Tools - Prioritization

OK, so the idea for this tool came from a book I read on dealing with Asperger titled "Living Well on the Spectrum" by Dr. Valerie L Gaus.  It seems that sometimes people on the spectrum have difficulty prioritizing things and may look at all the things they need to do as being equally important.  This has led to feelings of being overwhelmed in my case, so I tried to create a prioritization scheme for myself.  I'm a bit embarrassed to say that according to the scale I created, the vast majority of the items on my plate are simply not that important.  So why the stress?  The schemes for both home and work have actually helped me a bit to reduce anxiety and stress.  I have no idea if they will work for anyone else, and I know there's more tweaking I can do to these, but I leave them alone because they are "good enough" for now.

Tools - Cost Benefit Analysis

The cost benefit analysis is a handy tool, actually, I think all the included tools are handy.  I use this tool just to get a different perspective on a thought pattern.  My tendency is to keep things fairly terse, which you can see in the example.  Because the Costs box is labeled "Costs," I don't put the word "costs" in the write up.  Similar for Benefits.  I use this tool infrequently, but I find it useful when I do.  What do you think?

Tools - Essays

I know that essays sounds like something that will be graded, but it's not.  I like the free form nature of essays.  This is almost a catchall tool.  Essays can be a really good way to bounce ideas around to capture the gist of your (or my) thoughts.  Don't let the name scare you.

Tools - Observations

I like this tool.  I like recording things to observe and capture thoughts and observations that challenge those thoughts.  The example I think captures how I use this tool.  I'm glad to say that it's a been a while since I've been in a deep funk like the example observation.  I think attacking my thoughts helps.  It's not that I don't ever wake up feeling lethargic, it's just that I now do a pretty good job keeping those feelings and thoughts from building on themselves and keeping the feeling going.  I have several other observations in my list.  Sometimes when I get away from the office and go to a coffee shop, I like to review my observations, think about them, and update them if needed.

Tools - Event Record

This was one of my first tools.  I just wanted something that I could use to document any events that really get my mood going, or really get my thoughts running.  Having this tool on the phone lets me capture the gist of the event fairly closely to when it actually happens.  If you look at the example you can see what I mean when I just try to capture the gist.  It reads kind of choppy.  I use it as a memory jogger.  When this event happened I found myself ruminating on the dripping shower instead of going to sleep.  Just getting up and jotting down a couple of notes really helped me get this off my mind and get back to sleep.  Over the next week or two I continued to revisit this entry and capture more thoughts from that night as well as potential mitigation ideas.  I like reviewing this every now and then.  I currently have about 10 events on my phone.  I don't document events if there is a similar one on the phone.  I just review the existing entry and maybe update it to capture any new thoughts that bubble up.  Entering events isn't a one time task for me.  I find that as I review the entry, I get more ideas and more insights into the associated thoughts.

Tools - Daily Goals

I actually use the Daily Goals tool, fairly regularly.  It helps when I'm really busy and need to keep little things from falling through the cracks.  I've been waffling on only having 3 things to accomplish.  I originally set on three due to formatting on the phone.  I've been thinking of increasing it to 5, but then I start thinking that if I knock something off by lunch I can then use that item's space for a new item to accomplish.  That helps keep my list short and helps keep me focused on just a few items to complete.  Thoughts?  I can add a couple of more in a future build if that's what we want.

Tools - an into...

Looks like we're at that point where I get to go into the tools section of Mood Sentry.  The first tools I created were the Event Log, Observations log, Essays, and the Daily Goals.  These were things I typically used via my computer, and got the ideas for from Dr. Burns' book "Feeling Good."  Most of these were generated in regular word processor files such as MS Word or Google Docs.  The Daily Goals was something I tried on a note pad I had printed at Kinko's, but it didn't really catch on with me in hard copy form.  Later on I added the Cost Benefit analysis and the the Ideal Self tools.  I think the last tool I added was the Prioritization tool, which was an idea I got from a book about people who are further along the Asperger scale than most.  I use all these tools, though I use some more than others.  I find that having these tools on my phone enables me to record and review my thoughts as convenient, with a good sense of confidentiality.  Sometimes I get away from the office and review entries at a coffee shot, sometimes I simply do it at my desk.  Note that my entries evolve over time.  I'll discuss how I use each of these tools in upcoming posts.

