A couple of weeks ago I listened to the Audio Version of Cultivate. It struck a nerve with me. I realized that I am great at picking out goals but I have trouble tracking them. And what good does that dome if I have no idea how I am doing? After reading Cultivate I was tempted to buy some power sheets bit, in the end, I felt that it would be one more thing to keep up with and it would not satisfy my nerdy data heart. I want graphs and chart and all of that. I went on the hunt for a program or even a spreadsheet that would allow me to mark stuff off and give me a nice chart to look at.
A blogger that I follow was geeking out about this program. It is exist.io The more I looked at it and played around with it the more I fell in love with it.
What IS exist.io?
I like to tell people it is a mood tracker and habit tracker on steroids. I have bipolar so I needed a mood tracker and when I realized all that this software could do I was sold.
What does it do exactly?
It collects data on services that you tell it too and magically make connections so you can use your data to hack your way into being happier for example. Some data is obvious such as I am more sedentary when it is cold and dark for instance. BUT if you know that when it is cold and dark that you lack the motivation to get moving you can tell yourself that once you start moving it will get easier. Or at least it does for me. I have become more active while using this app. I can walk I can’t do squats with my weak knees. As usual, I always feel like staying in bed during the winter time but knowing and having the data to back it up tips the scale toward me getting up and doing my exercise video.
What all does exist.io integrate with?
A lot of apps plus new ones are being added all the time. Like I have it hooked up to my Rescue Time account, and it will figure out how productive I am. To use it with Rescue Time though requires a LOT of work on ResueTime as you have to put down if something is productive or distracting. I have it set up that if Evernote is open that it is productive as Evernote is where I type up the majority of blog posts in Evernote. Once you have all of your actives labeled, then it works like a charm.
Having data sounds nice but what can I do with it?
You can figure out what makes you productive and try to replica the result, so you are a lean, mean productivity machine. In all seriousness when I was doing CrossFit, I noticed that the day I went and worked out at Crossfit, I was always super hungry. I was hungry that I could eat all the food I had in my apartment. One day I was looking through what correlations the program had for me, and I saw that, and I added some protein shakes before and after and that stopped my endless snacking.
That is not the only thing that you can get the data for there are lithely hundreds of applications the t will show and tell you what all the data means. I use it as a mood tracker, habit tracker and pain tracker. I am attempting to get to the bottom of my knee pain so this is a great way to try and figure out what makes it worse.
The only downside is that Weight Watchers does not integrate directly into the app to track your foods and workouts but I track both in Weight Watchers app and the Fitbit pp. It is a bit cumbersome, but that is the only way I know to get the data where I need it in both places.
An area where the data has been a huge help is sleep. I noticed that I was only getting a couple of hours a night, so my dr gave me different medication, and I think we finally hit pay dirt with the Seroquel. I honestly feel that if it wasn’t for Exist.io that It would have taken me and the DR’s A LOT longer to figure out why I am always exhausted.
Another area that exist.io has been a huge help in defining what methods work best for me to get shit done. It showed that when I had Spotify playing that I was ultra-productive. Now every time I sit down to write I make sure to have my music on. Once I realize that there are some conditions that allow me to focus and write and I do them my productivity has skyrocketed.
All in all, this is a very good program to track your habits and moods and to gain a deeper insight into what truly makes you happy.
