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I put my whole life into a single database

howisfelix.today

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Re: I put my whole life into a single database

#131

Post by PurpleRamen »

brodo wrote: post #4

The takeaways at the very bottom of the page are valuable: > Overall, having spent a significant amount of time building this project, scaling it up to the size it’s at now, as well as analysing the data, the main conclusion is that it is not worth building your own solution, and investing this much time. When I first started building this project 3 years ago, I expected to learn way more surprising and interesting f…

I kinda disagree. Doing something about open questions which are bothering you can be valuable in itself, even if the result of the process is useless in the end. And usually you are also learning some valuable things along the way, or just push your life into a necessary direction. That isn't related to OCD or perfectionism, it's just gaining more control and insight about some aspects of your life.

Re: I put my whole life into a single database

#133

Post by drivers99 »

andout_ wrote: post #26
vidarh wrote: post #23

Earlier quoted context omitted.

For me it's about managing ADHD-like (never diagnosed, and I don't care to assume) patterns, coupled with self-accountability. I have a self-improving dashboard (it kicks off Claude to propose additions based my positive/negative feedback on past attempts, and then builds them) that feels quite helpful. E.g. one of the things it added was fitbit integration that shoves my step count and resting heart rate in my face…

It's important to tell the readers how long you've been doing this - especially to those that also manage ADHD or ADHD-like symptoms. Why? Because those individuals tend to spin something up, tell everyone about it (online, and offline) and then stop doing it few days later. The result then ends up being a false signal for others in the same boat. People who read it, feel a spark of recognition ("someone like me actu…

> Why? Because those individuals tend to spin something up, tell everyone about it (online, and offline) and then stop doing it few days later.

That's definitely me (most recent ones: using engineering notebook techniques but for my own life, and WOOP method), but I recognize that feeling like I've found THE solution when I'm only a few days into it, so I tend to wait and see, or if I tell someone I say "...but ask me again in a week or a month if I'm still doing it." (At least with the engineering notebook, I can still go back and use it to remember what steps and settings I used in KiCad or use WOOP on a new goal at any time. So it's not a total loss.)

I will say one thing that I have stuck with and is pretty useful is a morning checking and an evening checklist. I'm currently using a paper version with the days of March in the columns and the checklists in the rows, and X them off as I go. A slash for the one I'm doing now/next and X when it's done. Leave it blank (or write N) if I choose to skip it. As a back-up, when I can't get around to make a paper version (I'm planning to type in the steps in a spreadsheet so I can just revise and print it each month) I keep the lists in two Google Keep checklists. Those are great because you can reset the checklist each day for reuse, and you can drag to reorder it as you edit it, and you can indent one level to organize it a bit. The disadvantage is I might get distracted by notifications and stuff on my phone.

Re: I put my whole life into a single database

#134

Post by fidorka »

Tried the manual tracking a few times and it does not tend to stick. Passive capture is the approach that ever worked for me. Having different apps and devices with permissions to track you and good APIs that enable integrating the data seems to be the way to go.

Did you think of building some proactive AI tools to make use of all this centralized data?

Re: I put my whole life into a single database

#135

Post by integralid »

nicbou wrote: post #126
adamtaylor_13 wrote: post #124

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Most people don't spend a lot of time wistfully considering their CO2 usage, myself included. The religious zeal by which people feel the need to tell me about the ever-warming planet is honestly more off-putting than most actual religions. Of the very few "f*cks" I can give in my life, I prefer to spend mine as I choose rather than being scolded for not giving mine to the pressing issues that others deem important.

The thing is that everyone alive today and in the future is footing the bill for that indifference. It's nice that you don't care, but it's not something I'd brag about.

I too don't want to be a martyr hermit who don't travel and consume just to cur my CO2 emissions in half, while someone else generates 10x of that living a full life. That's just dumb, and I consider this whole movement rich people telling poor people that they should be considerate and sacrifice themselves.

If you truly care about the planet, don't have children.