The Evening Reminder

The evening reminder was almost an afterthought.  The morning and mid-day reminders were things I had programmed into calendar applications before I built this app.  When I ported those reminders to Mood Sentry I decided to add an evening reminder as a catch-all for the end of the day.  I thought it would be helpful to reflect on the day and think about how I'd like to behave on the following day.  I thought that focusing on how I'd like to behave would be good to do, and serve as a sort of target for my automatic homing system.  I'm not sure it really helps me, but I like doing it anyway.  The evening reminder has turned into a part of my wind down routine at the end of the day.  I think it's good and am glad I included it.

The Mid Day Reminder

The mid-day reminder was originally just an MS Outlook reminder that asked how are things going?  It would pop-up on my computer at 11:30 in the morning and was intended to get my mind off problems and just take notice that all things aren't bad.  As I added more tools I expanded the reminder to include more items, such as looking over any daily goals.  I find that taking a moment at mid-day to check my mood, acknowledge that some things are going well, and attack a tool or 2 can really help my mood.  How about you?  Do you use the mid-day reminder?  If so, how do you use it?

Another Update...

I think there was a crash on someone's device, and from the error message it looks like it was with the web browser.  This update eliminates the custom web browser and favor of a built-in browser.  You'll probably notice that the references load a little faster and maybe look better.  I went back to using the smart phone version of the support page because users can now enter questions and comments with this built in browser.  Also, I replaced the Music Anxiety reference with one about becoming resilient.  This article formats much better for the phone and has some great advice for people overcoming a bad situation.  I hope you agree.  Finally, I did a lot of little code clean ups on this just to keep things tidy.  Tomorrow I'll blog about the reminders.

Evolution of a Reminder

Before I built this app, the morning reminder was an MS Outlook activity that popped open a one-page MS Word file with a lot of self-talk.  When I first got this app working, the morning reminder simply told me to look forward in my day, anticipate things that may trigger distorted thoughts, and then review my experiences for relevant distortions in an attempt to pre-load my mitigations.   As I added more features to the app, and as I used the app more, I added additional things to the morning reminder such as looking at the Daily Goals.  Simplifying the reminders might be a good thing to do if you're not sure where to start.  What's the minimum you think you need to do?

My Experiences - continued

I stated the other day that I continue to update My Experiences.  Here's an example, the mitigation I have for "All or Nothing."  The example finishes with "The world has many shades of gray."  I'm working on extending that, with something like: "Try to assign a shade of gray: light, medium, or dark."  I'm just trying to prod myself to think in terms of "gray."  It helps a bit.  When I modify one of my examples, I usually remember to remove the phrase "Example:" at the beginning.  That helps make it clear to me that I modified the write up.  Because the examples are mine, it's not always that obvious when I modify one.

Customizing My Experiences

I developed the My Experiences tool because the references, both on-line and hard copy, that I had for cognitive distortions were great for explaining the concepts, but weren't exactly "me."  I thought it would be helpful to tailor the definitions to myself, and I was right.  It really helped me understand the distortions and how they impact my life, as well as when they are most likely to pop up.  I included the ability to tailor the distortions not just for users, but also for myself.  As I learn more about myself, I can update the distortions as needed.  If you are trying to capture how the distortions manifest during your day and it's taking longer than you'd like, don't worry.  It took me a while to really capture the gist of each, and I still update some of them.

