
The Surprising Benefits of Relentlessly Auditing Your Life - sajid
https://www.nytimes.com/2019/05/25/opinion/gender-marriage-spreadsheet.html
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mettamage
When I used to do conscious self improvement, I journaled. I simply answered
the prompt: what did I do to achieve my goal today, and what can I do better?

This had the same effect as their quantitative approach: you start to see
patterns.

I’d suggest: the profound enabler of change isn’t the quantitative aspect of
it, it is that you’re logging data in the first place.

Our brains can’t log that much. Notepads and spreadsheets can.

Of course, quantitative va qualitative have some trade offs, but the low
hanging fruit is data logging, not Excel.

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MuffinFlavored
so... I'm with this, but... I know the results my logs would be.

I want to work out and be in great shape. Run, stretch, weights, yada yada.

I can log all day. It won't change the fact that I'm lazy/just don't have the
work ethic to actually do it.

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on_and_off
I am not sure if that helps you, a tech salary (or similar) might be necessary
to pull it off this way :

I am not exactly disciplined, I have thought for years about working out
instead of actually doing it.

Until one year ago. I have started working with a trainer. It is insanely
expensive BUT it helps a lot in establishing a routine. The exercises
themselves are pretty standard, but having somebody to give you a program
adapted to your current condition and to correct your movements help
tremendously.

I have changed from not working out to working out 4-5 times a week.

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dorchadas
That's exactly what did it for me, too. Except it wasn't a trainer, but a
Couch to 5k like podcast. I found one that was much much more beginner
friendly than C25k and also gave a strength and rest plan. Using the podcast
and seeing hte weeks go by has made me much more motivated to get out and run,
even on wet 5 degree centigrade days, let alone the 30 degree days.

Just something to hold yourself accountable to, really. I've also found it's
why many of my other projects/ideas/desires don't pan out. There's nothing to
hold me accountable, so I get bored and move on. It sucks, because it feels
like I'm trapped in a rutt, but I don't know of a way to really manage that.

~~~
francisofascii
Last year I started a "streaking" program. You have to run at least one mile
every day for a year. Eventually it becomes a habit like coffee. Once you get
so many days in you don't want to break the streak. I went 430 days without a
day off. Worth a try.

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lifeisstillgood
I have a secret startup plan - MOOPs

Massive Open Online Psychology.

You wire your house with iPhones or Alexas recording your daily conversations
with your family - it records things like "number of positive responses" vs
"number negative responses" when replying to your spouse or children.

There are dozens of simple verbal checks one can pull out of even fairly raw
speech to text, let alone visual dances.

And imagine if you had a monthly review with a therapist how had all this data
at their fingertips- and could coach you and your spouse to improve the worst
of it.

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Fezzik
Slight tangent: somehow I cannot find it, but there is an amazing TedX video
where a Google engineer tracked how his child learned words by effectively
doing this and recording and tracking everyone’s voices and paths in the home.
The amount of data he stored and crunched was impressive.

You may want to hit him up for his tech setup :)

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asdf333
yes. deb roy from mit media lab.

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badpun
> Our spreadsheets hammered home that what contributed most to our happiness
> was time spent together or with friends — while, crucially, not working —
> and there was no way to get more of that if we continued to live in the Bay
> Area, one of the most expensive parts of the country. So I proposed an idea
> that would have seemed radical were there not so much data backing it: “I
> think you should quit your job, we should sell our house, and we should move
> somewhere cheaper,” I told my husband matter-of-factly one day. So we did.

Will be kind of hard to meet with friends, as they have all stayed in the Bay
Area?

~~~
maneesh
You are allowed to make new friends, even as an adult. As someone who has
lived in a dozen cities in my adult life, it does take effort. But it seems
like, as the author is willing to take the effort to track and adjust their
life, they are likely willing to put in time to make new friends.

I've found meetup.com to be an excellent way to make friends, as well as
hobbies. (for me, standup comedy and DJing were excellent).

~~~
village-idiot
Group fitness classes at some gyms have a stable cohort that you’ll bond with
over time.

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badpun
We need a different word than "friends" for such bonds though... Someone who
does not know your birthday is not a friend.

