiable data _must_ exist in any form
| of extended journaling that can be unlocked via NLP or
| simpler heuristics. When I 'm excited, do I tend to use more
| or less punctuation? When I'm stressed, does it take me
| longer to complete a journal entry?
|
| Thanks for the inspiration to jot these thoughts down.
| They've been lingering in my head for awhile.
| artnc wrote:
| Interesting approach! It'd be great to hear how it ends up
| working out for you.
|
| That's also a great point about NLP etc. I was kinda hoping
| that my "Average daily log entries" would show _some_ kind
| of trend like that, but I guess it was too simplistic. It
| really might be worth recording journal data and just
| assuming that the tools for analysis will catch up later.
| iamacyborg wrote:
| There's also physiological stress, which some smartwatches
| do record.
| andreilys wrote:
| I built a real-time personal dashboard for my life which
| primarily relies on lazy tracking (requiring little to no
| manual data entry from me) -
| https://github.com/Andreilys/personal_dashboard
|
| I do journal as well, using vimwiki (Where I implemented some
| simple tagging for things like
| happiness/productivity/stress/etc. ratings from 1-10).
|
| However one of the side projects I'd like to work on at some
| point is a mood recognition project using a camera that I can
| put beside my door. The idea being to take a "photo" that then
| uses an ML algo to determine my mood (from 1-10) and record it
| whenever I enter/leave my home.
| pjrule wrote:
| I've done something like this in the past with a spreadsheet, but
| I recently fell out of the habit because of the overhead of
| taking a few minutes at the end of a long day and opening the
| spreadsheet up on my laptop. I'd like some kind of cross-platform
| life logging app that is equally usable for longform entries when
| I have full access to a good keyboard and quick notes when I just
| have a phone and a few seconds of time. Some kind of highly
| customizable rich schema support (long text entries + basic
| biometrics like self-reported sleep) would be ideal. Any
| suggestions?
| financetechbro wrote:
| Checkout airtable. Functions like excel but you can make survey
| style webpages that will drop data responses directly into your
| database
| Netcob wrote:
| A few days ago I finally stopped doing something very similar.
|
| As fascinating as the data could be (I never managed to transform
| it like this), the constant recording of every single thing made
| me stop enjoying things. It made me hyper-conscious of everything
| going on in my body as the primary goal was to figure out some
| health issues. Everything I felt or did seemed to have an "event
| handler" attached to it.
|
| I now just stick to one line a day in a spreadsheet as a sort of
| diary.
|
| To anyone attempting it:
|
| 1. Figure out what you want to do with the data first. Even if
| you just want some pretty graphs, create some random test data
| and set everything up so you can see these graphs. Don't just
| throw data into a black hole for years.
|
| 2. Make sure recording the data is as easy and comfortable as
| possible. That android app from the article looks good, but you
| have to be absolutely sure it's okay to use many times a day. Be
| aware that there's no good answer to "why do you keep reaching
| for your phone all the time?".
| pkrotich wrote:
| Forget the data - I'm just amazed by the act of sticking to an
| activity. I've attempted "never break the chain" trick to try
| to build good habits but I always come short.
|
| Saying all that to say I truly admire people like you!
| travisjungroth wrote:
| > I've attempted "never break the chain" trick to try to
| build good habits but I always come short.
|
| Chains are unstable[0]. Usually you miss a habit because
| something has gone wrong. This time, when something has gone
| wrong and you most need support, is when you lose all the
| support of the chain. In fact, you also have to deal with the
| shame of breaking your streak. "I always come short" is the
| inevitable outcome! There's no goal! They're good for taking
| 95% compliance to 99%+ (days without an accident counters,
| the best of the best at their activity), but not good for
| taking 20% to 80%, which is what most people need for most
| habits.
|
| I had some good success (but not perfect) with what I call
| Fibonacci Streaks. You go for 1, 1, 2, 3, 5, 8, 13, etc. in a
| row. When you hit a goal, the counter starts over and you go
| for the next goal. If you miss, you start over at the first 1
| and get some goals to hit again quickly. You could also have
| a variant where you try again for the goal you missed. In
| this system, the counter starting over is a normal part of
| things. Why Fibonacci? I considered doubling, but the jumps
| are a bit large. 1.5X seemed right, but gives fractions.
| Fibonacci is ~1.6X each step. I made a free sort of add-on
| app for tracking it in Todoist[1].
|
| [0]https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Longitudinal_static_stabilit
| y [1]https://habitsfortodoist.com/
| pkrotich wrote:
| Thanks for the feedback - I'll give it a try.
