Re: [O] Org-mode as a Quantified Self platform

[Eric Schulte]

John Hendy <address@hidden> writes:

> I've really been getting into the Quantified Self movement recently,
> and by "getting into," I mean reading and watching videos and
> /thinking/ about things I'd like to track about myself. [1] I've been
> pondering what kind of "platform" to use for my data collection...
> Excel? Some time tracking application? Those were after-thoughts. I
> thought of Org-mode right away and it seemed like an obvious choice.
> Why?
>
> 1) I have access to it at home and work pretty easily
>
> 2) The ability to quickly insert time stamps/clock data
>
> 3) The habit family of features -- set up some initial goals
> (recurring todo headlines) and then just got to the headline and mark
> done (possibly with a note) to record the event.
>
> 4) Exportability (though I have some questions on this one)
>
> 5) I recently got an Android tablet and have mobile-org on it now,
> which I'm hoping will allow me to have even better access to data
> entering.
>
> 6) Should some application "go under," I'll still always have my data
> in plain text.
>
> On to my questions:
> -- Has anyone done something like this? I see it as very similar to
> habit tracking. To give an example, I've had a bit of a persistent
> cough. I developed it when I was sick at one point, went on
> antibiotics, and got better... but the cough kind of stuck around but
> is on and off. Now I'm wondering if it's coffee/dehydration related so
> I'd like to create headlines for Coffee, glass of water, and cough.
> Then I can just mark them done whenever I finish a cup of coffee,
> drink a glass of water, or cough. At some point I'd like to plot them
> to visualize any potential relationships.
>
> -- On that note, what's the best way to get data out of
> org-habit/headlines and into something a bit more usable like csv? I'm
> looking for something more than just looking through headlines for
> missed days. I'm going to need full access to the time stamps in a
> usable format (say, R) and everything agglomerated into one single
> data file.
>
> -- I see I can insert [inactive] timestamps in mobile-org. Making
> something a TODO seems to require manual input? I find the
> documentation fairly lacking with respect to simple basic terminology
> (Outline view vs. Document view?) and have not used it much. Any
> suggestions on using this in conjunction with the above would be
> great.
>
> I think org-mode could make a very spectacular data tracker due to its
> time stamp and clocking abilities along with what feels natural with
> respect to adding in narrative text/notes and being able to structure
> things how I'd like. In addition, I'll have git ability to sync with
> my home computer.
>
> Thoughts? Thanks for any input!
>
> [1] For those unfamiliar: http://quantifiedself.com/
>
>
> John
>

Hi John,

If you end up storing measurements in properties you could use
org-collector [1] to collect these values into tables.  From tables they
can easily be analyzed with spreadsheet formulas [2] or passed to code
blocks [3] for more sophisticated analysis and plotting.

Best,

Footnotes: 
[1]  http://orgmode.org/worg/org-contrib/org-collector.html

[2]  http://orgmode.org/manual/The-spreadsheet.html

[3]  http://orgmode.org/manual/Working-With-Source-Code.html

-- 
Eric Schulte
http://cs.unm.edu/~eschulte/