Personal Metrics
Tracking time, money, health and learning sensibly, without obsessing over numbers.
Personal Time Tracking: How to Keep a Time Log You'll Learn From
How to run a short, honest time log using methods borrowed from the American Time Use Survey, and turn it into two or three personal KPIs.
Read · 5 min read →Personal MetricsPersonal Finance Metrics: Savings Rate, Net Worth and More
How to calculate and track savings rate, emergency fund coverage, net worth, debt-to-income ratio and financial well-being, using federal definitions.
Read · 6 min read →Personal MetricsActivity Metrics: Tracking Minutes and Steps the Smart Way
What federal activity guidelines ask of adults, how to judge intensity, and how to turn your own step counts into a goal tied to weekly minutes.
Read · 5 min read →Personal MetricsTracking Learning: Measure Skill Progress, Not Just Study Hours
Why feeling fluent misleads, and how to track learning with delayed recall, unaided practice and other output metrics backed by education research.
Read · 5 min read →Personal MetricsMood Tracking, Carefully: How to Log Feelings and When to Get Help
A simple, low-pressure way to keep a mood log, review it weekly, protect your privacy and recognize when it's time to talk to a professional.
Read · 5 min read →Personal MetricsWhen Self-Tracking Backfires: Proxies, Obsession and Fixes
How Goodhart's law shows up in personal tracking, from step counts to sleep scores, the warning signs to watch for and how to design metrics that stay useful.
Read · 6 min read →