Activity Metrics

Overview

Activity Metrics is a tool for tracking personal activity stats. It creates CSV files from daily logs in a simple format. These files can be used in Google Sheets, Excel, or other spreadsheet apps and work with data visualization tools for custom charts and reports.

For installation & usage, you can navigate to the installation section at the bottom. Here's a simple overview of the system.

Basics

• A log is a .txt file that holds the entries for a particular day.
• An example entry could be - 15m 8a guitar practice: minor chords.
• An entry is a line that starts with a hyphen - or dot ..
• Everything else in the file gets ignored.
• There are no limits for the number of entries or files for a day.
• All logs (including their parent directories) are stored in the main logs/ directory.

File Names & Location

In the above example, let's assume the date for the entry was Jan 1, 2024. Here are the basic rules:

• The log file would be named with the two-digit date number and a .txt extension: i.e. 01.txt.
• Optional custom text after the date number is allowed (e.g. 01custom-text.txt).
• The log would be inside the proper YYYY/MM/ directory, in this case: 2024/01/01.txt.
• And finally, the full path for the log would be: ../logs/2024/01/01.txt.

Additional Options: Full Date Log Files

• For utility reasons, log files are also allowed to be named in the YYYY-MM-DD format^{1 2}.
• For example: 2024-01-01.txt or 2024-01-01custom-text.txt would be valid full date logs.
• Since their name already includes the year & month, full date logs can be stored anywhere within logs/.

Valid location structure example:

../logs/
  - 2024/
    - 01/
      - 01.txt
      - 02.txt
      - 02-finance.txt
    - 02/
  - 2023/
    - 2023-12-31-fitness.txt
    - 08/
    - 12/
      - 16ExamStudy.txt 

Additionally data can also be imported from other tracking services such as Todoist, Garmin, Apple Health, Samsung Health, Financial Services, and more. Data can also be read directly from the API's of those tracking services.

Common Categories for Activity Metrics:

• Work
• Finances
• Academics
• Assignments
• Projects
• Fitness
• Nutrition
• Lifestyle

Installation

Application Installation

1. Clone activity-metrics/ into your local installation directory.

   git clone https://github.com/ryt/activity-metrics.git

2. Create an alias or symbolic link to acme.py to access it directly in your terminal. There are multiple ways of doing this. Replace {install} with your local installation directory.

   Option 1: Symbolic Link

   ln -s {install}/activity-metrics/acme.py  /usr/bin/acme

   Depending on your system you may need to use /usr/bin/, /opt/local/bin, /usr/share/bin/, etc. You can also use your documents folder or a custom location as long as you use a symbolic link to the acme.py executable.

   Option 2: Creating an alias in ~/.bashrc, ~/.bash_aliases or ~/.bash_profile:

   alias acme='{install}/activity-metrics/acme'

   After editing the file make sure you restart your terminal or use the source command to reload the configuration.

   source ~/.bashrc

Setting up Log Files & Customization

1. To store your logs, create a directory named Metrics or something similar in your Documents and create the following 3 directories in it: app, gen, and logs.

   You can choose whatever name you want for the main folder but we'll use "Metrics" for this example. app will be used for application modules, API, & configuration files, gen will be used for generated files, and logs will be used to store log files.

   mkdir Metrics && cd Metrics

   mkdir app gen logs

   The structure of the link and directories should look something like this:

   Metrics/
     - app/
     - gen/
     - logs/
   

2. Now you can run the command acme from inside the Metrics/ directory. Generated files will be stored inside gen/ and your logs will be read and parsed from the logs/. Use acme help for the help manual.

   The utility script can be run as acme util. Use acme util help for the utility help manual.

Notes

Some of the inspirations for this project:

• https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Help:Page_history
• https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Version_control
• https://calnewport.com/deep-habits-should-you-track-hours-or-milestones/
• https://archive.is/h3dz5
• https://gyrosco.pe/about/mission/
• https://jeffhuang.com/productivity_text_file/
• https://todoist.com/inspiration/deep-work
• https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Blue-green_deployment

References

1. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/ISO_8601
2. https://xkcd.com/1179/