| joyeuse6701 wrote:
| I think these are good points, I'll try this out
| Vivtek wrote:
| This has always been my problem with Duolingo. You get a
| streak going, forget it two days running because you're
| busy with work or the dog has to go to the vet or the kid
| needs taking to the airport - and bam, 80 days
| irretrievably gone.
|
| When this happens, I set the whole thing aside for a year,
| every time, even though I shouldn't.
| iamacyborg wrote:
| > This time, when something has gone wrong and you most
| need support, is when you lose all the support of the
| chain. In fact, you also have to deal with the shame of
| breaking your streak.
|
| I find this stuff really fascinating. About a year ago,
| Garmin added a new feature to "pause" the Training Status
| measurements the watch takes. Apparently when folks where
| getting sick they became incredibly disheartened by their
| watch telling them their lack of activity is not conducive
| to improving their fitness. It's almost reinforcing the bad
| habit instead of trying to frame it in a more productive
| way.
| cableshaft wrote:
| What types of data do you store in that spreadsheet one-liner,
| out of curiosity?
| lars512 wrote:
| I would add that it's fine to track something very important in
| an expensive and manual way, you can simply do it less often
| (e.g. weekly)
| medstrom wrote:
| >Even if you just want some pretty graphs, create some random
| test data and set everything up so you can see these graphs.
| Don't just throw data into a black hole for years.
|
| "Avoid black holes" is a good tip when you struggle with
| forming the habit of logging. If you have a graph that auto-
| updates as you add data, it's fun and the habit will stick
| better.
| andreilys wrote:
| A simpler solution is to embrace lazy tracking.
|
| Apps like RescueTime (time spent online) and Withings (sleep
| and steps) are simply running in the background of your life,
| with no additional input needed from the user.
|
| I'm always impressed when I see people who maintain these
| massive data-entry systems, I know personally I would never be
| able to maintain them which is why I opt for lazy tracking. The
| less data entry I need to do, the better.
| lijogdfljk wrote:
| I'd be really curious if there was an API to consume data my
| watch tracks on my health. Such a wealth of lazy tracking
| data i imagine.
| andreilys wrote:
| One of the frustrating things about wearables is a lot of
| them are closed down and the export data options are pretty
| limited.
|
| Oura ring however has an open API, I don't own one or use
| it but worth checking out -
| https://cloud.ouraring.com/docs/
| taubek wrote:
| Wow... I wonder how much time does logging of all those tasks
| take time? I'm not sure if I could do it since I'm switching
| among tasks all of the time. Manual logging of activities does
| take some time but I guess it it more precise than application
| that comes with some fitness wristband.
| themodelplumber wrote:
| He said it takes one minute total, per day, using his app.
| Previously 10 minutes.
|
| Just to share my experience, the time spent recording data
| often feels like it's worth it; there's a tangible reward
| that's more obvious after a while. At first it had novelty
| value but years later I recognize it as a distinct value
| separate from novelty. The act of recording by itself has a
| noticeable impact and anchors a feeling of self-control. (I use
| a sloppy tag-and-gather method though, not an app, which seems
| like it could be really fun to create)
| taubek wrote:
| To me it seems amazing to use just one minute. I guess I'm
| not that fast :)
|
| I agree that logging is a great steering mechanism but I
| guess that you first must have a goal what you want to
| achieve.
| varranvar wrote:
| I use a text file where entries have a start timestamp, end
| timestamp, and a description. I have a macro to automatically
| enter the timestamps. It takes about 5 seconds to make an entry
| and about 4 minutes if I'm doing all the entries at once.
| acqbu wrote:
| Aside from the fascinating findings and good summary, just wanted
| to point out how disciplined one must be to do what the author
| has done. Congrats!
| kashgoudarzi wrote:
| This is fascinating. The dedication it takes to keep this up for
| 10 years is impressive.
|
| Did you consider any existing apps before making your own? Are
| there any apps like this that are available for download?
| artnc wrote:
| Author here! I had searched around but didn't find any existing
| app that matched my requirements. A few that immediately come
| to mind:
|
| 1. I have sole ownership of the data
|
| 2. The data is stored in an easily parsable format (TSV)
|
| 3. Duplicating a recent activity takes one tap
|
| 4. Pie and area charts are displayed in the app
|
| My app is open source and available on GitHub[1] for any
| Android developer to compile for themselves, but if there's
| enough interest I can also get around to packaging it up for
| the Play Store/F-Droid/etc.
|
| [1]: https://github.com/artnc/chronofile
| artnc wrote:
| I've just uploaded an APK:
| https://github.com/artnc/chronofile/releases
| elurg wrote:
| I've recently began to take life tracking semi-seriously and
| mostly use "off the shelf" tools. A good all-around dashboard
| is https://exist.io/, capable of pulling data from multiple
| sources like RescueTime and various health-monitoring
| applications that come with smart watches.
