quantify this thursday: automagic

April 15, 2016 • by kerri

I try to track a lot of stuff, but I like that stuff to be as effortless as possible (I’m human, right?). The more stuff I track, the less likely I am to track a thing after a few days or a week, which means I really can’t do anything with that data. There are not a lot of things that will track themselves, however, thinking about this the other day, I became curious to do a bit of an inventory to see what kinds of things I am tracking basically automagically. (Magic, yes.)

Sleep.
For over 2 years (actually, well over 2 years, but I think some of my data got trapped in an old iPod or something before The Cloud was such a big thing), I’ve tapped the screen on my iPhone a few times to track my sleep—I use SleepCycle, and this same app acts as my alarm clock (and lets me use my own music—I actually initially bought it years ago because of that), so I have some motivation to set it. This is, aside from wearing my Fitbit, probably the most automated self-tracking actiivty that I do. So it’s not quite automagic… but it just about could be. (The Charge HR does have automatic sleep tracking though, as well, and I did use the sleep feature regularly on the One and Ultra).

Graphs from SleepCycle. Above, time I went to bed over the last two-plus years. Below, the odd waves of different activity levels on my sleep quality…

Activity.
I’ve been wearing a Fitbit since January 2012—first the Ultra, then the One, and now the Charge HR. This means, aside from the times that I’ve lost it or forgotten to wear it, I’ve been counting steps, calories burned, activity level, distance covered. Since May, I’ve got a near-continuous record of my heart rate—which is kind of ridiculous and I’m looking forward to someone getting that export heart rate thing figured out. And, since the invention of MobileTrack from Fitbit, even if my device dies on my wrist, I still accumulate a bit of data—though not as accurate as the thing attached to my body.
I also have a couple apps in my phone that serve this purpose. I’m not really sure why I haven’t deleted them yet, however.

Here’s also a little app called fit|line. It gives you all kinds of stats extracted from your Fitbit. It also says things like “You spend an average of 14 hours a day sedentary.” (Don’t worry. My Pebble Time is trying to put an end to that nonsense. Actually, I thought it would be like “You spend an average of 23 hours a day sedentary” so…)

All time Fitbit stats from Fit|Line.
Slightly different view…

Here you’ll see where I lost my Fitbit, or forgot to wear it, or it died or whatever.
You can also fairly easily pick out the spot in 2013 when I was super sick and when I was no longer in school and no longer working outside of the house.

Things I Set Up on IFTTT at Some Point And Forgot About.
Okay, let’s take a look.

If it rains, this gets sent to a spreadsheet in Google Drive. I was at some point going to trend this with peak flows and asthma symptoms but, ha, those don’t get logged automagically.
If humidity rises above 75% this gets added to a spreadsheet.
If I enter or exit a tennis club, these times are to be logged (a backup for logging my summer work hours).
This one doesn’t quite count because I have to manually check-in on Foursquare… SWARM. I have to check in on Swarm. (Damn these name changes, really.) but that does get sent to my Google Calendar. So if I forget when I went somewhere and I happened to check in on F—Swarm, then I can find out.

Computer Time.

I’ve been using RescueTime for quite awhile. So now I have all this data about how much time I spend doing what, and I really don’t do anything with that.

Similarly, I once installed Checky on my iPhone to see how many times I looked at my phone in a day, but it has to run in the background obviously, which then gets swiped closed.
Because once the guy at the Apple Store had to close all my apps and he told me he’d never seen that many apps open on a phone. And he works at the Apple Store. That’s pretty bad.

There are probably all kinds of other things, but that’s my rundown for 11:40 pm. I’ll add more here when I discover them.

12 of 12 / create / life / wellness / work / writing

12 of 12: april 2016

April 13, 2016 • by kerri

1:12 am | kitchen. Felt like making something around 11:45. Still making something.

1:19 am | kitchen. And this is where I stop for the night. Pleasantly surprised with how the hair is coming. (I’m responding to the “draw a song” art journal prompt I saw online, using Feels Like Forever by Lacey Sturm.)

2:00 am | bedroom. Tweet – “1:58 am seems like a good time to buy the @Smiling_Mind book right? Yup. Now to use the app and go to sleep.”
I did not end up using the app before I went to sleep, but I did almost also buy the November Project book… I restrained myself.

10:17 am | Perkins. Sam and I went to Perkins to plan practice, because my Starbucks card reload failed during the upgrade to #Crybucks Rewards. Starbucks is refunding it, but why would I go to Starbucks with it not resolved? So, Perkins. And these delightful crepe things filled with strawberries and cream cheese.

