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Comment by jjaredsimpson | Hacker News Reader

I think none of this matters except one change: going from fours hours of sleep to eight.

I'm interested in QS, but the metrics aren't the ends they are the means. Increased subjective satisfaction is always my goal.

When I run I don't track pace but I do track time and I start each run with an idea of what my RPE for that run will be. My goal is to decrease time when RPE is fixed. So some days I run hard and some I don't because I'm not always trying to set a PB.

If metrics are guardrails that you are gonna crash into over and over while attempting to change behavior then you won't like QS. Not tracking your bad behavior doesn't make it go away. It just makes you ignorant.

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> Not tracking your bad behavior doesn't make it go away. It just makes you ignorant.

In some sense, ignorance can be bliss, which I think the article hints at. I used to diligently track my workouts, for example, seeking clear and measurable improvement over time. If I could knock out 30 consecutive chin-ups in one session, I expected >= 30 consecutive pull-ups in the next. What I failed to realize is that progress isn't actually made by means of observed improvement -- progress is actually significantly more subtle. And, because it's deeply psychological...fuzzy.

At 32 years of age, I've realized that "bad behavior" is symptomatic of the mindset of self, and sometimes necessary. Sometimes my workouts will go very poorly, for example. The quantified self laments those workouts, but the self-accepting self accepts those poorer workouts as an inevitability. Sometimes you simply cannot give it 100%; sometimes you'll fail.

Subjective satisfaction, as you put it, is the key to happiness. Do better than you expect in the aggregate and largely ignore the specifics. The specifics only bog you down.

> At 32 years of age, I've realized that "bad behavior" is symptomatic of the mindset of self, and sometimes necessary. Sometimes my workouts will go very poorly, for example. The quantified self laments those workouts, but the self-accepting self accepts those poorer workouts as an inevitability. Sometimes you simply cannot give it 100%; sometimes you'll fail.

Not to mention, that it's statistically impossible for you to infinitely improve in every workout. There are going to be good days and bad days, and if your method of assessing metrics do not take those into account, then the method is worthless.

There was a good article about relationships advice for people who hyperfocus on things, and I think it's pertinent here. That basically, just because things have levelled out or not improved, or just because there has been a momentary dip, doesn't mean that that is a negative thing. Any complex system, whether it be the human body, interpersonal relations, or even just water has ups and downs. Sometimes hyperfocusing on those downs, or predicting off those dips can lead you to believe things that are false. Sometimes to get correct information you have to zoom out a little.

Not to mention, that expecting 100% of yourself constantly is a surefire way to burn out.

yeah, the sleep difference is a big one, for sure. That one became a lot more evident in the recounting of the last year.

I hope this post didn’t come off as prescriptive. That wasn’t my goal. It is meant to be about my path down not tracking and the suprising joy that has come from a mix of ignorance and intuition. I enjoyed keeping track of PB/PRs, and I don’t blame anyone for wanting to keep those in their lives.

For me, this is more about living in the moment. Metrics, no matter how “real time” they feel are always ever so slightly a reflection on the past.

Your blog is interesting! What are you up to in Costa Rica? Working remotely? Looks like you didn't quit all social media after all...

Thanks! We moved down here for the adventure of it, its been a rewarding experience for sure.

Yep, I work part time for a couple of clients. Its a weird mix of data pipelining, systems architecture, orchestration, and site reliability work. I wouldn't have guessed I'd be working on this type of stuff 5 years ago, but I really enjoy it.

And yeah, it's funny, I don't really participate in Hacker News or Reddit (except in rare occasions like this, when someone points out my post is on here. vanity, I guess?). I've never included social news aggregators in my mental model of social media... but now that I think about it I can't really exclude it either.

I'm going to have to think about how I feel about this.

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