The only app you will ever need is “Google Sheets”.
Its UI is easy to use on a phone and syncs instantly, so you can use a computer as well.
It is completely customizable. You enter any sort of info you want and analyze it later over time.
I started using it ~3 years ago as a time-sheet to track my work, activities, sleep, mood etc. I tried to do what you did—see how X impacts my mood and look for trends. Here’s some of my findings over the past three years in that regard:
The most helpful thing has been a daily “end of day” entry for:
What went well?
Where did I come up short?
What one easy step could I take to improve where I came up short?
What is something I am grateful for?
What is my plan for tomorrow morning? (Food, Work, Routine, etc.?)
30-mins of relaxation (e.g. web-surfing) are as fulfilling/energizing as 2-4 hours. Use Pomodoro (or the time-sheet) to shame you into getting back on task.
Weekly reflections on your time sheet and what went well/bad are very helpful and make you remember much more of your life that you would otherwise forget without realizing it.
“Chaining” tracking how many days in a row you’ve maintained a new habit can be very helpful to keep the new habit going.
Tracking too many things can derail you so keep it small. (e.g. Ben Franklin style “virtue journal” was not much of a value-add for me and takes too much time to be worth it).
Thanks Nicholas, I’ll definitely give this a shot. So how did you go about tracking the effects of interventions? For example, how did you discover that gratitude was helpful or that carb-heavy lunches were impacting energy? Do you just try them one at a time and see how that affects things, or did you somehow perform an X/non-X comparison as I described in the original post?
The only app you will ever need is “Google Sheets”.
Its UI is easy to use on a phone and syncs instantly, so you can use a computer as well.
It is completely customizable. You enter any sort of info you want and analyze it later over time.
I started using it ~3 years ago as a time-sheet to track my work, activities, sleep, mood etc. I tried to do what you did—see how X impacts my mood and look for trends. Here’s some of my findings over the past three years in that regard:
The most helpful thing has been a daily “end of day” entry for:
What went well?
Where did I come up short?
What one easy step could I take to improve where I came up short?
What is something I am grateful for?
What is my plan for tomorrow morning? (Food, Work, Routine, etc.?)
What improves my overall mood the most?
Gratitude journal entries 2x/day (morning & evening)
What influences my energy throughout the day?
Carb-heavy lunches. Obvious in hindsight.
30-mins of relaxation (e.g. web-surfing) are as fulfilling/energizing as 2-4 hours. Use Pomodoro (or the time-sheet) to shame you into getting back on task.
Weekly reflections on your time sheet and what went well/bad are very helpful and make you remember much more of your life that you would otherwise forget without realizing it.
“Chaining” tracking how many days in a row you’ve maintained a new habit can be very helpful to keep the new habit going.
Tracking too many things can derail you so keep it small. (e.g. Ben Franklin style “virtue journal” was not much of a value-add for me and takes too much time to be worth it).
Thanks Nicholas, I’ll definitely give this a shot. So how did you go about tracking the effects of interventions? For example, how did you discover that gratitude was helpful or that carb-heavy lunches were impacting energy? Do you just try them one at a time and see how that affects things, or did you somehow perform an X/non-X comparison as I described in the original post?