12:23 pm | Kitchen. I should really just start saying office instead of kitchen. I started the process of checking off many things from my to-do list with “file taxes”. As you may recall, they’ve been done since March 12… Submitted.

3:39 pm | Kitchen. After filing my taxes and scheduling my tooth extraction (being a grown up is AWESOME. Like I wrote the other day, I’ve got a cavity in a wisdom tooth so it gets to get pulled out. Which is better than getting it filled, really.) I got a 20 minute dance workout on. Except I did it wrong and ended with a peak heart rate… Poor music choices (actually due to the song linked above)…
Anyways, yeah, I then did another grown up activity and did some work, which involved writing a blog post about why warming up and cooling down is important, and how despite having a degree in kinesiology I’m not smart sometimes.

6:54 pm | Special O. Sometimes, we play games like Capture the Chicken that the parents are more intense about it than the kids (it does get the athletes stoked though..!). Yes, this guy is also my sport medicine doctor. 😉

9:31 pm | kitchen. 4 things checked off the month’s to-do list today.

9:49 pm | kitchen. This is my buddy Guide Dog Murray, aka Steve’s guide dog. You should vote for him in the Guide Dogs for the Blind photo contest. He’s raised $25 so far, because he’s cute (and because humans are nice).

11:00 pm | kitchen. I had a bath, and then put on clean socks… except I have no idea why there is red on this clean sock or what it is… Obviously I was like whatever and did not like, put other socks on or anything. Maybe it’s from that string anklet I’ve got on, but I’ve had that on for, like, months.

11:34 pm | kitchen. Classic. Cookies and milk. (There was another cookie but you don’t expect me to, like, save them both to take a picture of, right?)

12:38 am | kitchen. Technically no longer the 12th. But still within 24 hours and back to creating stuff. Because it’s like, therapeutic or something.

quantified self / quantify this

quantify this thursday: oral-b bluetooth toothbrush

April 7, 2016 • by kerri

Okay so I deviated from the blogging schedule already. You couldn’t really expect I’d last more than 2 days right? Even though I’m quantifying all the words…

Back in May 2015, I cashed in a good chunk of my Shoppers Optimum points for a Bluetooth toothbrush from Oral-B. (For some reason, I get points on prescriptions that I don’t personally spend money on. So, I cash them in for things like pulse oximeters, dust-proof mattress covers and Bluetooth toothbrushes. Yep.)

Toothbrush = $200. $170 = Shoppers Optimum points. $30 mail-in rebate. Toothbrush = free.

Which is good because $200 is outrageous. But Bluetooth is cool. And the toothbrush itself leaves my teeth feeling super smooth and clean for a good chunk of time longer than a regular electric toothbrush. [I switched from an oral-b electric, battery operated to this. I previously also owned, circa 2000, one of the first (I think) electric toothbrushes available in-your-home from Oral-B, sold by my dentist to my mother for my young-and-with-braces self. Sometime around then anyways. While that one had a two minute timer, there wasn’t anything custom about it–which, there probably is a lot less customizability in regular (non-Bluetooth) brushes all these years later compared to this one (how would you program it? Morse code?)

So, I’ve been using this thing for 47 weeks. I think that’s long enough to give it a pretty thorough review.

#actuallyridiculous

Here’s the app.

Welcome screen.

One other drawback, is that if you don’t input mouthwash, tongue cleaning (I still WTF at that. I do not use this feature.), or flossing immediately, too bad. So if, for instance, I don’t have the app open, I do not have a chance to record these activities. Which seems really silly.

By the way, I thought the Bluetooth brush would do more than it actually does. All that is, really, is put your toothbrushing stats in a graph so long as you actually sync every 10 sessions. Or else you have gaps, like I do when it deletes the data. It’s like a glorified stats app with a teeny bit of gamification.

I showed this bit to my dental hygenist at the dentist on Monday and she was like “Oh that’s so cool, it’s for your hygenist!” I laughed. Except I forgot to sync it on Monday, unfortunately. It’s synced now—which is as easy as either opening the app and a) removing the toothbrush from its dock, or b) pressing the mode button (particularly useful when travelling sans dock, as the toothbrush can handle about a week of use between charges. One battery downside, however, is that it does take FOREVER to charge, and it has a bright blue light that reflects all over the bathroom from the mirror and regularly gets a cloth thrown on top of it.)

