It's been nearly two full months since I've started Experiment Log – 006. I'll admit that I almost forgot about it. So, today I'll officially end the experiment. Here's what I've learned after trying out different digital tools for weekly planning.
Weekly Planning using Email
This was the most surprising out of all that I've tried. I honestly enjoyed creating my weekly plans using email. Basically, I would write down the plan for Monday to Sunday, then email it to myself. I cannot explain it, but I get a kick out of doing that, sending myself my weekly plan. One other thing I liked about weekly planning using email, is that if I need to make a change, I need to send myself a new email by replying to my original email. It sorts of acts like a basic versioning system wherein you can actually see what the previous tasks were, versus what the new ones are going to be.
What I don't like about it is that I have to make sure I type in the right email address before hitting send. In other words, there is a chance that I will accidentally send someone else my weekly plan. And depending on the contents of my weekly plan, that could be a big privacy/security issue. There's also the fact that my weekly plan lives on an email server in the cloud, which means my email service provider can probably read what I have planned for the weekend. And if for some reason I lose all internet connectivity, then I probably won't be able to check my weekly plan. So, not ideal, but it was a fun way to do weekly plans.
I started this experiment with the intention of better planning my leisure activities, through the process of weekly planning. Here is what I've discovered after a month of weekly planning.
This experiment was about going 1 – 2 weeks without using my Fitbit Charge 2. Here is what I discovered from this experiment.
Initially I felt like I was missing something without my Fitbit on my wrist. After a day or so, this feeling went away and was replaced by a feeling of liberation.
I no longer needed to worry about whether I forgot my Fitbit or not.
My business casual outfits no longer looked out of sorts. I could wear an elegant looking traditional wrist watch on my left wrist and there won't be a fitness tracker on my other wrist to spoil the look.
It was easier to put on jackets without the cuffs catching on my Fitbit.
I no longer needed to remember to charge it every week.
I no longer had to worry about the occasional itch/rash that would manifest because of wearing a Fitbit.
So when I started this experiment, I wanted to see what would happen if I disable the ability for me to view this site's stats. The result, a much better online writing experience. Not being influenced by the number of readers I get, allows me to simply not worry about it. It makes it easier to just write about something I want to write about. It makes it easier to write for myself.
As a related update to the results from Experiment Log – 001, I found that the number of readers did not increase in the 2nd half of that experiment. It stayed low when my posts were not being listed in the Read.Write.As feed. As I stated in the results for that experiment though, I no longer care about that.
It's been almost one month since I started this experiment. I've decided to end it at the start of a new month, just because I didn't see any benefit to prolonging it. I started this experiment with the intention of answering the questions below. And so here are the answers.
I want to see if not publishing to the Read Write.As feed will decrease the number of people reading my posts.
So this was interesting because during the start of this experiment, I still had access to my site's stats. However, a little over a week after starting this experiment, I started Experiment Log – 003, which basically hid my site's stats.
Wrapping this up just a week into the experiment. The results were so good that I don't feel like I need to wait 1 whole month for the experiment to finish. After hiding the view count on my posts, my urge to check view counts started decreasing significantly. A few days after hiding the view count, the compulsive behavior to check views have gone away.