Hacker News Board Hacker News, browsed like a classic message board
Live data from Hacker News

I logged my activities at 15-minute intervals for the whole year

samplesize.one

Post reply on HN
Print view View original

201–210 of 321 posts

Re: I logged my activities at 15-minute intervals for the whole year

#201

Post by yen223 »

TeMPOraL wrote: post #177
haberman wrote: post #8

For a long time I've wanted to create an Android/iOS app called "Sample Me" or something similar, for collecting exactly this kind of data about yourself. You design a survey with whatever data you want to collect, then the app gives you a notification at whatever interval you configure. A couple taps and you have a sample point about your life, which gets appended to a Google Sheet or similar, and maybe some in-app…

I've hacked something like this using a Pebble and Tasker for Android. See https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=20625346 for the description of source code (it's unfortunately not easy to actually share source code of Tasker scripts, at least not in an easy-to-read form). The benefits of this approach over writing an app are, to quote: "I made it one afternoon in a grand total of ~30 minutes (including debugging and…

> I made it one afternoon in a grand total of ~30 minutes (including debugging and testing)

One of the interesting side effects of time-tracking is that I became very sensitive to how much can be done with very little effort, just by choosing the right tools.

Tasker is a huge productivity win for getting stuff done in the Android space.

Re: I logged my activities at 15-minute intervals for the whole year

#202

Post by rkagerer »

This looks fun. As a consultant I've gotten used to tracking my time when I'm "on the clock", and it's not nearly as onerous as you might think, once you get in the habit. It's cool that he used it as a technique to "keep himself honest" about how he spends his time, and effect positive change (even gaming himself to skew his activities in the direction he desires).

Not everyone needs or wants this degree of personal metrics. But after reading about this, I admit having some device that tracked this automatically (and actually worked) would be more valuable to me than toys like pedometers. I wonder if that's getting close to plausible? Some you can already infer from various sensors / devices (e.g. sleeping, walking, talking on the phone, even whether the call is with friends/coworkers/clients). More might be learnable through AI (maybe analyzing audio / video feeds in a privacy-preserving manner)?

Re: I logged my activities at 15-minute intervals for the whole year

#203

Post by maya24 »

oblio wrote: post #131
CarelessExpert wrote: post #102

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> If you had a year to live, you would definitely want to be productive. No, I'd want to be happy. It's the uniquely American Calvinist view that conflates these things.

Yeah, agreed. I don't think I know any person that's written their will, for example.

It's irresponsible for anyone with kids to have not done this.

Re: I logged my activities at 15-minute intervals for the whole year

#204

Post by judge2020 »

rkagerer wrote: post #202

This looks fun. As a consultant I've gotten used to tracking my time when I'm "on the clock", and it's not nearly as onerous as you might think, once you get in the habit. It's cool that he used it as a technique to "keep himself honest" about how he spends his time, and effect positive change (even gaming himself to skew his activities in the direction he desires). Not everyone needs or wants this degree of personal…

> I wonder if that's getting close to plausible?

Apple's screen time is on Macs (starting with Catalina) which is probably enough for most people.

Re: I logged my activities at 15-minute intervals for the whole year

#205

Post by eightails »

istorical wrote: post #194
TrackerFF wrote: post #170

I'm not sure how much alcohol you drink - could be one beer / glass of wine / drink, or it could be multiple units - but for your health, I'd recommend that you take a 3 day break between intake. Drinking for 3-7 consecutive days, is not good for your liver, even in smaller quantities.

where is the threshold of # of drinks in a day where daily drinking begins to adversely affect liver? I thought a glass of wine a day was considered neutral or positive, so how many glasses of wine is unehealthy for 3-7 consecutive days?

I was somewhat curious too, and from a brief search found a 2004 paper that calculated roughly 1 standard drink/day for women and 2 for men as the limit before you start increasing risk of adverse effects. I haven't looked at the full text though.

https://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/abs/pii/S00917...