| sprkwd wrote:
| I'll just leave a link to the Feltron annual report 2014 here:
| http://feltron.com/FAR14.html
| gingericha wrote:
| He also built an app to help in creating your own personal
| annual reports: http://reporter-app.com/
| thejackgoode wrote:
| This is formidable. I used to track everything for 3 years with
| Toggl, quantitative productivity got to a point when I spent
| "productively" 80% to 90% of the day. From then on I decided to
| switch to qualitative and stopped tracking. Not so successful, I
| must admit, it's much more difficult to make it objective.
| bribri wrote:
| I've started trying to create a timeline for significant events
| each month of my life
| oreally wrote:
| I do this, but no apps, just a plain old google sheet. I
| sometimes miss several days due to forgetfulness and neglect, and
| have to recall what I did.
|
| It's also a great way to estimate how long projects take - pretty
| much thanks to past data. And you can use the data to tell how
| productive a company is - I had one whose project iteration times
| are a full 50x longer than what it took to do it yourself.
| FalconSensei wrote:
| justinlloyd wrote:
| I am not capturing the data quite like the author of the web
| page, I don't think I have the mental fortitude to do such a
| thing. I have tried on ocassion to do so, but I've not been able
| to make it stick.
|
| I have been tracking the metrics of my life to varying degrees
| for close to four decades now. Every book I've read, every movie
| I've watched, every music album I've listened too, every science
| paper I've read through (rather than just glanced at), the bills
| each month, breakdown of grocery bills by product for the past
| 20+ years, every recipe I've ever cooked (though not every meal
| I've ever ate) for the past 10+ years, continuous screenshots of
| my desktop from my laptops and workstations, and recently (past
| 8+ years), multiple angle RGBD (colour+depth) photos of my home
| office and my home workshop. For a few years (between 2001 and
| 2008) I wore a homemade SenseCam that captured hundreds of photos
| per day as I went about my life.
|
| I am always interested in other people's personal life logging
| habits so this is a fascinating insight in to it.
| rustyboy wrote:
| I'd love to track all this, but it feels like every few years
| some new technology comes out and I lose a weeks, months, or
| years worth of lists somewhere.
|
| Where do you keep all this?
| hesk wrote:
| I've been tracking my daily activities in detail for 5 years now
| and I greatly appreciate the insights it provides into my own
| behavior and health. I love reading these kinds of articles to
| see that I'm not alone in this particular obsession and also for
| tips on how other people do it.
|
| For my system I have repurposed Org Mode's clocking feature and
| run a dedicated Emacs instance in a terminal window. I then have
| a bunch of R scripts for visualizations: https://github.com/he-
| sk/timelog
|
| The main disadvantage is that I need to enter activities manually
| when I have been away from the computer. I just save notes in my
| smartphone but it's a bit annoying.
| lars512 wrote:
| I also looked up recently and realized it had been ten years of
| doing something similar. It's fun to see what we did differently.
| Your daily activity data is amazing
|
| I ended up moving towards the mental side, to see if I could
| measure aspects of flourishing and wellbeing, and more recently
| to see if any core attitudes about the world are changing over
| time.
|
| If you're interested, check it out for comparison:
|
| https://lars.yencken.org/ten-years-of-measurement/
| artnc wrote:
| Thanks for sharing - your story reads like a movie script! I'm
| lucky enough to not be worried about my health (yet) but maybe
| I should start tracking variables other than bodyweight. I'll
| definitely be coming back to your post for more inspiration.
| tomcooks wrote:
| Now if that android app came with APK, or was accessible on
| F-Droid or the Play Store..
| ycombinete wrote:
| It's open source. The source is linked in the article.
| artnc wrote:
| I've just uploaded an APK!
|
| https://github.com/artnc/chronofile/releases
| josephd79 wrote:
| I use the Focus app from meaningful-things.com, you can store the
| data in iCloud and export it as a txt file if you want.
| maximilianroos wrote:
| I use Toggl for this -- there's an app for every platform, so
| it's a keyboard shortcut away.
|
| https://toggl.com/
|
| It seems designed for people who want to bill their time, but
| works just as well for people who want to track 24/7. It takes
| some patience for a week to get into it, but now it's second
| nature.
|
| While reviewing the data at the end of the week is useful, I've
| found the greatest benefit is requiring myself to choose how to
| spend my time. Getting distracted (e.g. browsing Hacker News!)
| requires the mental step of stating "Now I'm going to distract
| myself".
