
Show HN: Track your responses over time - slotkin
I think tracking how you feel over time can radically improve decision making. So I made a quick little webapp that helps you do that!<p>1. Submit a question with a schedule 
2. Emails notify you when it&#x27;s time to respond 
3. See how you feel over time<p><a href="https:&#x2F;&#x2F;simple-decisions.herokuapp.com&#x2F;" rel="nofollow">https:&#x2F;&#x2F;simple-decisions.herokuapp.com&#x2F;</a>
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HenriNext
Interesting idea. I already track/log my decision making process for
everything important, so i'm right in your target audience, but I think your
approach has the following problems:

\- Decisions and opinions brew over time, but in bursts; you spend some
'active' time thinking, or get intuitive realization in 'background', or
something 'external' happens. When one of those occurs it's important to write
down the new ideas or changed opinions immediately when it is in memory with
all details and emotions. Your timed email reminders seems completely wrong
way (for me).

\- The decisions worth tracking are the important ones, and to trust any cloud
based application with critical financial or personal decisions is major
barrier. You would need to offer some pretty amazing benefits over tracking in
encrypted plain docs, but i'm not sure what those amazing benefits could be:
plain docs work fine.

~~~
slotkin
i totally agree with a lot of this. i don't think people should make decisions
by taking the average of their decision over time or anything like that --
this is more about having good inputs to your decisions. maybe i need better
copy :)

re: "decisions and opinions brew over time...": i think it can be very hard to
"zoom out" of how you feel in a moment and have perspective, and consequently
people make impulsive and emotional decisions. being able to see that 90% of
the time you're unhappy with your current job can put a good week in
perspective. seeing that 90% of the time you're happy with your relationship
can put a fight in perspective. it is easy to get distracted by right now, and
hopefully this can help. heck maybe you notice that the biggest factor in your
overall happiness is the season -- that could help you avoid some crazy
decisions, or maybe inspire a move!

re: "the decisions worth tracking are...": yea i think that is right. i think
the point is somewhat softened by the above, but i agree broadly. honestly for
me i have "coded" some of my questions so someone reading over my shoulder
won't know what i'm actually responding to. the important thing is that you
take your temperature over time at random intervals so that you don't just
respond when you're feeling extremely one way or the other. for me emails help
me achieve this, even if the text of the question is just a prompt for myself

thanks for the comments!

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notaboutdave
Just signed up. I've been wanting to log this kind of data, but it was never a
strong enough desire to do it consistently over the long-term. Considering how
many times I check email every day, this just might do the trick.

Side note: Inbox-based apps seem like a great way to hack forgetfulness, at
least for habitual email checkers. Unfortunately, everyone has figured this
out and abuses it. I click "unsubscribe" at least once a day.

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slotkin
in case you're interested in the code. this is a webapp build on scalatra with
a react/redux frontend and postgres.

[https://github.com/smatt989/decisions](https://github.com/smatt989/decisions)

