Have you played The Sims? Each Sim has several metrics for their needs. Hygiene, Comfort, Social etc. Your goal as a player is to keep your Sim satisfied.
This idea was used in TrackLab, but I chose only three metrics: satiety, energy, and mood. Why these?
First, they are universal parameters which anyone can evaluate anywhere and anytime. All you need is just think about them.
Are you tired? Do you want to sleep? If yes, how badly? How many hours could you stay awake? Answering these questions you can rate your energy level.
Second, I chose these basic metrics for TrackLab because I had some trouble with them. My energy level and mood were too low and my satiety level always was too high because I ate even if I’m not hungry.
So I was interested in tracking them. And as the only user of TrackLab I decided to hardcode mood, satiety and energy. This decision also sped up development of MVP.
In one of the future versions I’m going to give users the opportunity to create any metrics they wants.
Emotions
I included emotions input with basic metrics because it’s important to recognize your emotions and listen to them. Why? Each emotion is a signal about your desires and it has its triggers and responses. By learning your triggers and responses you can choose strategies to cope with problem situations.
Any problem situation can be handled by avoidance, acceptance or adaptation.
Avoidance – you avoid your triggers. Some person (trigger) makes you angry and you don’t talk to them.
Acceptance – you choose neutral response after the trigger has been fired. You still don’t like that person, but you don’t avoid them and talk to them politely.
Adaptation – you change your emotion for the same trigger. You talk to that person more to find positive qualities or common interests. After you found it, you don’t feel angry anymore.
Each strategy works well in some situations and don’t in others. For example, you and the person are coworkers and you can’t avoid them. If you do, this could jeopardize your career. Anyway you still can ignore them outside the job. Different situations require different strategies.
When I’m angry, I write what I think of the situation. It can be a post or a diary entry. For example, my post about stupid platform limits.
Conclusion
By using TrackLab and tracking your metrics and emotions you can analyze your triggers and responses for choosing better strategies in the future.