Changed the title

So, I changed the title.  Mood Apps is the company name, Mood Sentry is the app name.  This blog is really about using Mood Sentry, so I decided to include the app name in the title.  Have you tried customizing any of the cognitive distortions?  It took me a while to customize each one.  My references were helpful, but documenting my own thoughts was a challenge in part because there was a feeling of vulnerability in regards to having my thoughts recorded on my phone.  I wish I could tell you what I did to get over that feeling, but I really can't recall.  I think once I started writing and re-writing, I forgot about the that feeling and just focused on capturing my experiences.  Good luck!

It's my 2 year anniversary...

There was a time that I thought I was meant to live a lonely life, that finding a person to share my life with would never happen because I just wasn't a good enough person.  Those thoughts weren't true.  You can see the distortions in my thoughts.  I can't say my app helped, because the app has only been around for about 6 months (including development) and I'm now celebrating my second anniversary. But I can say a persistent effort on my part and a belief that things can get better had a lot to do with this.  If you're working on a mood disorder such a depression or anxiety, keep working on it.  You'll find something that works for you.

Did I ever tell you...

that a lot of the "tools" I have on this site were inspired by Dr. David D. Burns book "Feeling Good - the new mood therapy?"  If you're familiar with that book, then the concept of Cognitive Distortions is not new to you, and things like cost benefits analysis are not new either.  Related to this, I'm thinking of putting a TIC-TOC tool in the next release.  We'll see.

My first two tools..

My first two tools in the app were the Reminders and My Experiences functions.  At that time, I used MS Outlook and Mozilla Lightning to set reminders to take some sort of action.  On weekday mornings I had Outlook automatically open a file for me that had a bunch of proactive "self talk" for me to review at the start of the day. At mid-day, Outlook (on weekdays) and Lighting (on weekends) would pop open a simple reminder asking me "what's going well?"  When I looked at the morning file I decided it was too big for the phone.  Then I realized that it was essentially my take on the cognitive distortions with a little direction thrown in.  The cognitive distortions morphed into My Experiences, and the direction is the body  of the reminder.  If Mood Sentry is not for you, consider using a calendar app to set simple reminders for yourself.  It's easy, and you probably already have the software.

Our First Update is Coming...

Got an update coming.  We changed the link to our support forum.  The original link took you to a site optimized for smart phones.  It looked OK and was a neat concept.  However, it would not let users post anything.  We tried fixing it today but decided to use a link to the standard support page with some minor  formatting changes.  It actually looks pretty good in landscape view.  Sorry for any inconvenience to those who may have tried posting.

Who had the error?

Seems there was an error, but I can't tell what it was.  Looks like it was related to either a web page loading or a dialog.  If you had the error, feel free to give me some details so I can fix the issue.  I just need to know what you were doing when the illegal argument exception occurred.  You can do if via the support page on the app, or e-mail support@moodappsllc.com

Going from a reminder to home page

If you set a reminder, the reminder activity will pop up with the selected reminder at the specified time.  Did you know that you can go from there to the home page?  When the reminder activates, you can get to the home page via the options menu.  Launch the options menu, and select the home icon.

Options Menu - Hints

Check out the hints page.  We have one on just about every page in the app.  You access it via the options menu, and it's usually on the lower left.  It's a really good way to get to know this app!

Seems you can now fine Mood Apps LLC...

Searching on moodappsllc.com will take you to the company website.  Still working the moodsentry.com search.  We'll see.  Other than that, have you checked out any of the references?

Did you know...

You can change the font size, slightly.  Options menu -> settings -> Set Font Size.  Only 2 choices, small or medium.

Still working the search...

Still working the search issue.  It seems to take a few days to get the Google search engines aware of my site, even though it is hosted on Google sites.  I see that I've had 5 downloads of the free trial version.  So far, no postings in the support page.  Hopefully that means there are no major problems.  We'll see.  Here's a hint: to enter items in the Daily Goals page, just double tap on any text box on that page.  That will put you in edit mode.  After that, you only need a single tap to make another text box active.  How can you tell which is the active box?  The colors will go from yellow on the left to blue on the right.