| ajdegol wrote:
| I initially read this as "ten years of logging: my life" and was
| disappointed it wasn't going to be about forestry or timber... I
| should go outside
| jl6 wrote:
| Not _quite_ the same thing as the article talks about, but I've
| been semi-regularly journaling and note-taking for many years
| using various systems, ranging from Microsoft Word, to plain text
| files, to Tap Log, to OneNote, to Day One, to homemade CLI apps.
| Some semi-structured data like the article describes, mostly
| unstructured text.
|
| Earlier in the year I discovered Joplin and I've stuck with it,
| enjoying its balance of structure and unstructure. If it had the
| instant-data-entry-into-CSV feature of Tap Log it would be
| perfect, but nevertheless I decided having one journal / personal
| data repository was better than having several, and set about
| importing all my entries from my previous system. I now have
| many, many thousands of entries spanning over nearly 25 years,
| and I'm happy to report that Joplin is coping well.
| teekert wrote:
| I tried to like Joplin, but it keeps annoying me that the files
| are not just plain md files server side, it's just a big mess.
| For that reason I use (for my admittedly much more spare usage)
| the build-in md editor and files from NextCloud.
| jl6 wrote:
| Joplin is just a SQLite database which is very easy to query.
| atomlib wrote:
| The name is a bit unfortunate for a few Slavic languages. Not
| as bad as _Pidora_ , but still.
| Researcherry wrote:
| Curious to know what joplin means in those Slavic languages.
| severak_cz wrote:
| Czech here and no idea what it should be. Not even close to
| some profanity.
| rossvor wrote:
| It's a bit of a reach tbh. "jopa" (zhopa) would be a crude
| way to say "ass". Then some schoolyard nicknames would
| sometimes have a suffix -lin or -in (-lin,-in) as general
| creative addition to create nickname. Unless I'm clueless
| about of some slang usage, or grandparent refered to some
| other Slavic language (not russian), "Joplin" (zhoplin)
| doesn't mean anything directly.
| heavenlyblue wrote:
| I am Russian and I have no idea what that Joplin is supposed
| to mean.
| kashura wrote:
| This is such a reach. Looking for something to be offended
| by.
| cymon wrote:
| I record daily spending activity and often add comments against
| the transactions, e.g if it is a restaurant bill, I will include
| who was with me and if it was extra-ordinarily good or bad then I
| will add a comment about that as well.
|
| I developed an app installed on my phone which automatically
| detects SMSs transaction notifications and uploads them to my
| online app which is a simple General Ledger with simple and good
| enough reporting capabilities.
|
| For cash payments (less than 10% of my transactions) the same app
| allows me to quickly take a picture of whatever I was buying or
| the receipt and uploads it to the online app for later posting. I
| even have a Google Cloud Run job which reads email notifications
| since some of my cards don't have SMSs notifications. I have been
| doing this since 2015 and it has been one of the greatest
| decision I have ever made.
| manthedudeguy wrote:
| jyriand wrote:
| I wonder if this kind of logging follows the law of diminishing
| returns. The most of the value comes from the actual process of
| writing down what you have been doing and having an overview of
| the past days and weeks, but the stats of what you did, let's
| say, two months ago, don't add much value. So, the actual value
| of logging is in the discipline of taking the time and logging.
| Which means that, people, who would most benefit from this, will
| never be able to do it -- they lack the dedication.
| lifeisstillgood wrote:
| I think the act of paying _attention_ to your behaviour is the
| value. That can come from writing it down yourself. But if
| someone else writes it down and then you review it say Sunday
| night, then I think the value is there.
| goodpoint wrote:
| Awareness is important but I feel this kind of self-logging
| goes really too far in terms of efforts vs results.
|
| Some people might feel that they are not in control of their
| life even after a month of logging. Some that they should
| optimize every minute of their life for "productivity".
|
| I suspect doing some introspection with help from a
| psychologist could be much more effective for both types.
| evancoop wrote:
| Perhaps the next iteration of such tracking would be values for
| related series of objective measurements that should improve with
| the investment of time. Continued exercise should yield
| improvements in weight, speed, endurance, etc (at least for an
| individual as young as the OP).
|
| Malcolm Gladwell often trumpeted "deliberate practice." Does the
| OP receive feedback regarding the quality of his musical practice
| or the form displayed during physical exercise? Does that yield
| greater gains per time?
|
| More (most) importantly, what are the GOALS of these activities?
| The ultimate assessment would be the extent to which such data,
| discipline, and tracking actually spark progress in the desired
| direction.
