List of articles in this page

August 28, 2011

I Just Quit Recording Body Fat Percentage


I just quit it:)

The reason is very simple. I noticed that I don't need it.

I had been measuring my body fat percentage with my scale at home. But it is very inaccurate. I don't think I gained or lost 4% of body fat in a day.

A couple of days ago, I just asked myself "Do I really need to record body fat percentage?"

What I actually want to manage is my waist size. As long as my waist size is in my target range, I don't care how heavy I am and what my body fat percentage is.

I started recording body fat percentage casually. I thought that it's very easy to record, because I can measure it by just stepping on the scale, and I thought it would help me to manage my waist size somehow. But my scale didn't give accurate numbers, and it was not useful at all.

- Body fat percentage is not the main focus for me.
- Recording body fat percentage is not troublesome, but it is.
- It's inaccurate.

So, thinking about these three reasons, do I really need to record body fat percentage? NO!

Then I quit recording.


Of course I'm not saying that "recording and analyzing body fat percentage is unnecessary in general".

I'm saying that I don't need to record body fat percentage because it's not that important to my actual goal.

The point is that you can quit recording something if you don't need it.

Don't you have some activities which you don't need, but you just keep recording it in your Activity Set anyway?

To be honest, it took me a whole two months to notice this fact.

What we want is "better results with less recordings". Stay aware that recording is not the purpose. Have a great life with MyStats;-)
lifelog, time management, self-management
Time Management, Productivity, GTD... MyStats
Available on the App Store (For FREE!)

August 22, 2011

Case: HR Specialist

I interviewed a MyStats user who is an HR specialist working as a leader of HR and General Affair team in an enterprise.

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- Records 24 hours including “Sleep”.

- Activity Set has 13 activity masters.
They are divided into 5 categories such as, Work, Amusement, Exercise, etc.
He named his activities like, “Work–Meeting”, “Work–Simple Tasks”, and so on.

- Reviews the pie chart every night, and he says something like these to him self:
“Oh, only Simple Tasks is filling my day! I got to do something with my brain!” or
“I need more sleep, but I’m sleeping too much on Sunday…”

- Records “schedules” on purpose.
MyStats is designed for handling the things that happened and not the things that will happen, but he sometimes inputs things that will happen which are schedules. For example, something like a promise to himself, he would record “Study” into the next day; in order to make sure if it gets done. “However,” he said, “Since MyStats is a real easy-to-operate app, it is easy for me to change what I scheduled into something more amusing.

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In the morning of April 26th, he was thinking that he should start time management based on Peter Druckers’ method. He looked at Nikkei Industrial Newspaper and found an article about MyStats. He thought “This is it!” and downloaded MyStats.

At the beginning, he didn’t think that he could record the entire 24 hours, but since it is so easy to operate, he was quickly able to record his entire day, after all.

As he used MyStats everyday, his technique of recording schedules came naturally.

“The best part of MyStats is the easy-operation. I love this!”
That’s a great compliment!

Thank you so much for using and loving MyStats! We will continue to develop more and more features but we promise not to forget about the simplicity of operation!
lifelog, time management, self-management
Time Management, Productivity, GTD... MyStats
Available on the App Store (For FREE!)

(Original article was written on July 13rd.)

August 6, 2011

Country List

So far, the number of the countries in which MyStats has been downloaded is 54. The following is the Top 30 countries.
1. Japan
2. United States
3. Australia
4. United Kingdom
5. Taiwan
6. Canada
7. Germany
8. Korea
9. Singapore
10. China
11. Hong Kong
12. Russia
13. Thailand
14. Sweden
15. France
16. Netherlands
17. Mexico
18. Czech Republic
19. India
20. Turkey
21. Philippines
22. Norway
23. New Zealand
24. Brazil
25. Italy
26. Kuwait
27. Saudi Arabia
28. South Africa
29. Slovakia
30. Malaysia


We are very glad to see so many different people in so many different countries using MyStats. I believe that all of us are together making the world better little by little.
lifelog, time management, self-management
Time Management, Productivity, GTD... MyStats
Available on the App Store (For FREE!)

July 29, 2011

Case: Shihori, Singer and Song Writer

I interviewed piano singer and also known as song writer, Shihori!

Shihori wrote many songs for famous Japanese singers like Shoko Nakagawa, Nana Mizuki and many others. She is also famous for singing a popular TV commercial song called “Papapapa-n Song”!

Surprisingly, we found that Shihori is using MyStats and she loves it. So, here we are. This is Shihori’s case…

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Q: What were some of your issues with Time Management?
A: I didn’t know where my time went. I unintentionally would just waste time. Whatever I’m doing, I always get into things so deeply that I would lose track of time. As a freelance artist, I am my own manager. But I can’t manage my time unless I have a strong determination or something.
One example is music arrangement. To tell the truth, I don’t need that long of time for writing a song. It just comes to me. But music arrangement is different. It takes me so many hours. I get so into it that I forget about eating, sleeping and everything, and then I fail to keep myself in good shape.
I am the kind of a person who can get into things so much. This is the reason why I needed something for my time management.

Q: What was your first impression of MyStats?
A: “This is it!” That’s what I thought. A friend of mine Eri told me about MyStats, and I understood what it could give me right away. When Eri found out about MyStats, she immediately thought, “I have to tell Shihori about this!” I knew that I needed something to manage my time, and it seems Eri knew it, too. Haha!

