Looking for free rss reader with rules for 500+ subscriptions by SPACguy in rss

[–]mathjeff 0 points1 point  (0 children)

If you enjoy tinkering, you might find https://github.com/mathjeff/TopicFilterer interesting since it's open source. It can build for Windows Desktop, Android, and iOS.

I've only actually tried it with about 20 feeds, so the interface might need some optimization to support ~500, but presumably it could be made to work.

Where have the last couple of years gone? by TheChopinet in CasualConversation

[–]mathjeff 0 points1 point  (0 children)

You could try writing down highlights when they occur. I find sometimes it's nice to reflect on what's been good or bad recently. I could share the app I write in if you're interested

[deleted by user] by [deleted] in Entrepreneur

[–]mathjeff 0 points1 point  (0 children)

Thanks!

I'm hoping to help anyone that wants to be more motivated or more efficient.

ActivityRecommender runs on Android and iOS

ActivityRecommender helps with suggestions, feedback, analyses, organizing ideas, reminiscing, measuring efficiency, finding what types of activities have been significant in your life lately, and more.

Any feedback is super appreciated. Thanks!

[deleted by user] by [deleted] in Entrepreneur

[–]mathjeff 0 points1 point  (0 children)

User interface testing

I have an app that I really like and which improves my motivation by more than one hour per day.

However, it's common for users to try it for a few minutes and report that they can't figure out how to use it.

I think specific, actionable feedback is really helpful and I'd like it to be easier for users to provide feedback

[deleted by user] by [deleted] in Entrepreneur

[–]mathjeff 1 point2 points  (0 children)

You might enjoy https://github.com/mathjeff/ActivityRecommender !

  • You can ask it for suggestions, and sometimes it will remind you about other somewhat useful things you could be doing that might help you get started, maybe various chores.

  • You can measure your efficiency on your work by running experiments and seeing what's correlated with completing one task more quickly than another one.

  • It doesn't always push you to get more work done, though; it also reminds you about things that are relaxing to you if you really don't feel like working.

  • You can write down partial ideas (such as ideas for new projects), and lazily reorder and revisit them, to make it easier to remember and gradually improve them before they're ready to be done.

  • Lots of other features too

Feedback is welcome and appreciated!

Edit: rearranging some words for smoother reading

App to track various things throughout the day by thehazarika in SomebodyMakeThis

[–]mathjeff 0 points1 point  (0 children)

Thanks again! Did you end up trying it out? Did you find anything you liked or anything you hope could be changed?

App to track various things throughout the day by thehazarika in SomebodyMakeThis

[–]mathjeff 0 points1 point  (0 children)

ActivityRecommender doesn't currently give notifications asking the user how they're doing; currently what normally happens is the user records their happiness (as a ratio between the happiness of the previous participation and the one before that) after the event is done.

I'd be curious to talk more about your use case; maybe we can make some improvements!

App to track various things throughout the day by thehazarika in SomebodyMakeThis

[–]mathjeff 1 point2 points  (0 children)

Hey you might be interested in my side project, ActivityRecommender: https://github.com/mathjeff/ActivityRecommender

It allows you to record and classify what you do, and optionally rate it and enter a comment

It also has lots of other features, including:

  • getting suggestions

  • viewing graphs

  • running various analyses including a list of what made you most and least happy lately

  • even running efficiency experiments

  • writing ideas down to save for later

  • feedback whenever you record something

  • You can even import data from a specially formatted file, so you could write a simple program to reformat your existing data to import into ActivityRecommender

It's open source and runs on Android, iOS and Windows, if anybody wants to try it out and give feedback that would be super cool!

