One unexpectedly great application for Apple Watch: stochastic self-sampling. e.g. here's my mental energy level throughout the day.
Can use notification actions to respond in one tap, so it's low-friction enough for 10+ prompts per day; and works when away from computer.
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That's >500 data points over the past couple months. Hard to imagine collecting that if I had to remember to diary, or even if it required pulling out my phone.
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I used this app to collect the data: apps.apple.com/us/app/tracker
Unfortunately, it only supports one prompt at a time. I'd also like to sample eg:
- "How curious am I feeling?"
- "How dutiful am I feeling?"
- "What am I thinking about?" (can use scribble / watch mic / top list)
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At least for me, the conceptual model of most auto-"time trackers" doesn't work at all. Yes, I was hopping back and forth between a PDF viewer and a text editor all morning… what does that tell me? Storing the window titles adds little extra signal (for me). And I'm often AFK.
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Stochastic self-sampling makes a lot more sense for me. i.e. at random periodic intervals, ask: what are you doing? This has to be extremely low-friction, of course. Unfortunately, existing solutions assume all my work is at my computer…
messymatters.com/tagtime/
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I should warn folks trying this app: it has no data visualizations whatsoever; it just exports JSON, which you can then munge however you like. Not ideal, but…
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I used this app to collect the data: apps.apple.com/us/app/tracker
Unfortunately, it only supports one prompt at a time. I'd also like to sample eg:
- "How curious am I feeling?"
- "How dutiful am I feeling?"
- "What am I thinking about?" (can use scribble / watch mic / top list)
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Mr. has a very intense way to achieve self-sampling: a dedicated smartphone set up on his desk, which demands input every minute(!) about what he's doing.
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Stochastic self-sampling makes a lot more sense for me. i.e. at random periodic intervals, ask: what are you doing? This has to be extremely low-friction, of course. Unfortunately, existing solutions assume all my work is at my computer…
messymatters.com/tagtime/
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Have you tried Reporter? It’s not on watch, but at least a phone app gives you freedom to use it away from your desk.
apps.apple.com/au/app/reporte
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Replying to @maxkriegers and @feltron
Yes! Such a gorgeous app. I used this a bunch when it came out, but I found that the friction of using my phone meant I'd only respond to prompts a couple times a day. With the watch (and notification actions) I'm happy to respond 3-5x as often.
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Yes! Stochastic sampling is a shockingly effective method at low overhead - whether sampling code or humans. I set up a system like that on myself once - to find sources of distraction “what are u actually doing v what are u supposed to be doing?” - worked great.
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