| artnc wrote:
| Author here! I do track my gym workouts and finances using
| other apps - I just figured that that's pretty common and less
| worth mentioning. Those are both very quantifiable, so it's
| relatively easy to measure progress.
|
| I'd probably improve faster by taking music lessons, but
| improvement is really a secondary goal after having fun. For
| what it's worth, I do still get some feedback from bandmates
| and my own ear - recording your own playing and trying to mix
| it into something presentable makes it painfully clear what
| needs work!
| timonoko wrote:
| I had a list from every year from 1952, which I seem to have
| lost.
|
| Anyways: First experienced memory on that list was when I
| realized winter was reoccurring thing in spring of 1955. I was
| sitting on a sleigh on water-covered skating field and imagined I
| was a boat. I then suddenly remembered that this has happened
| before, but very long time go, maybe half a life-time ago.
| 58x14 wrote:
| Wow, that's quite a long time. Why did you begin? Are you
| remorseful you can't find your lists? Did you transition to
| electronic formats as technology progressed?
| timonoko wrote:
| Yes I had this list already in 1960's. Because of it I could
| still remember every year in 1976 when I had a computer in
| personal use. The list was still around on the first MSDOS-
| machine 1983, but I cant figure out where it might be hidden
| in various zipped DOS-directories. It might be even in some
| handy database format, but unreadable now.
|
| A video camera 1984 solved the remembering problem totally. I
| know exactly what happened thereafter.
|
| Anyways various archives seem to be more and more important
| with age, as human physical memory is only 7 years long.
| Thereafter there are only memories of memories, which often
| get twisted in the weirdest of ways.
| tonguez wrote:
| "...human physical memory is only 7 years long. Thereafter
| there are only memories of memories, which often get
| twisted in the weirdest of ways."
|
| I hate to be that guy, but... you have no idea what you're
| talking about.
| timonoko wrote:
| All human cells are replaced every 7 years. Known fact.
| Or was.
| travisjungroth wrote:
| That's the average. Some brain cells don't churn as fast
| (or maybe at all?). The memory-of-a-memory thing isn't on
| a 7 year scale either, but does happen. I don't remember
| the exact science, but I do remember the metaphor I came
| up with (evidence in my favor!).
|
| Remembering something is like pulling a note out of a
| cabinet. It gets saved from the back, where the papers
| tend do degrade. Then, it gets put at the front. The
| trick is, the original note isn't put at the front. A
| copy is made. So remembering tends to reinforce, but also
| can change during this lossy copying process.
| tonguez wrote:
| "Some brain cells don't churn as fast"
|
| None of them "churn".
|
| "The memory-of-a-memory thing"
|
| That "isn't a thing".
|
| "I don't remember the exact science"
|
| You also have no idea what you're talking about.
|
| "I do remember the metaphor I came up with (evidence in
| my favor!)"
|
| I have no words.
|
| "Remembering something is like pulling a note out of a
| cabinet."
|
| Not really, no.
|
| "lossy"
|
| Please just stop.
|
| "copying"
|
| Memory is a "copying process"?
|
| Please guys... please just stop.
| travisjungroth wrote:
| Jeez it was just a light-hearted comment. I think you can
| address your doubts about what I wrote with more kindness
| and less snark.
|
| > None of them "churn".
|
| By churn I mean "lose and hopefully be replaced". That
| definitely happens. Some brain cells die and are
| replaced, some live your whole life (or die first)[0].
|
| The cabinet is just a simile for cued recall[1]. More
| recently learned/recalled items are remembered better
| (front of the cabinet)[2]. Recalling memories in a
| different context can change them[3], suggesting recall
| isn't a "read only" operation.
|
| [0] https://www.livescience.com/33179-does-human-body-
| replace-ce... [1]
| https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Recall_(memory)#Cued_recall
| [2]
| https://memory.psych.upenn.edu/files/pubs/KahaMill10.pdf
| [3] https://news.northwestern.edu/stories/2012/09/your-
| memory-is...
| tonguez wrote:
| OK? Is it my turn to say something irrelevant? Here goes:
| Elon Musk is worth $200 billion. Known fact. Or was.
| timonoko wrote:
| Now I realized where the list is. It in HP100LX
| calendar/diary-format somewhere. Most of the wacky diaries
| of 1990 where written as notes in the calendar, but I
| printed them out in txt-files and dumped them into
| Internets. This is the prime example of this format:
| http://timonoko.github.io/bellabel.html which is almost
| readable after Google translate.
|
| "Dream of an apartment separated from opera restaurant by a
| glass wall only" is the first good one..
| pieterhg wrote:
| Why do these posts never include sex? Such a weird taboo.
