5 replies to this topic

[jeffshek]

Copying and pasting from the new introduction forum (wanted to get the go ahead, so this doesn't come as spammy).

 

I've been a VERY long time lurker here, been trying nootropics close to a decade now. Gone through a lot of different stacks over the years (and a lot of expensive shipping from over zealous anecdotal reports). I recognized (kind of ridiculous) that I had tried so many supplements over the years that I couldn't recall what the effects were.

 

I kept fairly detailed written logs for a while, but although searchable, entries like "3:20 PM - 300mg of Caffeine, still tired" wasn't aggregating very well for me to tell if it was working or not. Last year, I committed to keeping everything into Excel. My background has been in computational finance for most of this decade, so one thing lead to another and I started moving all my Excel data into a database to perform more in-depth analytics.

 

I began correlating and aggregating data against how productive I was being throughout the day against RescueTime (it's a nifty app that tells you productive you were throughout the day). This started letting me answer questions like

 

• What supplements impacted my sleep?
• What is the optimal # hours to sleep to perform optimally?
• How do habits correlate with sleep and productivity? 

 

Most of my prior assumptions about what supplements worked were wrong. (IE. Morning cold showers and meditation have both been remarkably more effective than almost 95% of supplements I've taken).

 

Long story short, I created an app for my use case with some hopes that external use might give me hints of what features I could add. All the data is

• anonymized (signup only is a username, no asking for a email, name, etc)
• free
• automatic analytics
• open-sourced source-code
• you can export your complete data and delete your account anytime.

 

It's still an embarrassing beta, but the site is https://betterself.io/. Would love feedback.

 

The next features I'm adding are aggregate N-Day Analytics (what was your most productive week? what habits, supplements and sleep did you do during that time?) and automatic API integrations with RescueTime, FitBit and Apple Watch.

 

TL;DR - Got frustrated at tracking supplements and habits, made an app @ https://betterself.io/.

[Oakman]

App looks tight, but (through no fault of yours), having someone using this judging what does what (to productivity or anything) is so purely subjective that I don't think it can produce valid results. Perhaps if you are taking no supplements and then do one at a time, or try some stack when you are totally clean... thatmight provide useful insight.  There are just so many life variables that can skew any subjective judgement - unless you get ill or have a really bad reaction!

 

But say, for someone with a cabinet full of bottles that are taken on a daily basis, the best to be expected is to highlight when starting to take "one more thing" when it gives a decidedly negative reaction.

 

Again, no criticism on your programming, which looks fine (love the graphs), just that trying to do what you want is a really, terribly hard thing to accomplish in any fashion.

 

===

 

Myself, I use a spreadsheet "stack/capsule calculation widget" to create and test various stack formulas (like stacks for exercise, brain, sleep, etc.), so as to determine the correct quantities of each component to use for N capsules I need. I add comments and notes to the right of it. When those capsules are gone, I just copy and paste the widget again at the bottom of the spreadsheet for the next batch with any changes.  Quite crude, but it does provide a record of sorts and all the details on components.

 

I simply haven't been able to come up with any better parameters of life "goodness" other than 'feeling good", "sleeping better", "exercise longer" (or not) and terms like that to judge the effects of my different stack creations.

[jeffshek]

Oakman, thanks for the feedback! The cabinet of supplements is always so hard to explain when a random guest sees it. ("WTF is Psyllium Husk?")

 

I agree with you, it's exceptionally hard to pinpoint day to day if something is working from placebo or not. To which I've found paradoxically (but makes sense) is that habits are what great indicators to what drives my most productive days (not supplements). So on days that I start off with using an app like SelfControl and I block almost anything that can distract me (ironically, Nootropics Forums, HackerNews, WSJ, etc) there's a huge correlation with being effective. 

 

But, but! I'd like to believe that what I'm taking isn't inadvertently causing me harm and doing a small benefit. IE. It's hard for me to tell if Melatonin is working after 2-3 days, but after a 2 week experiment of 3mg daily, then I can shuffle and filter data easily to compare. The "export data" is going to get to that point pretty quickly with data summing (ie. summing 7 days of activity and supplements and correlating against mean) and trailing day correlations (so you can tell how hard alcohol hits the system a day later).

 

I'd love to get BetterSelf to the point where you'd see it as a good value-add to your current tracking (which doesn't sound crude at all, its light years beyond most people who do zero logging!), so I'll think long and hard about proxies for mood and health that don't feel overly cumbersome. 

[thedarkbobo]

Yeah I would rather see a database the other way round

 

- Supplement X and comments/ratings/mixes/linked to preventing(curing) diseases from list/how much user takes and how often.

Something that we can find on websites selling drugs and supplements, but on android app so less prone to manipulation hopefully.

Then you could produce nice and hopefully useful diagrams out of it.

 

 

Maybe when we have integrated blood and well, tissue sensors with phone apps to stream such data(levels of various substances/hormones etc) from us - user would fill such details as you have prepared the website for - and data mining could start :O

 

 

Edited by thedarkbobo, 14 July 2017 - 06:16 PM.

[buk ___CCC]

vontctioning

Edited by buk ___CCC, 17 July 2017 - 03:33 PM.

[gamesguru]

RescueTime helps you understand your daily habits so you can focus and be more productive.

 

Runs securely in the background on your computer and mobile devices.

Tracks time spent on applications and websites, giving you an accurate picture of your day.

Gives you detailed reports and data based on your activity.

 

 

on topic: i feel like some guys seriously overdo the whole nootropic thing.  just look at their stagnant professional life as evidence.  often, ironically, it's the same goons who hate on herbal remedies

Edited by gamesguru, 17 July 2017 - 10:19 PM.