In this post I’m going to show you how to implement a data capture system that will allow you to get your data easily into Google SpreadSheets. In my case I need this to be enabled from my Android phone but once you see the method you will see how it can be extended to other applications.
To implement this I’ll be using Google Forms, Google SpreadSheets and Tasker.
Working as a Business Intelligence consultant I work with numbers every day and have to deliver benefit from them. I also do the same in my personal life, I LOVE my FitBit, and have macros that pull my stats out using the FitBit API and store it in a Google SpreadSheet and then aggregate the data and publish it to my dashboard.
This works fine for my automatically captured data, I needed a solution for more manual data points. I wanted a way to be able to capture data on my phone, store the data in Google SpreadSheets so that I can integrate it with my existing data and then send a summary spreadsheet back to my Android phone.
I will break the steps down in the following series of posts:
Quantified Self – Google And Android – Capture
Quantified Self – Google And Android – Aggregation
Quantified Self – Google And Android – Reporting
Quite often I want to create a task immediately off the back of sending an e-mail – usually to remind me to follow up with the recipient after a period of time. I created a macro to do this rather than having to remember to go into tasks and do this manually – better to keep the flow rather than having to remember the steps.
Well it’s September now and this is my second post of the year!
It’s been a busy year but no excuses – I have neglected my blog. To make up for this I treated my blog to a new host. Gone are PlusNet and in are TSOHost.
I can’t recommend TSOHost highly enough. Within hours of me sending my backup to them they had migrated my blog and it was up and running and it’s MUCH faster! More importantly it’s back onto a supported software stack and it’s patched and up to date !
I have stacks of ideas for blog posts; specifically a series on using Tasker on android phones to send data to web forms , collating and analysing data in google spreadsheets then using web services to send data back to tasker to display a dashboard on your phone!
As an added bonus – previously some of my posts were password protected – these are now free and open!
Enjoy
One of my New Year resolutions was to keep in touch with more people.
I also need to clear out my contact list as there are lots of “old” and incomplete entries in my Google contacts list.
Ever the productivity geek I wanted to automate this. I ended up writing the following Google Apps Script:
photo credit: Andrew Coulter Enright
If like me your Outlook calendar can get a bit hectic and others can add meetings to your calendar sometimes you end up simply “reacting” to your schedule and jumping from one appointment to the next on “autopilot”. It’s at times like these that Outlook’s ability to create a reminder can save your dignity.
However, sometimes the meeting organiser does not set a reminder. I have created an Outlook macro that will look for incoming meeting requests, without a reminder set and give you the option to set a reminder.
Well – that’s my final marathon of the year done and what a way to end it. Fantastic location, fantastic people/support, fantastic weather (cold and dry) and a personal best by over 14 minutes!
You can review my marathon stats here.
The stats make interesting reading (if your into stats or are a runner).
It shows how my pace per mile has changed since my first marathon and also how Chester compared with Dublin (4 weeks apart). It also finally drummed it into me that starting slow DOES enable you to hold a more consistent pace for longer.
I’m a huge fan of keeping my inbox empty, but not very good and keeping it that way.
I’m becoming more interested in the “Quantified Self” concept i.e. you can only fix things that you can measure.
The obvious answer is to monitor what my GMail inbox looks like on a daily basis. (more…)
As you should know by know my plan for the year was to run four marathons, one in each of Wales, Scotland, England and Ireland for MND Scotland.
The start of October saw the English leg with the Chester marathon.
One of my main productivity “sinks” is continually monitoring Outlook to see if any mails have arrived.
I have a rule set up that notifies me if an “important” email lands but for this to run, outlook needs to be running (minimised of course). I can’t resist the temptation to just “have a peek” outside my first thing in the morning, last thing at night email window.
To get around this I want to be “discouraged” from opening Outlook.
To implement this I have used Antonio Franca’s fantastic WinTrigger AutoHotkey script.