| pxeger1 wrote:
| Maybe because of some of the following?:
|
| - it's embarrassing to talk about your sex life, and maybe
| especially gaps in it, online? - it's naturally private and
| people value their privacy, particularly online? - people are
| so taboo about it that they don't even want to record it for
| their future self? - it just gets lumped in with "sleep"? - it
| doesn't take up a significant enough amount of time?
|
| All of these depend on the person, of course.
| hhmc wrote:
| > it's naturally private and people value their privacy,
| particularly online?
|
| People who value this type of privacy don't publish a decade
| of logs chronicling their daily life.
| artnc wrote:
| Author here. I certainly don't not track it!
|
| If you're wondering where it could appear in the charts, any
| one of the Sleep/People/Exercise/Other categories would seem a
| possible candidate...
| [deleted]
| Keirmot wrote:
| They also don't mention time spent pooping and peeing. Doesn't
| mean it's taboo. Might just not be useful information to track,
| unless you're trying to have children or to check how your sex
| life was affected after already having children.
| pieterhg wrote:
| Love and relationships and as part of those sex are such an
| integral part of life. It seems odd it's such a taboo in tech
| to discuss, or in this case measure it as part of a life log.
| Kiro wrote:
| So is pooping. Nothing prevents you from tracking your sex
| life but I would never do it and especially not put it out
| there in a public blog post.
| medstrom wrote:
| Their point is that actually no, it's not similar. I
| won't call pooping an integral part of life.
| 58x14 wrote:
| A few days without it, and I bet you'll find it pretty
| integral.
| elric wrote:
| It simply isn't true that love, relationships, and sex are
| an integral part of life. It's true for many people, but
| definitely not for everyone. Lots of people are single.
| Many are celibate (for whatever reason).
|
| I don't think there's a taboo regarding sex and
| relationships in tech. People can discuss whatever they
| want. OP is free to choose whether to log (or share) their
| sex data.
| [deleted]
| KeepFlying wrote:
| It would create a lot of awkward interactions for any of their
| ex's who see the data after it's published, or their family.
|
| Easier to avoid it at least in the public copy. Though I'd
| argue even tracking it personally might cause issues if your
| new SO saw it and started to compare to past partners. Best to
| just leave it out entirely.
| bryanrasmussen wrote:
| hhmc wrote:
| perhaps it's not an omission..
| hungryforcodes wrote:
| I guess it's the Christian problem -- they seem to hate sex, or
| at least talking about it.
| globular-toast wrote:
| If the OP did have sex during this time, I expect it is filled
| under "people". It would be interesting to track, though. In
| particular, how much life is dedicated to the pursuit of sex vs
| actually having sex. I know that my time spent actually having
| sex has decreased from probably an hour per day to an hour per
| week. Not sure about time spent in pursuit of sex, though.
| Crontab wrote:
| I've thought about keeping a log, but if I did, it would not to
| this level of detail. It is enough for me to know that I
| performed a specific activity but I wouldn't want to log how many
| hours and minutes that I spent on it.
|
| The author writing their own Android app to accomplish the
| logging was interesting to read.
| mad2021 wrote:
| Anyone able to install the chronofile (OP's app name) APK? I am
| running Android 11, and whenever I try to install, it says app
| not installed.
| thatloststudent wrote:
| Apparently, the OP has released this apk with the
| android:testOnly flag, so you need to install it with adb using
| _adb install -r -t <file>.apk_
| artnc wrote:
| Whoops, apparently Android Studio silently adds that flag
| nowadays! Thanks for investigating. I've just uploaded a new
| APK that should hopefully work.
|
| https://github.com/artnc/chronofile/releases
| captainkrtek wrote:
| Fascinating, great blog post.
|
| Don't think I have the dedication to track things similarly, but
| love the data. I use a Whoop fitness band to track sleep, vitals,
| exercise, and enjoy seeing all the data. Would be cool go log
| more than health, but that'd require some extra effort... :-)
| Syzygies wrote:
| I once logged every mistake I made programming, hoping to avoid
| repetition.
|
| I found the list years later. "20. Forgot to eat. Got sick."
| mg wrote:
| I do something similar, using a text file instead of a
| spreadsheet or app:
|
| https://www.gibney.org/a_syntax_for_self-tracking
|
| To make this fast and easy, I developed the syntax described in
| this essay. It turned out to work pretty nicely. I have logged
| over 14,000 entries over the last 2 years.
| yardstick wrote:
| What conclusions were you able to come to from this data? What
| was the cause of your headaches and sore eyes etc?
| mg wrote:
| Well, as they say: The issue with statistics is that you can
| never be sure :)
|
| As I am not aware of any existing software to analyze
| causalities in such an irregular log, I started writing my
| own this year.
