I Am My Own Lab Rat
Something I find myself doing quite a bit is conducting my own little life experiments. I get an idea or hear about one, do a little research, devise some sort of “experiment”, and try it out. Though they’ve been pretty major subjects of late, my experiments have not been isolated to diet or exercise. I’ve experimented with personal finance, investing, organization, and time-management strategies as well.
The experiment is always pretty informal; I don’t start with any clear objective nor do I log any hard data. The objective is something like “try it for thirty days and see how it goes.” As a result, my conclusions are more of a “gut feel” than anything scientific. Sometimes I don’t need to be able to say, “I’ve lost x pounds following y diet or z fitness regimen”. Instead, “I feel healthier, stronger, faster, and more energetic than I’ve ever been” can be a much better, if subjective, result.
It’s got me thinking, though. What if I could quantify these results? What if I could track and later cite how much my 5K time has improved, how much more I can lift, or how much more time or money I have as the result of a specific experiment? Are there too many variables in life to be able to run controlled experiments and draw definitive conclusions?
What experiments do you run on yourself? Do you track data? How?
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