I’m wondering about something difficult to pin down. I find that I get a substantially stabilising effect from self awareness - particularly around life direction and how clearly I can see the steps required to reach my goals.
Has anyone created or come across a quick and dirty existential ranking matrix? Something which could reveal a lower connection to time for example?
My theory is I get enormous mood crashes depending on the level of actionable self awareness I have. (In other words that my mood swings are dependent upon controllable factors dependant upon self awareness). Which presents a problem, how do I track for absense of self awareness?
I suppose I could assign value ranking to the habits I track, and weight them by long term connection, and judge by the results of each week how well attached I am to my life => high score, versus disconnected and avoidant (meaning I didn’t do the important things) => low score.
Maybe I could rank my moods per day, over my behaviours per day, and compare and contrast them.
I know I can track even when in the worst headspace so I’m really curious what kind of data might yield something helpful.
I feel like I’m trying to invent the wheel and I suspect there must be someone who’s already done it lol. Any input would be really appreciated!
Hi Said, I did an experiment with the 1-Button tracker in which I recorded an observation with each “return of attention” in meditation. In other words, it wasn’t loss of awareness that I tracked (interesting to think about whether that is possible) but rather return of awareness. It took about two days of this (~25 min. meditation period each day) before it became very easy. That was much quicker than I expected. I never analyzed the data, though. The density of observations was too high for the pre-existing templates (daily heat maps) that I had access to, and I never got around to doing a custom analysis. Interestingly, I found the observations to be very helpful to make during the meditation, they became a support to awareness. I miss doing it, and your question makes me think I should try again. I stopped because I ran into a technical problem with the earlier 1-Button prototype, now fixed.
There aren’t prototype 1-Buttons easily available right now but @gedankenstuecke has been experimenting with the Puck.js. It has some design issues that make it hard to use for some 1-Button projects (I understand that it tends to press too easily and record false observations) but it might work for your purpose, maybe if hung on a necklace instead of in a pocket.
If you’re willing to tap on a phone screen, I can set you up with a web page that records the date/time each time you tap on it. You’d just have to set your phone’s screen-saver/screen-off timing to greater than your meditation duration.
For the Puck.js-based one-button tracker: I’d be very happy to help out in making it be better suited for other such a project. E.g. some folks on the Puck.js forum suggested requiring a double click of the button for a “proper” recording!