|
| It is an interesting challenge. The approach I currently take
| is a visual one: I draw a chart on which every notch on the
| x-axis is a 24-hour interval. And two lines on it. One is the
| line where I did _not_ do something (say take Vitamin D3) and
| the other line is where I _did_ do it.
|
| The y-axis is the probability of an effect (say having a
| headache) in that time interval.
|
| The center of the graph is the 24-hour interval after the
| treatment. Then the 24-48 hour interval, then the 48-72 hour
| interval etc. And left to the center is the 24 hour interval
| before the treatment. Then the 24-48 hour interval etc.
|
| So it would be a "perfect" graph if the two lines look very
| much the same _before_ the treatment and very much different
| _after_ the treatment.
|
| Some treatment/effect pairs look promising, but so far, I
| don't have a result clear enough that I feel confident enough
| to publish it.
| [deleted]
| medstrom wrote:
| This looks similar to how I believe Nomie logs data behind the
| scenes. But it looks for keywords on the line and transforms
| them into data e.g. "Today I #walked(4)" gets coded in JSON as
| { walked: 4}.
|
| https://github.com/open-nomie/nomie5
| jcun4128 wrote:
| I've been doing a "3-positives about your life" every night for
| almost 4 years. I get up to 5 emails a night if I don't respond
| in time, then my response gets stored. I thought I could
| correlate them with major events in my life but the values were
| between -1, 0 and 1. I don't know if it even makes sense and
| sometimes I didn't take it seriously. Still it's cool it has been
| running for so long.
|
| Anyway I didn't get really any insight from it so... idk if it's
| a waste of time or what. I still use writing a lot for personal
| thoughts/state management.
|
| I was using Mailgun for the emailing/API and
| Raspi/Python/Apache/MariaDB for my stack.
|
| I am aware using third party my stuff is passing through them,
| it's not super detailed just positive/negative sentiment with
| abstract context.
| pps wrote:
| You can try with gratitude instead (not tracking, but writing),
| it has serious scientific backing:
|
| - https://www.coursera.org/learn/the-science-of-well-being
|
| - https://hubermanlab.com/the-science-of-gratitude-and-how-
| to-...
| jcun4128 wrote:
| > science of happiness
|
| Yeah I'm not sure, I think it's natural to have ups and
| downs. But for me personally there's always something
| worrying me. I don't know if once I escape being poor "for
| good" eg. have money invested/don't have to work. If I will
| lose this constant anxiety.
|
| I still struggle with the whole "altruism" thing like I help
| people but I also in the back of my mind have this feeling of
| "mine". "I'd be further in life if I was an asshole" etc...
|
| I think productivity is also subjective... if you setup
| businesses/have passive income/don't have to work. If you
| don't do anything are you not productive? Anyway I know what
| productivity means for me (getting things done) but that's
| because I can't stop yet. Not that I want to stop but yeah.
| It's like I don't want to wake up/sleep 9-5 but I need to
| because I have a job.
| medstrom wrote:
| You can research happiness while still believing in a life
| with ups and downs.
| jcun4128 wrote:
| Not sure what you mean by "believing in a life with ups
| and downs" is that not reality?
|
| Happiness seems simple to achieve to me, do the opposite
| of what makes you unhappy unless you need something like
| medication.
| medstrom wrote:
| I'm sorry, it sounded like you were averse to studying
| happiness because it would remove the ups and downs. I
| don't know what you wanted to say if not that.
| jcun4128 wrote:
| haha, my soundtrack in life is the Lego song "Everything
| is awesome"
|
| idk, this whole 'studying happiness' sounds like you're
| trying to trick yourself to be happy, but that's an
| ignorant take without looking for myself.
|
| I know can really get down in the weeds, hierarchy of
| needs, Buddhism, philosophy, etc...
|
| I think that as a sentient/alive being, your mind will
| always be on/running. And actually having problems like
| being broke distracts you from the fact that time counts
| down and you exist regardless of what you do. Mainly to
| stay alive and avoid pain.
|
| Even if you have money and didn't have to work/have
| freedom, how long till you're bored. Anyway I have plenty
| of reasons to be happy you know like I have family in a
| third world country with parasites, barely have access to
| water, here I am paid to write code, running water, hot
| shower everyday, etc... I used to stack biscuits into a
| box for a job and hated myself, I changed it.
|
| Life is not so bad (but it can be better, Wonder woman
| meme).
|
| Anyway I'm just rambling here
| 58x14 wrote:
| I spent much of my life without money, and I was
| altogether fairly satisfied and curious. I would often
| wonder, will I feel the same forms of loneliness,
| inadequacy, aimlessness, when I have money, as I do now
| without it?
