I've been working on the time tracking system that my friend and Carfax co-worker Conner built.
I'm working on a pretty significant rewrite. My main goal is to get away from storing data in Toggl and into my eco-system. This new approach is preferable because I'll have the ability to retrieve and modify the data in more flexible ways.
The plan is to store the entire JSON archive of my tags and narratives into a single file in S3 that is immutable. The API will be moved from Google Cloud Platform to a Lambda in AWS. For many API operations, it will load the archive into memory, manipulate it, then rewrite a new version to S3.
Obviously, it's often undesirable to require loading all the data in an application for any API operation to work. For one, it's usually impossible. But in this case, the archive will never be that big; even if I tracked my time for many years, the file would be relatively small. The payoff is that once the file is quickly loaded, I'll have the ability to get any piece of the data, regardless of size in an instant. And I'll also have the ability to do lots of in-memory calculations at blazing speed.
The hope here is that within a few weeks, I should be able to finally see and share statistics on how I spend my time.
After talking about my relatively new date goals with friends, it's become evident to me that it's a bit dangerous to assign a numerical target for going on more dates. The danger here is disregarding the sanctity of meeting and getting to know another human being in favor of satisfying some arbitrary goal.
I do not feel like I'm one to disregard that sanctity. But in addition to that, I specifically built a clause into the goal so that numbers wouldn't force me to become a serial dater. If I only went on dates with one person for the rest of the year (which counts as only 1), I wanted to feel completely okay with that. I'll happily "make up those numbers" by making musical things or interviewing people anyways.
Also, to clarify, dates I go on are entirely cordial, formal, and non-intimate -- in the vein of The Dating Project. I'm in no way trying to hook up with a bunch of people.
The inclusion of this portion of the goal is a way to motivate me to get out there and meet new people in a context that is important and relevant to me. I also included it so that I wouldn't feel like going on dates was somehow at odds with the rest of my goals.
Finally, I will not share much more information on how this goal is progressing. By definition, the person/people involved here are stranger(s) (at least at first) who don't know about my goals and likely don't want to be thrust into this public space for examination. So out of respect for the privacy of others, I won't delve into specific developments.
I biked to work a lot this week. I can finally feel at least some of the weight I gained from Carfax (30 lbs) disappear.
Although with how hot it has been, I almost feel like I could've achieved the same thing by standing still outside in the 100-degree weather.
Stay tuned for more...