Re: I logged my activities at 15-minute intervals for the whole year

#206

Post by yolo4554 »

bobbydreamer wrote: post #98

This person does it differently. He takes pic of everything timed https://kaielvin.org/tl/t=1585396555000000

Interesting...I want to point out that this person is recording everything (NSFW) and also has 'theories' about consciousness that remind me of something from a spun-out acid trip.

I don't mean to be rude to anyone, but I definitely think that anyone interested in tracking everything in this sort of fashion should seriously consider their motivations. Why do you want this data? How do you separate public/private data? Knowledge is power and with power comes great responsibility and all that.

Re: I logged my activities at 15-minute intervals for the whole year

#207

Post by dheera »

haberman wrote: post #8

For a long time I've wanted to create an Android/iOS app called "Sample Me" or something similar, for collecting exactly this kind of data about yourself. You design a survey with whatever data you want to collect, then the app gives you a notification at whatever interval you configure. A couple taps and you have a sample point about your life, which gets appended to a Google Sheet or similar, and maybe some in-app…

I have a personal MongoDB that I just throw data into.

Except I don't really track activity data except sleep.

I use it to track other things, such as my location, so that I can answer questions like "where was that restaurant i went to" or "what was that weird building i passed on the highway today".

I also built an air quality box that throws all kinds of stats on my indoor CO2 levels, PM2.5 levels, etc. as well in there.

Re: I logged my activities at 15-minute intervals for the whole year

#208

Post by ubertoop »

Draiken wrote: post #49

I am always baffled how sad this extreme focus into productivity makes me. If you discovered you were going to die in a year, would you continue to spend all your time being "productive"? I figure almost everyone would shift all their focus on doing things that "really matter". Sadly I believe the world managed to make us feel guilty when we're not doing something that makes someone else rich (majority of jobs). I'm…

What else would someone do with their time if not be productive? I hear you say... travel, see the world, experience other cultures, be with family, and all that jazz. None of that pays the bills. I understand your sentiment but don't really see how I could do what "really matters" right unless I gave up on a western life entirely. Maybe if I lived in a van and did some contract based coding I could spend most of my time seeing the world, but then I would give up so many other wonderful things like a wife, possibly kids, family close by, etc.

Ultimately we live just one life. I want to feel like I accomplished something and made my mark as trivially small as it may be compared to some. I want to hang my hat at the end of the day and feel like I had control over myself. In other words, I want to master good living and discipline.

Of course I want to see family, and friends, and all that. But there are many hours in the day, and why not fill them with your best effort? There will be plenty of time when I am old where I will want to do rest, leisure, etc.

Re: I logged my activities at 15-minute intervals for the whole year

#209

Post by sabellito »

nequals1 wrote: post #159
sabellito wrote: post #129

Super interesting. Definitely a little crazy, but I'm glad you found the willpower to finish and share it. And holy cow, 3:25h per day socialising? How?

The holiday period contributed a lot to that average. I also lived with other people for the whole year (uni housing, with family and now with flatmates), so meal times would count towards socialising. And those coffee breaks and quick chats here and there add up to a lot!

Ah that makes sense, thanks for clarifying!

Re: I logged my activities at 15-minute intervals for the whole year

#210

Post by syril »

TeMPOraL wrote: post #171
whatshisface wrote: post #10

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Isn't paying someone else to raise your children... not raising children? It's like comparing a bank with actual gold in a vault and many expensive physical security measures with someone who owns a futures contract with no delivery.

People weren't meant to raise children in a nuclear family. It's a historical aberration. In the past, you'd offload some of your parenting to grandparents, aunts and neighbors in the village (and the latter would do the same, creating a sort of distributed parenting environment). For urban population in modern times, daycare and babysitters serve as a replacement. Put another way, taking care of a young child is 16+…

You don't have a clue what you are talking about.
Post reply on HN