Q: How did you get started using MyStats?
A: It actually took some thinking. It was like, “What are the classifications of my time?” But looking back at that moment, I think it was something really great that happened in my life. I can say that even only with this reason, MyStats is very valuable to me.
After a long time thinking, I came up with an Activity Set with about 10 activities. As I use MyStats everyday, I think I’ve changed some activities a little bit, but most of the activities that I defined in the beginning have not changed.

Q: What are the outcomes you get by using MyStats?
A: First of all, my mind has been changed. Now I am always aware of the kind, quality and meaning of time I am spending. I can say that I am now good at time management. For music arrangement, in order to avoid spending too much time, I first decide the end-time before I start working on it. I also keep my eyes on the amount of time I waste and reduce those “meaningless times”. I have two different activities for “Break Time”: Meaningful break time and meaningless break time. Since I gave them the colors pink and grey, I can see the ratio of these two break times on the pie chart anytime, and one of my goals is to have as little grey as possible.

Q: Have you tried the new function, Daily Activity?
A: No, not yet. I haven’t figured out how I can use it.
At this point, I explained how people are using it, and I gave her examples like Weight, Number of Sit-ups, Time Spent Practicing Guitar, Amount Spent on Groceries, etc. And her response was…
Wow, this is so cool! I’m gonna try it right now!

Immediately she started making her own Daily Activity Set. She got so into it that it seemed like she forgot that she was in an interview. Then I thought yeah, she really does need time management.

The following are some key points of Shihori’s case.

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- Her activity set has about 10 activities such as Song Writing, Arranging, Meeting, Transportation, Sleep, etc.
She colored activities with her own meanings. For example, red for music arrangement, blue for sleep.

- She does not record her activity for 24 hours, but it is close.
The percentage of recorded time shown on Bird’s-Eye view was 82.5%.

- Non recording time is time she thinks not worthy to be recorded. i.e. Changing Clothes.

- Two different activities for Break Time colored in pink and grey.
She occasionally checks the ratio on the pie chart.

- No activity for meals.
Since she’s usually doing something else while she is eating. Meal times are included in activities like Song Writing, Meeting Friends, etc.

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Shihori’s songs have both vigor and sensitivity. After meeting her in person, I see that she herself have both vigor and sensitivity.

While she is relaxed and talks personally, she gives an impression of being soft and gentle. At the same time, with her facial expressions and words, she showed that she also has a strong mind and heart.

Shihori, thank you so much for your time and for using MyStats. Next time, let me ask you how you use Daily Activity Function!

I also would like to thank Eri for introducing MyStats to Shihori! Eri is an artist producing mainly leathercrafts and illustrations. Eri’s works are available at her web site or at the shop called Garandou in Karuizawa, Japan. Take a look!

Shihori Live


lifelog, time management, self-management
Time Management, Productivity, GTD... MyStats
Available on the App Store (For FREE!)

(Original article was written on June 21st.)

July 16, 2011

Dreams and Goals

We did some statistical research on MyStats users' dreams and goals.

The research showed that there are more money related and language related dreams and goals compared to others. It can also be said that there are many dreams and goals with dates to be accomplished by.

The following are some results from the research.

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- Ratio of money related to dreams and goals: 9.1%

- Ratio of language related to dreams and goals: 5.6%

- Ratio of dreams and goals with dates to be accomplished by: 8.4%

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Other than the above, there are various dreams and goals related to health care, diet, occupation, certifications, love, musical instruments, and places to live.

As we predicted before the research, dreams and goals vary a lot. Although they all are different, they are the same in that they require a lot of effort, and everyone is doing their best to accomplish them.

How about us? So will we;)

lifelog, time management, self-management
Time Management, Productivity, GTD... MyStats
Available on the App Store (For FREE!)


(Original article was written on June 29th.)

June 26, 2011

Not Seeking Perfection

The following are reasons for not seeking perfection.

1. A lot of things do not have to be perfect

2. Perfection costs too much time, effort, etc.
Making something 100% from 90% costs more than double than making something 50% from 40%.

3. Perfect things are hard to change
Most of the things have to be continuously adjusted to the surroundings, but perfect things are difficult to adjust.

Of course there are some things we should seek perfection in, but other than that, we should be careful not to seek it unintentionally.

This is just a general statement, but FYI!
lifelog, time management, self-management
Time Management, Productivity, GTD... MyStats
Available on the App Store (For FREE!)

June 2, 2011

First Bug Fix

Last Thursday, we found a bug through a user review on the App Store. It's an error you get when you have a certain combination of conditions and once you get the error, you can't record.

The following is how we responded to the bug.

Thursday May 26th
Noon
- The user review appeared and the problem was found.
We added a message on the App Store description to inform the user that we started working on the problem.

Evening
- Identified the bug and started working on fixing it.
We added a message on the App Store description to inform how users can avoid this problem.

Night
- Fixing complete.
Friday May 27th
Morning
- Started the test on the new version, V1.04

Night
- Completed the test
Uploaded V1.04 to the App Store.
Thursday June 2nd
Morning
- Received "Review Done" notice from the App Store.

Noon
- Found that the new download for MyStats was switched to V1.04 on the App Store.

Night
- Found MyStats on the App Store Updates list.

We'd like to apologize to the users who experienced this problem.

At the same time, we'd like to tell our users that we believe that we solved our first bug in the shortest period of time.

There is a lot more to do for making MyStats the best app for self-management, but we can do it!
lifelog, time management, self-management
Time Management, Productivity, GTD... MyStats
Available on the App Store (For FREE!)