~~~
village-idiot
Repeated interaction is a necessary first step to friendship, you cannot
befriend someone you don’t see. My gym buddies are now my friends, and we see
each other regularly outside of the gym context.

Also, most of my friends don’t know when my birthday is, so that’s a bad
metric imho. Birthdays are not universally important across the population.

~~~
sirsar
I read a metric on a different thread recently: good friends help you move.

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marcinzm
>We’re in a much more precarious place financially now, after a few non-
spreadsheet-related surprises, but we’re still determined to make whatever
decisions we can to improve our lives.

This, imho, shows the issue with basing life decisions so relentlessly on
personal data no matter how well collected. Either the unexpected catastrophic
scenario hasn't happened so you don't hedge for it or it has happened and you
hedge too much on it happening again. Just like basing stock decisions on the
recent past is great right until a recession or bubble hits to wipe you out.

~~~
karlmcguire
You're basically describing the black swan problem [1], but I'm not sure what
your argument has to do with the premise of the article, which I understood as
"tracking your life in a mechanical manner allows you to make better, more
objective decisions."

Are you saying we shouldn't track aspects of our lives because that could lead
to essentially "overfitting" decisions based on personal data? I don't think
the data or the collection of the data is the problem - it's ignoring black
swans.

I'd argue that our decisions are always influenced by our personal, recent
past. If it's not explicitly written down in a spreadsheet, it's imprinted on
our subconscious and associated with related emotions.

At least spreadsheets/journals allow us insight into details that we're likely
to forget in our day-to-day lives. I think personal tracking is a net positive
for anyone.

[1]:
[https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Black_Swan:_The_Impact_of_...](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Black_Swan:_The_Impact_of_the_Highly_Improbable)

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klipt
> I think you should quit your job

> We’re in a much more precarious place financially now

Hmm...

~~~
all2
You forgot the part immediately following your out of context quote where she
says they had multiple large expenses that were inexpected.

You suggest (by placing those two quotes together) that seeking happiness in a
less expensive area will put people in financially precarious situations.

I'd like to know why you decided these quotes go together, and why they don't
merit being quoted in proper context?

~~~
twblalock
> You suggest (by placing those two quotes together) that seeking happiness in
> a less expensive area will put people in financially precarious situations.

That may be true.

The Bay Area has expensive housing, but a lot of things cost the about the
same everywhere in the country -- an iPhone, a Honda Civic, a lawnmower, a
water heater, clothing, school supplies, etc.

The salaries in the Bay Area are also a lot higher than elsewhere. People
spend a lot of money on housing, but all of the other stuff they buy costs a
smaller portion of their income than it does in other places.

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jumpinalake
Something about this article felt disjointed. I read back over the jarring
part to see if I had somehow skipped over a section or read it in the wrong
order.

~~~
unforeseen9991
I felt something amiss as well, and then I realized what it was, it was built
to force compliance in a family dynamic

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aerophilic
I have often thought about ways of optimizing my life, but doing so in a
minimally invasive/time suck matter.

One element, mentioned in the article, is coming up with your “happiness
score”. However the way they suggest it seems a bit onerous. I almost wonder
if it would be easier to do a “happy or not” style of data collection.
Basically like the ones you see at airports, but maybe tied to facial
recognition so you know _who_ in the family is recording it.

Ideally you would add more metrics (like sleep monitor), but I feel having
just that much would be beneficial.

Thoughts on this? Can anyone think of an easier method for the basic data
collection (which doesn’t involve someone filling out a spreadsheet?)

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Toine
As the saying goes, "life is what happens when you're busy making other
plans".

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np_tedious
I've been curious about this for a while. Seems like it is a lot of work but
could be useful in small sustained bursts of effort (maybe 2 months) - much
like diet logging. Will yield some insights and benefits and you don't have to
keep it up forever.

Anyone have suggestions for software or other tools? The article explained
motivations but was pretty light on the methods. To stretch the analogy above,
is there a MyFitnessPal for this or do people's aims vary enough the everyone
just rolls their own spreadsheets?

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holri
A live organized and optimized like a Toyota factory seems absurd to me.