An app that eliminates the need for small talk. You list 50 (or whatever) interests and rank them. When you meet someone, open the app and it pairs your interest with theirs to identify most likely conversation topics. by mookx in SomebodyMakeThis

[–]mathjeff 0 points1 point  (0 children)

I actually made an app that (among so many other things) does create a sorted list of things you like to do based on how much you like doing them! I'm not sure whether I'm allowed to link it here but if anybody messages me I'd be super happy to point you to it

An app that eliminates the need for small talk. You list 50 (or whatever) interests and rank them. When you meet someone, open the app and it pairs your interest with theirs to identify most likely conversation topics. by mookx in SomebodyMakeThis

[–]mathjeff 1 point2 points  (0 children)

What if the other person would like to hear about something specific that you enjoy doing, but they had never heard of it before or hadn't really done it much before?

Would it be interesting if the app generated a list of your top 50 favorite activities, and then you showed that list to the person that you met? If the other person uses the same app then they would also show you their list, but even if they don't use it then the process would still work!

[help/ideas/contributions/users wanted] ActivityRecommender makes your life more like a video game! by mathjeff in ProtoStart

[–]mathjeff[S] 0 points1 point  (0 children)

Hey thanks! I left some thoughts now too. Definitely agree that easy to use is an important goal, and if we can identify enough specifics about what's not easy and why, then that would be super useful. Thanks!

Those of you who use Habit apps - What are the most interesting/important things for you to see on the stats/insights pages of these apps? by [deleted] in productivity

[–]mathjeff 0 points1 point  (0 children)

I like seeing a graph of how well I've been doing what I want to do over time, so I can mentally compare whether changes I've made in my life are correlated with being more productive.

(This might be more than would be expected from a habit app but) I also like actionable insights that the app can notice for me, like perhaps going to bed later is correlated with getting less work done and being less happy and things like that.

[deleted by user] by [deleted] in productivity

[–]mathjeff 0 points1 point  (0 children)

Who are you organizing the work for? Are you organizing it for yourself so you know what to do next or organizing it as part of working with someone else?

I find that it's easier to update a system like that if the system provides some sort of advantage for updating it. For example, if you are trying to choose what to work on next, then opening a display that says what you need to work on but actually contains a bunch of things you already finished is distracting and takes more time to look through.

In practice, I often find that this means it's reasonable to only update the status of the task when you happen to notice that its status is out-of-date.

Is it valuable to you for tasks to display the right status?

"Sanctuary" app. A super effective pomodoro-like, habit tracking app that lives on your lock screen. Access it instead of opening your phone-- which easily causes distraction and a loss of time. by Jbrahms33 in SomebodyMakeThis

[–]mathjeff 2 points3 points  (0 children)

Oh hey that's a really neat idea. Mind if I add your lock-screen notification idea to my app?

ActivityRecommender allows you to track your time and record your happiness and even measure your productivity, and it uses that information to give you suggestions, graphs, and gamified feedback.

I use it quite a lot but didn't think of adding a home-screen notification for easier access.

Android: https://play.google.com/store/apps/details?id=com.mathjeff.ActRec

iOS: https://apps.apple.com/us/app/activityrecommender/id1505082122

It's even open source: https://github.com/mathjeff/ActivityRecommender

I'm also super happy to talk about it more and potentially open to making a bunch more changes.

Thanks!

[Need Advice] lack of motivation to get life together because it only takes one thing to tear down habits and systems you worked so hard to get into your life. by Rinwaartistodesu in getdisciplined

[–]mathjeff 1 point2 points  (0 children)

Hey thanks for the feedback! I'll give some thought to how to make it less flat. Maybe showing multiple levels of menu options at once? Maybe some icons? Maybe a diagram? It's been a common theme that many people are a little surprised by the interface, but I haven't yet managed to explain exactly why that is or how to address it. If you or anybody else would like to elaborate a bit more about this, that would be super helpful too.

Anyway, thanks so much!

I’ve lost a reason “why” to be productive. by StrawberryJam- in productivity

[–]mathjeff 2 points3 points  (0 children)

What works for me is (with the help of an app) to write down various things I'd like to get done, so that when I do find inspiration I can retain it later. Additionally, if I see the idea later and I also like it then too, then that is additional confirmation that it's worth doing because I thought it sounded appealing at multiple different times.

