January analytics

I’ve found that quests for personal betterment are usually easy to derail with a little unconscious rationalization. A little concession here, a little laziness there. By the time August rolls around, it’s easy to say, well, I did almost everything I said I was going to do.

In 2009, I made it a point to track every live poker session I played. Using the iPhone app Poker Journal, I managed to keep tabs on every hour of poker played and in the end could tell you exactly how much I won per hour, where I was winning, where I was losing, and all the little things that poker players need to know about their game to keep from lying to themselves.

And, so this year, I created a spreadsheet to keep track of almost everything in my life. Some of it’s personal info, bu I intend to put some of it here on the last day of every month in an attempt to shame myself into a certain amount of accountability. It’s not worth reading, but I’m going to do it anyway. Here’s a taste. Feel free to mock.

All things exercise: Massive fail. Travel accounted for part of it. Laziness accounted for the rest.

Freelance pieces written and submitted: 3

Freelance pieces sold: 1

Travel days: 13

Best meal(s): Seafood, Haven (Nassau, Bahamas)

Books read: Under the Dome, Inherent Vice

Movies watched: Primer

Documentaries watched: Vernon, Florida; Food Inc.

Live poker hours: 16 (profitable)

Here’s to February being a little more productive.

Brad Willis

Brad Willis is a writer based in Greenville, South Carolina. Willis spent a decade as an award-winning broadcast journalist. He has worked as a freelance writer, columnist, and professional blogger since 2005. He has also served as a commentator and guest on a wide variety of television, radio, and internet shows.

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4 Responses

  1. Heather says:

    Have you checked out daytum.com? it’s a web app that is made for tracking all of this – pretty cool. I wish I could find the link where I read about it (I’m sure it’s lifehacker). But Nicholas Feltron does a Feltron Annual Report (http://feltron.com/) that is super cool and he tracks all his data there (in fact he’s one of the founders/developers and wanted a site for that specific purpose).

    ANYWAY – I think it’s a neat idea to track things like that. 🙂

  2. Julius_Goat says:

    Primer is the bomb. That is all.

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