After a week of development, I’m glad to present my new application – TrackLab. It doesn’t do much now, but my goal was to make an MVP as soon as possible. All you can do with the app fits in a short list:
- Track your activity. Just write what you did, how you felt about it, and when it happened.
- Watch your activity history. Sometimes it’s quite interesting to know what you did a week, month, or year ago. Isn’t it?
- Calculate average values. Choose a period of time to see your average mood, energy, and satiety within that period.
About the app
The core idea of the application is to measure some metrics and see the dynamics. For example, you want to make a decision, but you’re not sure how it will influence you. All you need to do is measure the indicators you are interested in for some time. Then you try a new habit or a new rule and watch how the indicators change.
There is a term “gamification,” but my app doesn’t look like a game, so I would use the term “sciencification.” Metrics help you use a scientific approach. Of course, life is much more complicated, and you can’t take all factors into account, but real data is still better than unfounded beliefs and guesses.
Tracking effect
Even if the app has only a few functions, it could still be useful. You see, when you track your activity, you are already changing your life. It’s like the observer effect – when you are tracking activity, you just can’t act like before.
Why does it work? Because you stop doing things automatically. You have to think about your activity and evaluate it while tracking. You’ll see which activities drain your time and which patterns you fall into.
I don’t want to say you live the wrong way and must change everything now. Just observe. When you observe something, you may like it or not, but either way, you should see it first before doing anything.