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Some Reflections After a Month of Tracking My Own Online Activity

mcwhittemore.com

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Re: Some Reflections After a Month of Tracking My Own Online Activity

#2

Post by HSO »

I‘ve been doing sth similar by tracking my time for the last 3 weeks and change. I havent done the full analysis yet but it‘s already clear that how I think I spend my time is completely different from how I actually spend it.

Perception/„feeling“ vs physical reality. The gap is huge.

Trivial example, I was convinced that the „time toll“ i have to pay around training was very high. Like I was spending an hour or more just to change into sportswear, shower afterwards, and switch back. This perceived deadweight loss always presented an additional psychological hurdle to get off my ass and train. Now that I know that it‘s much less than I thought, it‘s gone.

Similar for cooking.

Like I said, havent done the full analysis yet but I can already highly recommend this practice of recording time at least for a while.

Re: Some Reflections After a Month of Tracking My Own Online Activity

#3

Post by renegat0x0 »

I have been gathering a lot of information about myself.

I wrote my own RSS reader. It is self hosted, so tracking is also done on phone.

I gather pages I visit through my reader, browse history, times a page was visited.

It is my window to the internet.

https://github.com/rumca-js/Django-link-archive

Re: Some Reflections After a Month of Tracking My Own Online Activity

#4

Post by Loic »

HSO wrote: post #2

I‘ve been doing sth similar by tracking my time for the last 3 weeks and change. I havent done the full analysis yet but it‘s already clear that how I think I spend my time is completely different from how I actually spend it. Perception/„feeling“ vs physical reality. The gap is huge. Trivial example, I was convinced that the „time toll“ i have to pay around training was very high. Like I was spending an hour or more…

May I ask what you are using to track your time?

Late edit: Especially offline time tracking.

Re: Some Reflections After a Month of Tracking My Own Online Activity

#6

Post by vjerancrnjak »

Loic wrote: post #4
HSO wrote: post #2

I‘ve been doing sth similar by tracking my time for the last 3 weeks and change. I havent done the full analysis yet but it‘s already clear that how I think I spend my time is completely different from how I actually spend it. Perception/„feeling“ vs physical reality. The gap is huge. Trivial example, I was convinced that the „time toll“ i have to pay around training was very high. Like I was spending an hour or more…

May I ask what you are using to track your time? Late edit: Especially offline time tracking.

I used ActivityWatch with vim, browser, everything on Linux. (Last time I checked, make sure to have a firewall on the port)

Although did not know what to do with the data. I just saw my chess addiction subsiding. Maybe it was a side effect of seeing it at 60 hours a week.

Now it’s at 0 hours.

Re: Some Reflections After a Month of Tracking My Own Online Activity

#7

Post by HSO »

Loic wrote: post #4
HSO wrote: post #2

I‘ve been doing sth similar by tracking my time for the last 3 weeks and change. I havent done the full analysis yet but it‘s already clear that how I think I spend my time is completely different from how I actually spend it. Perception/„feeling“ vs physical reality. The gap is huge. Trivial example, I was convinced that the „time toll“ i have to pay around training was very high. Like I was spending an hour or more…

May I ask what you are using to track your time? Late edit: Especially offline time tracking.

Sure, I use ATracker (https://atracker.pro/)

They have phone apps for both iOS and Android which work offline. Their iOS app has a "companion" on the Watch too, so you can quickly switch activities on your wrist. I think without this I wouldnt have the patience to even track bathroom time (another thing that I vastly overestimated before I saw the numbers).

I´m still hovering between writing my own tracking system, for more control, and the convenience of a pre-made system. I would most miss the watch app, I think, as I have no idea how to make that.

Possible compromise would be to use this app but automate the data export and analysis in my own custom environment.

But yea, long story short, Atracker, and offline works well.

Re: Some Reflections After a Month of Tracking My Own Online Activity

#8

Post by nextts »

HSO wrote: post #2

I‘ve been doing sth similar by tracking my time for the last 3 weeks and change. I havent done the full analysis yet but it‘s already clear that how I think I spend my time is completely different from how I actually spend it. Perception/„feeling“ vs physical reality. The gap is huge. Trivial example, I was convinced that the „time toll“ i have to pay around training was very high. Like I was spending an hour or more…

I spend zero (extra) time changing. I make the workout coincide with when I'd get showered anyway and typically wear clothes good enough for the gym.

Re: Some Reflections After a Month of Tracking My Own Online Activity

#10

Post by eisolo »

Really enjoyed going through your website. And web graph browser is super cool, just wish there was like an "expand all nodes" or "expand current level connections" button.

Also: on your main page, in the last section, the second line of the paragraph has a typo: "...Currently I'm work at..." -- I'm not trying to be annoying but thought you'd want to know (:

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