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- Hacker News
- A few decades ago I was diagnosed with hypertension (high blood pressure) and for about the last 15 years I have been tracking my blood pressure and weight. Every morning when I wake up, I weigh myself and take my blood pressure. I write the results in a CSV file that sits on my desktop (it gets backed up). I do this religiously, every single day. I have tried other, more "modern", solutions but somehow they don't stick or are too cumbersome to use. Even tried to build my own app but lost motivation at some point.by pan69
- Moving into the "physical world" helped me immensely.
* A paper calendar (ideally the kind with boxes for each day) * Prompts inside the boxes if relevant, like for pill 1, pill 2, pill 3 * Dedicated physical space, with the associated stuff you need all together (including a pen/pencil!), somewhere that you will see it as part of your normal day to day
I also use phone reminders or spreadsheets for long term tracking where appropriate, but the day to day this lo-fi method works best. I scan or transcribe stuff into a spreadsheet at the end of the page if I need to keep it.
by placidpanda - I have an llm agent with a harness that stores/logs everything in a structured manner to local files and/or sqlite. This then turns more into casual conversation type stuff. Send it test results, talk about stuff, give it updates, etc, and it handles the rest. Querying the data is pretty straight-forward without the agent since it's plaintext/sqlite. I tried random tools over time but sorta fell out of them. This is kinda the only thing that's stuck.
Could take this further and make it better with structured tooling. Some sorta CLI perhaps, or an API, that the agent knows how to use, then can build a frontend on top or something. For now this works okay.
by nusl - My friend paid someone to call her every day and ask her how she's doing, then write the rating in a spreadsheet.by luplex
- For tracking in general you need a system and a medium. The bullet journal method has worked well for me for many years. The systems and structures within the bullet journal change over time, but you can jump back years, and see what you were thinking at the time. More recently I have been using GTD within the bullet journal framework. I highly suggest reading at least those two methods before building your own system.by punknight
- The reason these things did not work for me is because they were things I had to "do" as in remember/initiate so I made Crohn's AI - because its a program that runs and I just have to reply or answer when the AI-GIs contact me.
Intent: https://wiki.crohns.ai/agent/posts/ibd-biologic-therapy-init...
Program: https://crohns.ai/program/71174-eim-joint-pain-flare
Protocol: https://crohns.ai/protocol/71174
This allowed me to essentially set it and forget it until and each program is specific to each condition so its not just a dumb daily alert or something like that.
You can make yourself a program at Medicare.dev - just explain your situation or whatever and it should guide you through the rest.
- I don't know anything about tracking your particular illness, but I have tried tracking various things in my life with varying success. Many times I've failed, but then I tried again in different ways. One thing that I noticed is that too often I would try to track too much too rigorously. It would become a burden, I would lose motivation, and I would stop.
For some things, I decided to find a way to do the minimum amount of tracking that is sustainable. One example is fitness. I tried keeping a detailed track of the kinds of exercise I do. I realized it is too much of a burden. So instead, I opted for just noting in my journal whether I did any exercise at all. And it worked. And I realized that I have capacity for more so I started marking whether I did too little, just enough, or a lot. And that was sustainable. And then I built it up some more and for one particular type of exercise, and now I track it thoroughly, while only noting the others. This is now a habit and it seems to have stuck.
So instead of starting with a thorough way of tracking something, start with a minimal way of noting and build up from there.
by koliber - I have to track daily data for an illness. What motivates me to stay on top of it are the insights gained from the tracking. Being able to go to the doctor and answer questions definitively instead of anecdotally.
We've actually changed the therapy procedures based on the data and then been able to show it was effective with the data that came after.
So think about the insights the tracking will provide you and your doctor, and that might help motivate you.
We use old school paper and pencil. I have a clipboard with a tracking sheet created in excel with rows for each thing that needs tracking and columns for the day. Then I don't have to think, I just fill in boxes, and the pencil and paper are always right there on the wall in the bathroom, where the data is "generated" :)
This also lets me scan quickly across for daily and weekly trends. I have room at the bottom for longer notes if necessary. I put a [1] in the box and then a note that matches.
by jedberg