Tracking Your Progress

[CrazyGopher]

Whether to "track" your progress is an individual decision. Tracking is certainly not required for successful rebooting! But if you like the concept, here are some ideas:



Real Stuff

Electronics are cool, but have you considered a good old-fashioned paper calendar? You can mark the days with a pencil and you'll have a physical, tangible record of your progress that you can hold in your hands!

I have my own old school counter, a calendar on which I cross the days that I have stayed clean and circle the ones that I have PMOed. I update it every morning. It helps me visualise how am I doing.

Another guy even posted a picture of has calendar, on which he had put dozens of the kind of "A For Effort!" stickers you might have gotten on your assignments in elementary school. He gave himself a new sticker for each day clean! Clever I tried to locate that image for this post, but unfortunately I couldn't find it.

It can be fun to be creative! In one memorable case a guy reported etching his calendar into the wood of a desk drawer, to help convince himself that his progress was permanent and not temporary. I wouldn't recommend that (you may want to forget about your P addiction one day!) but it's a cute idea.

One guy built a giant calendar out of Lego building blocks, adding a new piece each day. He said he loved it, because there was no way he wanted to relapse and take the whole thing apart





Spreadsheets

A spreadsheet is a kind of simplified computer programming environment that displays data in a table. Many RebootNation visitors are advanced computer users, so it is not surprising that they like to use spreadsheets to track their relapses.

Because you have access to a programming environment, spreadsheets offer a lot of flexibility. For example, you could calculate how often you relapsed in a week or a month or a year, and make charts and line graphs. Or you could include various good habits related to your reboot:

I've modified my spreadsheet a bit to include all of the different things I try to do daily as part of this healing process...cold shower, meditation, journaling, posting here, exercise, etc.

Many people enjoy the spreadsheets and feel motivated by them. Others take a different approach:

I feel like it's still focusing on the addiction rather than focusing on living (and fixing) my life. In 'My New Life' I don't want porn to get any attention what so ever in any area of my life. I don't even want a spreadsheet because it reminds me of the addiction.

Both viewpoints are valid, and that's why we say tracking your progress is an individual decision.

Spreadsheets cannot yet be easily embedded in your forum signature. If your spreadsheet is online, you can include a link, but only a few people will actually click through to view your spreadsheet. Thus, you may find it is helpful to have an accountability partner or close rebooting companions to help you get accountability from your spreadsheet.

Want a spreadsheet of your own? Some kind rebooters have created spreadsheet templates you can copy and use yourself. There is a popular spreadsheet thread over on the YBR forum that includes instructions and a template (Google Account is required!)





Mobile Apps

If you use Android or iOS, there are several "calendar apps" available which make it easy to mark off days. There are also various apps related to addiction recovery and building good habits which you may find useful. I don't use any of these apps myself, so these are not recommendations, just ideas.

I installed an app on my phone which actually counts the seconds, minutes, hours and days I've not relapsed. I find this motivating, because when I get in trouble, I can open the app and check my progress. There's a big button on the app saying "I failed  " which resets the timer, if I press it. I don't ever want to press that one. It helps. It's called "ImQuit" and can be used for any addiction you want. Check it out.

Recently i downloaded awesome application to my android device. You can get it from play store and type "days since" and search. There will be several apps, feel free to choose. For me, i choose Days Since by Joseph Mak. Then, install it. After that, open the app and fill the start date and the object. For now, it will not show up in your start screen, because you have to activate the widget. Activate it via widget bar in top of main menu. Then,  search for "days since" and put it on your start screen. Click it and check the object you created earlier. After that, wait 30 minutes.
Voila ! Now you have a rebooting partner in your own phone For iphone users, i think similar app can be found in your app store too

Get the app called "Quit That" it's nice to be able to look at how far you've come whenever you need a reminder. I don't count my days in my head I actually forgot until i checked today.

Note: unlike spreadsheets and the tracker, mostly these mobile apps don't integrate with the forum here.

[Reboot ROK]

How do I add multiple counters?  For example, I want one for how long it's been since I looked at P, one for P subs, one for O, etc.
I tried to do this but then it said I could only have a certain number of characters in my signature field for it to work properly, yet I see many people with multiple counters.

Thanks!  I must be missing something.

[pinkerton]

Trying to reset my counter but when I click on my counter it just keeps sending me to this thread.

[Patman904]

Hoping for change and a complete 180 in my life. Ive battled this for a long time and have denied it being an addiction and real problem but that is not the case. I need healing, accountability, and prayer to become the man i want to be. One that lives in the light even when i am on my own.

[SimpleMan99]

Hello I'm new to this site, I just registered. I'm not tech savvy. How do I post a new thread? Also how do I go about getting a counter? Thanks

[mtaha2015]

Counter are so important.
Great work by bringing up counters to this forum.

[KeepUpTheGoodWork]

Sorry to necro this thread - is there a way to get local time calculated on the counter? I'm a week in, but I just realized that technically my counter is calculating my success early because I'm at GMT-7.

For example, yesterday it was already giving me credit for August 23 although it was still the 22nd for 7 hours for me.

Any way to fix that?

Edit: I realized that miscalculated my streak, so I've corrected it and I should hit my real goal again in 5 hours. Woooo!

[filozofio]

I am not able to create a tracker.

When I try, I am asked to give my google user, and after doing it, I always get a blank screen. I have tried with Chrome, Firefox and Edge, also in Windows and in Linux, and the result is always the same: a blank screen.

Can anybody help me?

[Hard_Core]

I am not able to create a tracker.

When I try, I am asked to give my google user, and after doing it, I always get a blank screen. I have tried with Chrome, Firefox and Edge, also in Windows and in Linux, and the result is always the same: a blank screen.

Can anybody help me?

Same problem here. someone please guide in the right direction of how to make a tracker.

[martin]

I am having the same problem. But it sais they are working on it.

[StartingOffNew]

Same problem as the last few posts.  Those trackers look awesome, but when I try to make one, it just gives me a blank screen. 

[vertti]

I'm currently making a mobile application to track the recovery progress. Basically, it asks questions with multiple choice answer every night at a set time. One question at a time, same set of questions every night.

For example:
Did you take a cold shower today?
YES
NO

Upon choosing the answer, the data is automatically submitted to the cloud database. The idea is that after some time (=after getting enough data) the data can be analyzed using statistical analytics tools. By means of data analysis, different behaviour patterns can be identified. For example; waking up after 10 am in the weekends increases your likelihood of relapse by 44%, or taking cold showers makes you significantly more productive when taken in the morning instead of at night.

My intention is to get objective data of my own behaviour patterns and analyze it in order to eliminate the biggest triggers, and basically make myself a more productive and a happier person.

I hope I can start showing personalized analyzed data in the app after getting a meaningful amount of data for a statistical analysis. Right now it's mostly about recovery from addiction but it could be used for virtually any kind of personal tracking & lifestyle enhancement.

I want to ask you now that does this sound like it could be useful to you too? I'm trying to make the application in a way that answering those questions each night would only take something like 15 seconds in total. If the community thinks this would be useful, I could try and push it to some form of beta release instead of just using it myself.

[manishpamnani169]

Yes i think the calenders are type of cool and still my favorite despite all the new gadgets around , it feels you should have simplicity in your tracking when you are doing something important in your life like quitting PMO as it feels like you are able to understand something and clearly view your goal!!!