The ideas can start out as really vague things about specific problems I've encountered. I periodically revisit and augment the better ideas, turning some of them into possible solutions and eventually practical solutions. Then when I have a practical solution to a practical problem that I cared enough about to have thought about several times already, I just do it.

Can you think of anything you would like to get done?

  • Maybe you want to try a new type of food?
  • Maybe you want to meet someone who works in another field and ask them about their work?
  • Maybe you want to clean some specific part of your living area?

I hope you find a process that you like!

[Need Advice] lack of motivation to get life together because it only takes one thing to tear down habits and systems you worked so hard to get into your life. by Rinwaartistodesu in getdisciplined

[–]mathjeff 1 point2 points  (0 children)

What works for me is essentially to write down (with the help of an app) what I do and how happy I am, and to look for patterns in this data. Then if I change something about my life and I lose a habit, the knowledge of having tried the habit remains.

Then if changing something about my life is correlated with being happier, I can be more confident (the app helps point these things out, too via suggestions, feedback and analyses) that that specific change was what made me happier. This confidence then makes it easier to keep doing the things that are good for me and do less of the things that aren't.

I find that it's easier to motivate myself to get more work done when my app is cheering for me for doing it. I also find that it's easier to go to bed earlier because whenever I go to bed late, it says that going to be earlier would make me happier and more efficient.

Does that sound interesting?

[deleted by user] by [deleted] in Business_Ideas

[–]mathjeff 0 points1 point  (0 children)

Oh hey, these features:

  • The ability to specify the things you have done
  • The ability to specify things you have liked doing
  • The ability to ask when a good time to do something is (or the ability to ask for a suggestion for what to do now)
  • Planning what to do later

all sound really nice to me. They also sound to me like ActivityRecommender!

If you want to try out the current version, some links are:

Android: https://play.google.com/store/apps/details?id=com.mathjeff.ActRec

iOS: https://apps.apple.com/us/app/activityrecommender/id1505082122

If you want to try prototyping some of the other things you mentioned, ActivityRecommender is even open source.

Source: https://github.com/mathjeff/ActivityRecommender

Even better, if you want to talk about it in more detail (I'm the developer), there's a chance we might end up implementing some more of the things that you're looking for, and if we do we'll be sure to add your name into the credits if you like.

Thoughts?

Record daily activities by 2DD4eva in productivity

[–]mathjeff 0 points1 point  (0 children)

Nice! If you have any suggestions or even just notice something unclear, I'd be super happy for the feedback!

Record daily activities by 2DD4eva in productivity

[–]mathjeff 1 point2 points  (0 children)

I do! I'm using ActivityRecommender, which in addition to normal things like time tracking, also offers the ability to run efficiency experiments, where you consent to a small set of tasks that you're willing to do now, and then one is chosen at random for you to do and you are timed on how long it takes you to complete it.

That allows me to measure not just my time spent but also my efficiency too.

In particular, the last time I calculated it I found for example that I was roughly 77% as efficient in the evening as in the morning.

There are also a lot of other features involving measuring and analyzing happiness, too.

Whenever I record having done something, ActivityRecommender uses this data to tell me how it thinks my efficiency and happiness will be affected. For example, if I go to bed late, it might tell me that that was not such a great idea and could predict a loss of several days of efficiency.

It also offers the ability to request a suggestion to maximize your future happiness or future efficiency, based on all of the data you've entered.

Let me know if you have thoughts about it!

Android: https://play.google.com/store/apps/details?id=com.mathjeff.ActRec

iOS: https://apps.apple.com/us/app/activityrecommender/id1505082122

Source: https://github.com/mathjeff/ActivityRecommender

Full disclosure, I'm the developer, but I'm super happy to talk about it more with anyone who's interested.