Now yes, I did say “teeny bit of gamification” up there.

THERE ARE BADGES, GUYS. I’ve got the “7 day brushing streak” “14 day brushing streak” (2 times per day. Let’s be honest, it is easy to brush in the morning when you are getting ready to go out. I am doing really well right now at getting the morning—or early day—brush in, but it’s sometimes a challenge when I don’t go anywhere. Because, you know, food is about.) I’m up for the 30 day brushing streak next week. Also to get “professionally approved” your dentist has to use this app to set up your profile. So, is anybody going to actually get that? There are also SECRET BADGES. [They’re called trophies, but do those look like trophies? No they look like Foursquare badges from when Foursquare was cooler than it is now.]

This is my favourite badge, maybe. Not that the US is very foreign, but I forgot that this app had location services (to find you news and weather to check out while brushing. Nope, not joking.)

There are also a set of Oral Care Journeys you can do. Except, look, I’m just getting twice-a-day down consistently, I can’t get in too deep yet.

And for all of you “give me my data” fiends, there IS an export function… unfortunately, it’s practically useless, as you cannot export to .csv. COME ON, ORAL-B. I want to see if enhanced brushing is correlated with stuff. (…I don’t know really. Like what is more likely to make me lapse in the routine of brushing?)

So have a bit of work to go to be like the Bluetooth brush that I heard about at MedX 2012 that tells you if you’re missing segments of your mouth using Wiimote-esque technology. But whatever. I knew that before I got it, obviously, but still.

So, I mentioned my dentist appointment on Monday. Well, the good news is, the brush is doing quite a good job (as am I). I may need to set up a focused care routine for the backs of my bottom front teeth, and try to figure out how to get at my wisdom teeth better without gagging like I usually do (…I’m convinced that the dentist’s office has a “gagger” sticker on my file, because as soon as I walk in they address this issue. Although it did earn me a panoramic non-torturous x-ray SOMEHOW for the cheap price of $20 instead of the regular price the receptionist told me of $70. Which I was going to pay because it, like fluoride rinse, makes the whole thing SO MUCH LESS STRESSFUL. I told my hygenist “Good things come in small packages… except when it’s your mouth,” and she laughed. My dentist has previously told me to never let anyone tell me I have a big mouth. Ha.) The bad news? Well, those damn wisdom teeth. Apparently they are in straight and everything, but thanks, teeny mouth, back top righty has a cavity in it because I can’t get the toothbrush in there properly. So, it’s getting pulled, since that’ll be less work in the long run. (“I could pull it… Well, hmm… We could fill it… No, it’s going to be way too hard to get in there to fill it. I don’t think I even CAN get in there to fill it. Yep, I’m right, let’s do an extraction. Good job, I made the right call in the first place.” Bahaha. I was hoping he said to pull it, actually…)

So, post-insurance dentist total? $192, after not being there since August 2014. I thought it would be much worse. (Thanks, mom.) Getting a tooth pulled? $118. It’s not super major work, but underscores why I haven’t yet purchased private insurance, considering I can not die/not go super broke still regardless…

I don’t know how much the $200 toothbrush helped in the fact that I only had one cavity that, like my other cavities, they said I really couldn’t have done much to prevent, but hey… adherence encouraged by a little extrinsic motivation through an app can’t hurt, right?

Just give me some .csv or .xls export, post-brushing additional activities (mouthwash etc) logging, and a reminder to sync maybe (and that magic “you’re missing this part of your mouth” Wiimote tech) and I’ll be 110% happy. But, 95% is pretty okay too.

ADHD + learning disabilities / adventures / create / life

create something: paint nite

April 4, 2016April 3, 2016 • by kerri

The oldish new thing is to go to these events where an artist teaches you how to paint a picture, and drink adult beverages.

Except I don’t drink, so I went to one of these events on Saturday night and learned to paint a thing. It was also a fundraiser so I went and learned to paint a thing for a good cause (or so my cousin Alyssa can be sent away on dance competiton trips. One or the other, or both.)

We signed in, flipped our canvases around (to claim them), and then waited for the fun to start. Then we flipped our canvases back the right way.

Note my non-alcoholic $2.50 iced tea beside my canvas there. Also I thought I was totally going to need more red eventually, but nope. Then we had to promise to not say that our thing sucked at any point. Which just meant that my cousin Jenn and I quietly discussed our perceived suck-ness at the break. 😉 (I said perceived suck-ness. It’s subjective, just like art, it’s fiiiine. We did it quietly at break and whatever.)

