[npunt]

One thing I learned after tracking key life criteria for a few years is it's easy to be hyper-focused on tracking at the detriment of living your life. If you sample more than a few times a day, you'll wind up 'living to track' instead of 'tracking to live' because of the constant diligence it requires. Also if you ever track pain, you wind up bringing attention to it, which you might not want to do too much.

Personally I only found one clear trend after tracking for years: my energy levels determined my mood, but not visa-versa. If I was fatigued, my mood plummeted. A very useful insight for future behavior, especially rest/sleep, and one I had to learn through tracking to really it get to stick.

I still track things every day but I do so as a form of accountability to myself. I use it to get perspective on my day and week, to identify and address trends early that I might otherwise dismiss, etc. Useful for behavior change, not data analysis.

Overall, it's a good practice like a form of journaling, but one you want to do somewhat infrequently - I wouldn't track any one thing more than 3x/day, and for everything you should be able to fill it in later (usually the eve) if you are too busy living life.

[pgt]

+1 on Sleep. No matter what I’m doing - if I’m well rested, then 99% of the time, I’ll have a great time doing it.

[lanstin]

That whole decisioning tree, hungry, depressed, or sleepy. Surprisingly tricky from inside.

Re the tracking too much, there is the old joke about a bicycle odometer that bings whenever you pass a beautiful site so you don’t miss it in your obsession with velocity.