PowerUp Blog

This is important because now you can start looking for correlations in your data. For my example I'm showing how a little league pitcher might use PowerUp to throw more strikes.

Imagine you're learning the mechanics of how to throw a pitch. You've got 2-3 grips to throw a "fastball", a "changeup" and a "curveball". You're also testing a few different wind ups called "normal", "fast" and "slow". You also track the result of the pitch "strike" or "ball"

After throwing 400 pitches and recording data you can start to add filters to look for correlations between the wind up, the type of pitch and the result. Maybe you find that you throw the most strikes with the fastball and the normal wind up and the most balls with the curveball and the slow wind up.

1) Set up your data in the grid editor

In this example I've decided to track 2 important data points associated with the writing process. The first is how creative I feel on a scale from 1-10 and the second is my WPM over a 10 min writing session. I think 10 mins is a good chunk of time to track but I probably wouldn't want to be interrupted for data entry every 10 mins so I'd probably complete an entire session first then go in and enter data.

2) Entering data in your grid

To enter data, click on a PowerUp in your grid and you'll see a form containing the data points you defined during grid editing. You'll notice how I have 3 tasks that are all the same 10 min work unit. This is to separate my writing sessions into morning(aqua), afternoon (blue) and night (red).

Note: we currently have a bug in the system so if nothing happens after clicking a PowerUp, refresh and try again. This should be fixed today.

3) Filter your grid based on a variety of criteria

First I want to see all the writing sessions where my creativity was over 6. In this example I might make 2 interesting hypotheses.

I'm most creative in the afternoons.

The more I write the more creative I feel.

Then I filtered by all the PowerUps where my WPM was over 40 and it tells a different story. It appear that while I feel more productive in the afternoons, I actually produce more in the mornings and evenings.

This amount of data is probably not significant enough to make a real conclusion that might alter your writing habits but it helps you develop theories that can be tested over time. The more you know, the better you'll be at altering behavior to achieve a desired result.

If you were to track this grid over a longer period of time and the results hold up then maybe you come to the conclusion that evenings are better for idea generation and mornings/nights are better for cranking out work.

In the example above, you're working on a goal to lose weight. The tasks might be to workout and eat right. So you'd like to be able to periodically weigh yourself and input that data into the next PowerUp.

Note: You won't need to add your weight into every PowerUp. If you don't add a number we'll assume nothing has changed since the last entry.

The mood might also be an interesting data point to track. We'll be able to infer relationships between your weight and your mood and over time we should be able to tell you the weight you're most happy at. This might not be your lowest weight. Maybe you start at 200lbs and you drop to 160lbs and your mood dramatically improves but then getting to 140lbs is so much work that it starts to take a toll and you can make an informed decision that 160lbs is your ideal weight.