The first thought for me when starting the tracking was that it either must be automatic, or extremely easy. I simply don't have time or motivation to fill in manually complicated and long web form to track what I eat or how much do I exercise.
When I started my logging project my first goal was to find right tools for tracking. I had three request for the tools:
I have already used Endomondo for tracking my exercise, so I needed a generic tool to track rest and eating. There are quite a many specialised apps for tracking that, but many seem quite complicated and don't have export option.
The easiest app I found for Tap Log which looks really promising after a couple of days testing. The idea of Tap Log is that you can easily log anything in 5 seconds. You can create things you want to log and then create logs really fast.
When I started my logging project my first goal was to find right tools for tracking. I had three request for the tools:
- They need to work on my Android phone
- They need to be extremely fast and easy to use
- There has to be an option to export data to excel (or some other general format)
I have already used Endomondo for tracking my exercise, so I needed a generic tool to track rest and eating. There are quite a many specialised apps for tracking that, but many seem quite complicated and don't have export option.
The easiest app I found for Tap Log which looks really promising after a couple of days testing. The idea of Tap Log is that you can easily log anything in 5 seconds. You can create things you want to log and then create logs really fast.
My idea was to track at least in the beginning things in five main categories:
I then created things I want to log in each of these categories, for example in Food category I added the following things:
- Food (in general, how regular is my eating, not calories etc. I eat)
- Sleep (how much do I sleep and what is my sleep quality)
- Exercise (probably I still will use Endomondo for this)
- Free time (what I do in my free time, for example how much do I spend watching TV)
- Work (some work related things)
I then created things I want to log in each of these categories, for example in Food category I added the following things:
Creating all the categories and things to log is extremely easy in Tap Log. Creating the structure I described above took me maybe 10 minutes. And then everything is ready for logging.
You can log three different kinds of things in Tap Log:
Logging happens in Tap Log by tapping the thing you want to log. Then a new screen opens where you enter the value you want to log, for when I want to log water I drink (quantity) the following screen opens:
You can log three different kinds of things in Tap Log:
- Quantity (in other words, any number)
- Rating (a 1-5 stars)
- Text (any free text you type)
Logging happens in Tap Log by tapping the thing you want to log. Then a new screen opens where you enter the value you want to log, for when I want to log water I drink (quantity) the following screen opens:
I enter the amount (for example 2, if I drink 2 dl of water), and then tap Log. It takes about 10 seconds to open the app and make log entry. Easy and fast, just like I want it.
When you make logs you can also of course check the entries you have made. It looks like this:
When you make logs you can also of course check the entries you have made. It looks like this:
And of course, you can easily export all date to Excel-format and share it where ever you want to, I use Dropbox.
So this looks like quite a promising way to start logging information about things I want to know about. Next steps would be to log this information for a while, then check what the data looks like in Excel and how what I do matches my goals. I probably also need to find a bit more detailed way to log what I eat and details about my exercise.
So this looks like quite a promising way to start logging information about things I want to know about. Next steps would be to log this information for a while, then check what the data looks like in Excel and how what I do matches my goals. I probably also need to find a bit more detailed way to log what I eat and details about my exercise.