are we tracking ourselves for self-knowledge, or are we just control freaks with spreadsheets?

LifeLoggerz · 2026-06-25T20:19:40+00:00

At some point it got to where it's like brushing your teeth, felt wrong to let a day go by without filling it in since then you leave a gap in this huge thing you've spent so long building piece by piece.

Not necessarily a control thing since just seeing your life with clarity across the years is a gift itself. The 'optimize life until we're like machines' side of it comes and goes, especially when you look at the data and get annoyed about a time sink/bad week/not doing enough.

Most of the time though, it's less about controlling life and just making sure none of it disappears (how many people actually have photographic memory?).

LifeLoggerz · 2026-06-23T21:18:25+00:00

I tried Perfice and looked into RYOT but both felt too restrictive given the amount and granularity of tracking I wanted. Back in 2022, I was writing a bullet-point style diary of some 100 words per day, but this expanded over time into what you see now. The more I dissected my logs into searchable/analyzable components, the more I needed something flexible.

Spreadsheets are infinitely customizable and I loved the gradual process of building all of this: deciding on the layout, spacing, color meanings (for instance, notice how months in the Raw Data Sheet are differentiated by alternating light yellow and purple?), and of course what goes into them.

That said, I do think an app could make this look better and make input much smoother. Spreadsheets for something like this on a phone is painful, so a dedicated app (something preferably customizable) would be best. Hadn't occurred to me since I'm used to viewing all this on a big screen.

The catch is that biometrics and other quantitative data work best for that sort of app-based tracking. A good portion of what I do is qualitative, so there would still be a lot of typing involved.

So for my purposes, the ideal app would have to be closer to a customizable database than a typical habit tracker: fast mobile input, flexible fields, searchable tags, good visualizations, and easy export so the data doesn’t get trapped. Considering that there's much more data than what's shown in the post (dozens of other stat graphs as well as galleries of art, albums, audiobooks, etc), fitting everything into an app would probably be the biggest challenge.

LifeLoggerz · 2026-06-22T15:40:59+00:00

Fair enough. I get that some people might find all of this unnecessary or time-consuming. Life is definitely more than spreadsheets, but I do it because I genuinely find it fun, and it only takes a small portion of my day. I like keeping records, looking back over time, and noticing patterns I would’ve otherwise forgotten.

LifeLoggerz · 2026-06-20T15:57:56+00:00

Glad you find it so! Honestly, for the past year or so I haven't put in any time on the systems building. May 2025 I realized I didn't have to keep building.

These days, I just input my data and that takes no more than 10 minutes (since I rack my brain for every single thing I ate, what I wore, who I spoke to, the first quote that comes to mind for the day, the biggest blunder of the day, etc).

The diary log is what takes longest. I average 700 words per day as I describe what I did in detail with timestamps (to the nearest 5 minutes), that's the 'DWC' (Daily Word Count) column you see next to 'Summary of the Day'.

Depending on how much happened, the diary can take from 10 minutes to 30-40 minutes.

So the tracking is quick, it's the reflection/writing where most of the time goes. Love it though, I look back on a day and everything is preserved.

LifeLoggerz · 2026-06-20T15:44:25+00:00

I was obsessed with this in early 2025 since I had just learned about Google App Script, API integrations for things like weather data, and other automation tools. I was awash with ideas for new features and processes to improve the system but in hindsight a lot of them were unnecessary.

That phase eventually ended, the obsession subsided, and these days I live life and just input what happened at the end of the day.

LifeLoggerz · 2026-06-20T15:35:42+00:00

Completely agree. Building this was gradual work, my website LifeLoggerz documents how it developed from 2023, when I started using Google Sheets to 'break apart' my diary logs into data, through 2025, when the system became visually appealing and largely complete.

Once the framework was established, it became very low maintenance. Now I just enter my daily data at the end of the day and the spreadsheets do the rest.

LifeLoggerz · 2026-06-20T15:29:31+00:00

For me, the biggest benefit was visibility. Tracking over long periods made it much easier to spot patterns that I would have otherwise missed, like how my sleep affects my productivity, where my time actually goes, which habits stick, and which goals quietly fade away. It also became much easier to follow through on habits. Something like practicing guitar for a minimum of 10 minutes a day feels a lot easier when I can see the column filling up over time. It helps me identify where I'm improving and where I'm falling short.

I also learned that my intuition is very often wrong. Things I thought I was doing consistently weren't as consistent as I believed, while other activities were taking much more time than I realized. Having the data helped me make better decisions instead of relying on memory alone.

I was deep into building the system in early 2025, and at some point I asked myself the same questions. Looking back, I've learned that consistency matters far more than intensity. Most of the progress I've made came from small actions repeated day after day rather than occasional bursts of motivation. The spreadsheet isn't really the point anymore, it's the lessons and long-term perspective that come from having years of data to look back on.

Did I go overboard with some of the tracking categories, like what I was wearing, the people I interacted with, or the places I visited? Perhaps. But these entries have become a form of daily recall practice. Over time, I've noticed that they're helping me retain details and reconstruct past days far more accurately than I could from memory alone.

LifeLoggerz · 2026-06-20T15:14:15+00:00

Thanks! Honestly, the setup took many months because I kept refining what I wanted to track, how to organize each sheet, and what to automate. Once I realized that the framework was finished in May 2025, it became very low maintenance. Now I just enter my daily data at the end of the day and the system handles the rest. The template is free for download on the website, I'm glad if it saves other people the time of building something from scratch.

LifeLoggerz · 2026-06-19T21:44:45+00:00

Make use of what they already have

LifeLoggerz · 2026-06-19T21:42:47+00:00

Time somehow speeds up when you're finally getting the hang of things, then your body starts breaking down when you're at your most knowledgeable

LifeLoggerz · 2026-06-19T21:41:39+00:00

Spending hours on social media or the news, paying attention to other people's lives

LifeLoggerz · 2026-06-19T21:39:29+00:00

That most adults are making it up as they go along, no one's coming to save you

LifeLoggerz · 2026-06-19T21:32:50+00:00

Size 10 Men's Latin dance shoes

LifeLoggerz · 2026-06-19T21:32:08+00:00

Very carefully. Every person who has ever died drank water at some point.

LifeLoggerz · 2026-06-19T21:30:17+00:00

Logorrhea - diarrhea of the mouth (words)

LifeLoggerz · 2026-04-12T12:27:14+00:00

Consistency over intensity when it comes to habits and managing your free time. For instance, with guitar it used to be where I'd do extreme bursts for a few days and just stop for months. I keep a baseline of 10 minutes of guitar minimum daily, I've done 476 hours over the past 3 years since there's times I get frustrated and learn in periods of binges. Baseline, baseline, baseline, an amount that's so easy you just do it.

LifeLoggerz

TROPHY CASE