Re: I put my whole life into a single database

#136

Post by ge96 »

Tangent, I've always had notes and have this longing to store things but at the same time I like "moving on" too. For ex. I used to have windows phones and saw I still have an accessible One Note from 10 years ago... tempted to read through it but also I've changed as a person.

Another tangent, recently bought a paper shredder, started shredding through boxes of mail I have kept since they have personal info like cc statements but on the same idea of moving on/reducing stuff I'm hoarding whether it's data or physical.

Re: I put my whole life into a single database

#138

Post by markh1967 »

nkrisc wrote: post #25
noemit wrote: post #14

Earlier quoted context omitted.

A counter example: I've been wearing an Apple Watch for close to 10 years. I've tracked my weight as well along those years but nothing crazy like OP. The Apple watch tracked plenty. I had some strange symptoms and two doctors insisted I had a weak heart and potential heart failure. This was shocking! Turns out I do have a really "weak" rhythm, but heart failure is when your heart is progressively getting worse in it…

But you didn’t spend hundreds of hours on it, so when it did happen to be useful it seemed like an outsized benefit. I would wager that for most people, most data about themselves will be useless and not worth collecting. Of course you can’t know what data will be useless or not, so unless the cost of collecting it is minimal or nil (wearing a smart watch, writing down your weight each day/week), it’s probably not wo…

About 9 years ago I had a run-in with stomach cancer. After a few months of chemo and a 7 hour operation I was eventually declared cancer free and have been ever since, but still have to live with the consequences of the treatment and be vigilant for any signs of it returning.

I still suffer intermittent stomach aches, especially in the early hours of the morning, and had a terrible time trying to decide if they were getting better or worse over time.

Our narrative voice is awful at detecting long term trends and tends to overcompensate for particularly good or bad patches so it was impossible for me to judge and I started keeping records of how bad the aches were each day.

Long story short, the average severity was mostly decreasing over time and the average time between bad aches was slowly increasing but it would have been impossible to tell if this was happening without keeping detailed records because it wasn't consistent - some months were much worse than others and completely skewed my perception of long term trends.

While most people hopefully won't ever need to do something like this, it did make me realise just how bad we are at picking up on long term trends so I can definitely see keeping daily records of, for instance, average daily happiness being eye-opening.

Re: I put my whole life into a single database

#139

Post by koliber »

andsoitis wrote: post #43
koliber wrote: post #24

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Being aware, and being aware that you are aware are very similar things that are subtly different. I was aware that alcohol affects your next day, even a little. That's because people always say that alcohol is bad for you (surprise surprise). I heard this, so you could say that I was aware. I generally thought about this as "a hangover is bad for you." and was somewhat dismissive of the "even a single drink has a ba…

> an impact that I could feel nonetheless. I needed to do some light stats and a lot more journaling to build this awareness. If you could feel it why beed the stats?

I don't think I was clear.

There is a difference between knowing something, and believing it to be true.

I know that sometimes I feel good when I wake up. I know people say that drinking makes you feel not good when you wake up, sometimes.

It takes a bit of observation and some statistical sampling to connect those two together. Now I know it, and also believe it to be true.

Perhaps "aware" vs "aware that I am aware" was a bad way of phrasing it.

Re: I put my whole life into a single database

#140

Post by spiderice »

dansmith1919 wrote: post #104
lejalv wrote: post #38

A simple back of the envelope calculation shows that Felix causes between 70 and 110 tonnes of CO2 emissions per year just from flying. Paris accord says 1.5t per person per year, from all activities, Felix's flying alonre is ~10-15x current European yearly per person emissions and ~50-75x those compatible with +1.5C.

That was my main takeaway as well. How do you do this without any shame? My man is emitting an amount of CO2 on par with an small African country

I would totally do this without any shame if I had the need/desire. CO2 isn't going to be solved by well intentioned individuals making absolutely no impact. It will be a generic solution that solves it for everyone, or it won't be solved at all.

I'm also not going to take shorter showers when people are farming in a desert and shipping the crops to China.

You might think this makes me a terrible person. That's probably good. Because it will help people understand what we're up against and what needs to happen to actually solve the problem.

"Take less flights" isn't the solution.

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