|
| Yes, I have.
|
| Emotions are their own realm, and the time you spend
| observing and reflecting on them, as we are doing in this
| thread, is valuable.
| DonBarredora wrote:
| Yetiuiu wrote:
| I thought about this just a few days ago and I thought I would
| like to ha e a personal assistant which tells my brain what Todo.
|
| Like when I look at my watch it says 'work' and that should help
| me to allow myself to focus on work because I know my assistant
| will also 'schedule' news reading and other things.
|
| Otherwise I'm constantly thinking and rethink ing what I want to
| do and end watching some yt because I'm to unmotivated at the
| evening to do something else.
|
| Supporting this by visual cues around the flat with smart lights.
|
| Of course just another, probably not working, tool for
| antiprocrastination.
|
| With the stamina of the author (doing sport, playing instrument
| and keeping book for so long) I might not need a tool just his
| stamina :D
| smusamashah wrote:
| For me, having something visible constantly in written form
| looses it's meaning and purpose after a while. Sticky notes
| notes on the fridge for example simply become invisible.
| Yetiuiu wrote:
| For me as well :-(
|
| But surprised how good the smartwatch vibration works for
| "time to move".
|
| But just an hour ago I thought how I could tell Plex to stop
| playing and showing a screenshot to say 'its time, your show
| will continue in 30 minutes.' or the Amazon fire tv.
|
| Might be doable with writing a Kodi plugin.
| nivenkos wrote:
| I thought of this too, but with scheduling as well. So I could
| add "buy gloves", and it will try to fit it into the schedule
| and optimise it for when I'd be close to a shopping centre
| (e.g. for flat visits or groceries, etc.).
|
| Same for wanting to do 5 hours of exercise a week, around work
| hours. What to focus on within working hours, etc.
|
| With Alexa and Google Calendar, we're pretty close already.
| stevenjgarner wrote:
| If you are using a smart phone, have a Google or Facebook
| account, an email account, spend electronic money, or take photos
| then you already ARE logging your life. I am constantly amazed
| (and occasionally grateful) that there is such a comprehensive
| log of everything I do from credit card expenses and receipts, to
| Google/Apple map history, to EXIF photo (location) data, to
| social network interactions, to email and texting information. I
| compile much of that information into a MySQL database to get a
| better timeline of my history.
| FranklinMaillot wrote:
| I've been using Daylio [0] for the last 2 years to track my mood
| and activities. It's less comprehensive than the system described
| here but much simpler to implement. It lets you set up a reminder
| with a mood selector, and you then select the activities you have
| accomplished. The activities are completely configurable. I've
| started by tracking just a few habits and I've added more along
| the way.
|
| I can't praise this app enough. Main pros:
|
| - all your data is stored locally not in the cloud, but you can
| easily back it up on Google Drive
|
| - it lets you export your data anytime
|
| - It comes with nice dashboards, weekly, monthly and yearly
| reviews. It let's you see the impact of each activity on your
| mood. It really gave me some interesting insights on my mood
| patterns.
|
| My only complaint really is that the only numeric value you can
| track is your mood, everything else is yes or no.
|
| A year or so ago, I've also started using Clockify [1] to track
| the time I spent on each activity. Again, I don't track
| everything, only a few habits I want to improve on. It has a
| mobile and desktop app. The UI could be improved but all the
| features I need are free, and most importantly data export.
|
| It's the perfect time of year to set up a tracking system. My
| recommendation is start small. Track only a couple of activities
| first and add more as you build the habit.
|
| [0]: https://daylio.net/
|
| [1]: https://clockify.me/
| papito wrote:
| +1 for Daylio. A low-friction way to track your activities and
| mood. Comes with a lot of ways to look at the data as well.
| mahathu wrote:
| Does Daylio let you export data to json/csv or something, or is
| there an alternative that does? I'm looking for a very simple
| mood tracker that might let you add a journal entry, but not
| much more. moodpath used to be that way in the startup stage
| and then got bought, rebranded and they just kept tacking on
| more bloated features and started selling it..
| susodapop wrote:
| Yes Daylio exports to JSON.
| hungryforcodes wrote:
| Wait, I can only add three photos to my Daylio entry? That's
| kind of lame. I just downloaded it and maybe I'm missing
| something, but it seems I am limited to just 3 photos on
| Android.
| FranklinMaillot wrote:
| Yes Daylio does csv export. It also lets you add a journal
| entry and pictures.
| BeetleB wrote:
| Obligatory: If you use org mode, you can use the Capture
| templates to conveniently capture data.
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