This was not my favourite picture I could have painted, but I guess that just means they’ll sell me on another event, right? This is the artist’s.

I was mildly confident going in, except for I think I’m more confident (and do better, even, possibly) when I can actually self-depreciate a little bit. It’s like, motivating-ish. Self-depreciation, and other related things, were against the “oath” we took before we started painting. Which mostly meant I had to be quiet about it. I am okay with making fun of myself, it does not bother me. There must be research supporting this!

Anyways.

Phase one, sky. I intended to take a picture every time we were forced to stop for instructions, except—typical—i did not always listen to that instruction.

Phase two: Grass. Here’s the part where I started hating on my grass. I mean, I was partly more engrossed in painting the sky all pretty than I was listening to the grass tutorial.
I mean, I listened but then I returned to painting sky. Jungle grass is what I ended up with here. So, I started hating on my grass out of earshot of the instructor who would surely tell me it looks fiiiine like Alyssa and my aunt did.

Alyssa and I also pretended we knew things about art before we started. Which, nope not really.

Phase three: And then there were flowers. Also later on the artist told us that taking a picture would make our paintings look better if we weren’t happy with them. So, I mean, yeah, maybe my grass looks better after having taken a picture of it? Or that could be that I did a bunch of touching up with black and white and stuff in there.

Mine, the sample, and the instructional piece. In retrospect (aka 10 minutes after painting the orange in), bigger clouds would have been excellent.

I thought I’d have some good, introspective things to say here when I decided, pre-painting, that I was writing a blog post on this—something self-expression-y or therapeutic or whatever. Like when I went to thermea or when I started creating things on purpose last year. Instead, I found this a bit of a challenge and that I was rather hyperfocused, which in some situations is good, and others it is extremely frustrating and difficult—last night was the latter, I think. Like, I legitimately missed the how to paint the flower instruction (which ended up totally okay) beyond “Start with a V” because I was still working on the grass (I copied Alyssa, it was cool). So, I do think that aspect—which can vary on a day to day basis—might have detracted from the experience a bit. (And maybe I should do my next Paint Nite without my ADHD meds—except I might still hyperfocus anyways. Also I didn’t intend for this to wind up being about ADHD either. It just truly does affect everything.

With that, I’ll end this with an after-the-fact realization that in life, we’re all creating the same thing, but they’re all going to turn out differently because we are who we are. Or something.

(Photo cred to my aunt, Linda)

That’s the Paint Nite nugget of wisdom. Maybe the “drink creatively” slogan is what leads to the insight—or, at least more creative acceptance ;). (Not that I’m going to start now.)

PS. Yes, I did sign my painting with a Sharpie once I got home.

life / work / writing

write all the things april

April 1, 2016 • by kerri

Now that I’ve started using Bullet Journaling to try to organize my life (post on that to come), I seem to have begun tackling (or at least scheduling to tackle) a few big projects for April.

First, you’ll be seeing me more here. I’ve got a schedule (!) mapped out for the month, although this post is already not the post I said I’d write today (because, duh, it’s me).

I’ve also decided to take another plunge into Camp Nanowrimo (aka National Novel Writing Month, aka trying to write a 50000 word novel in 30 days—like, nonsense, really!). I made it like 26% or something last time, so, I’m curious if I actually will succeed this time (this will be proof of the magic of the Bullet Journal). I’m trying a different story that will hopefully not get me as bogged down in researching very specific things (because I am great at that—distraction FTW). With a few travel days on the agenda for April as well, I’m trying to do 2000 words per day on that project… and that’s just one component of my writing life. I’m going to need to get this standing desk setup rolling, stat.

And, this is on top of a few other blog contract gigs, coaching, and my other regular life. It’s mildly ambitious, but hey, I’ve made a timetable (!) for my life (!) and it still has, theoretically, plenty of free time. And workouts scheduled. And… Oh, God, what am I doing here?

Oh well, let’s give it a shot.

It’s on, April.

PS. The snow has already melted twice, yet it’s supposed to snow again today.

PPS. None of this is an April Fool’s.

PPPS. I love WestJet

Kerri on the Prairies

Seeing life differently.

quantify this thursday: automagic

12 of 12: april 2016

quantify this thursday: oral-b bluetooth toothbrush

create something: paint nite

write all the things april

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