It randomly dawned on me today that I track way more stuff than most people and that it may be very insightful to my readers to know what and why.
I started the habit of tracking my spending in high school over five years ago at this point. It's a good way to hold yourself accountable and troubleshoot excess spending after the fact. Even once your spending habits are under control and healthy, its best to keep tracking to keep them that way.
PiggyBudget is a good free and open source alternative for android.
The Rolling Shopping List is something I track in my journal and neatly fits into this by greatly mitigating impulse purchases and also giving inspiration for spending in times of prosperity by looking back at older shopping lists for items that are struck through but still somewhat compelling.
This is an area I wish I would have tracked much sooner, having only started this year.
The problem with nutrition trackers is that most merely track the macronutrients which are basically useless unless you have a predisposition that makes you need more of one macronutrient, such as protein for body builders, carbs for endurance athletes and fats for people with inflammatory issues. Worse yet, there tends to be a focus on calories which is really only relevant if you're either overweight or underweight.
Cronometer is drastically different in that it does track macros and calories, but also all necessary micronutrients. This is really helpful to identify an insufficiency or deficiency that you may have due to your dietary preferences and that may even cause health issues for you. To give a concrete example: when I started tracking my nutrition via cronometer, I found out I never got more than 50% of the RDA of Vitamin A. I bought a bag of carrots and ate 2 a day for a week and finally fixed my dry skin on my hand, that was red and flaky for months at that point. I also, despite my best efforts, cannot for the life of me get more than 50% of the RDA of Vitamin B9/Folate. So I ordered a supplement for that and am looking forward to seeing if that cures some symptom I wasn't even aware of.
Take some nutrition fun facts I learned from tracking with cronometer:
On top of giving you reliable nutrition metrics, tracking your food intake on its own will nudge you into making more healthy choices and eating more real food.
Without my apple watch ecg, I wouldn't have gotten my diagnosis and corrective surgery for my AVNRT, a rare heart arrhythmia that I've had for 10 years. That alone will make the apple watch forever one of my best purchases.
But even as a healthy young man its useful to track several vitals and watch for potential changes. I'm very confident that by taking it slow on days with elevated overnight heart rate I have fended off a few colds before even getting the first symptoms. HRV can give you insight to overtraining or excess stress. Sleep tracking may help you identify sleep problems or even sleep apnea. You can even track symptoms and medications if you have a chronic illness to manage.
I should note that in addition to the default metrics already tracked by apple health I measure my blood pressure and enter my weight every few weeks.
The apple fitness app is a bit less useful, but still good to keep an eye on training load and performance. Right now I'm keeping it conservative with my fitness ambitions, aiming for an average of 10k steps a day, but when I was at the height of my running phase it was extremely useful for its detailed metrics.
I don't keep a diary, but I journal. The difference being that unlike a diary, I make entries far from daily.
I started journaling in Q4 of 2022 and recently filled up my first A6 Leuchtturm Journal in Q1.
I would estimate that I make about one entry per week on average with them mostly clustering to once or twice a month.
While on this blog I share insights that I believe to be potentially useful to others, I use my journal for more private topics regarding whatever is keeping my mind occupied at the time or whatever I want to keep record of for the benefit of my future self looking back on my youth.
Journaling brings profound long term benefits to your mind and soul, but if you're somehow oblivious to those, check out this Video by Dr K as a starting point. Also don't copy my approach to journaling and take the time try out different methods in the beginning. Perhaps a diary or a bullet journal is more suited to your needs.