Mood Sentry: The Year in Review

I had a lot going on this year.  I released the app on the Android Market (now Google Play) at the start of the year and on iTunes late in the year.  During this year my wife and I moved back into her house and then fixed up and sold my house.  Work was fairly hectic during the second half of the year because I had to take on several new projects (I'm an engineer in the aerospace industry).  Through all this I made good use of Mood Sentry.  I made several new entries in the Tools section, with many  of the recent entries related to black and white thinking.  I believe that my disposition toward black and white thinking may be behind the thoughts that drive most of my negative moods.  We'll see as I explore this in 2013.  I won't say that the app helped me realize this, but my frequent use of the app and the effort I put into initiating and revising my many entries led me to this realization.  It's the effort I put into managing my condition that helps.  The app just makes it a little more convenient for me to capture and confront my thoughts.  One final insight this year relates to the Prioritization Scheme.  I've posted previously that I'm not comfortable with the scheme because it just seems too arbitrary and not specific enough to be of use.  However, during the summer when I was working on the iPhone version while fixing and selling my house and taking on new projects at work, the scheme really helped me identify what was important at home and at work.  The Prioritization Scheme gave me enough guidance to figure out on what I needed to work and feel comfortable tabling the other activities on my to-do list.  Hope the app is helping you as well as it is helping me.

How's the App Working?

Every now and then I like to post this question to see if anyone has any feedback for me.  Are you able to work with your therapist to figure this out?  Is it helping your process?  Note that not only can you post to blog entries, but you can post on the support page too.

Finished a First Cut

at my new entry related to socializing.  I took the same approach I did for several other recent observations in that I broke the observations into four catagories.  I'm doing this to challenge my disposition toward black and white thinking.  Four catagories seems like a good amount for me.  For this one I address social comments as being either silly, neutral, ignorant, or poignant.  I'll see how this works and modify it as necessary.

Still Making Time

To review the app in the morning and evening.  It's tough to do the mid-day reminder when I'm visiting family, but that's ok.  I know to take a moment mid-day to reflect on what is going well and did so today.  I updated a new entry this evening which is related socializing and I think is developing into something useful.  We will see.

Working On My Challenges

I'm on vacation visiting family and making the time to work on my challenges.  I'm still looking at my thoughts through the lens of black and white thinking.  I've started two new entries related to socializing and what I think is a fear of saying something silly or insulting.  One entry is an observation and the other is an essay.  Having the ability to capture these thought close to when they occur, even on travel, is why I created Mood Sentry.  I'll continue to develop these entries while on travel.

Merry Christmas

Today I'll be travelling and will post infrequently for the next few days.  I'll still be using the app, reviewing my experiences in the morning, checking my mood at mid day, and reflecting in the evening.  I'll focus on my entries that have to do with the holidays, such as entries related to interacting with other people and functioning in group situations.  One thing I'll try focusing on is how all or nothing thinking may be impacting my thoughts in these situations.  That's something I haven't done in the past and may shed some light on my challenges.  Merry Christmas, and I hope things are going well for you this time of years.

Tuned Up Some Entries Today

When I enter things in the tools, such as events or essays, I treat them as living documents.  I update them, frequently at first because it takes me a while to really figure out what is going on in my head.  However, as time goes by I still find my self, on occasion, tweaking my entries.  Today I was adding in a little more content into an entry that I started several months ago.  I was reviewing it today and noticed that it seemed a little incomplete in terms of describing what was really going on in my head.  That's one of the nice things about this app, that I can continue to review and update my entries as needed.  On a couple of occasions I have even renamed an entry.  I'm glad I included the ability to update, rename, and even delete my custom entries.

Used the App as Intended Today

Woke up this morning and reviewed My Experiences, then set some goals, reviewed my prioritization scheme, and the looked at a couple of entries.  It really is a good way for me to start my day because it helps  my identify my challenges at the get-go, which in turn prepares me for the typical things that pop up during the day.  I'm now pausing during my day when I recognize that my mood is lowering, addressing the thoughts that seem to be driving my mood, and asking how my tendency toward all or nothing thinking may be driving these thoughts.  Good stuff for me to do.

Reviewed Some of my Newer Entries

I reviewed some of my newer entries today and caught something surprising in each.  Each entry, each essay to be specific, was geared toward getting me away from black and white thinking.  For example, I have a recent entry related to tasks in which I simplify tasks into 4 categories: quagmires, predictable, surprising, and delayed.  I have found that reviewing this entry at the start of the day can help mitigate forecasts of conflict and failure.  This evening it dawned on me that I'm also using this entry to challenge black and white thinking.  My tendency is to look at tasks as either turning into quagmires or being predictable.  Reviewing this entry helps me look beyond those 2 options and see that there are other ways tasks can play out.  I have 2 other entries that do something similar.  It looks like I'm focusing on attacking black and white thinking as a way to deal with distorted thoughts.  By the way, here are the simplified categories I use for tasks...
quagmire - things get bogged down beyond repair.
predictable - things go generally as planned.
surprising - things go better than planned.
delayed - something pops up that delays the task for a couple of days.

It's Holiday Time

It's holiday time and I often find myself getting anxious about gatherings of family and friends.  Part of it is due to forecasting conflict and part if it is due to this issue I have in group situations.  I have a tough time focusing on the person in front of me when there is a lot of commotion going on around me.  It's as if my mind goes into this monitoring mode, scanning the rest of the conversations and activities going on around me.  I'm not sure what I'm scanning for, I just seem to scan and scan and scan.  It's really bad when I'm in a group of people I know as opposed to being surrounded by people I don't know.  For some reason, the tendency to monitor the people I know and care about is much stronger than it is for complete strangers.  I don't think this characteristic has anything to do with all or nothing thinking, but there may be secondary thoughts that do have to do with all or nothing thinking.  I think that I should be able to control my attention.  There's a "should" statement for you.  I'll have plenty of opportunities in the next week or so to monitor my thoughts in these situations and see what's going on.

Tried Something Different

I was busy this morning and didn't find the time to review My Experiences.  However, I was just sitting down on the couch and reviewing the app when I thought about reviewing My Experiences while reflecting on the day's events.  It was a good thing for me to do.  I was able to identify distorted thoughts and reflect on the evidence that refuted those thoughts.  For example, if you follow this you know that I often forecast conflict and lost free time when opening e-mail.  I had such feelings/thoughts today as well as contradicting evidence.  None of my e-mails was confrontational, nor did any require an undue amount of time to address.  In fact, it was a pretty good day with no drama to speak of.  Reviewing my experiences while reflecting back on the day is something I'll try again.  There's something about reviewing my entries with fresh memories of what happened, what I thought, and how things turned out, that feels effective.

Exhausted Today

Got to work, reviewed the app, and started the final updates to the presentation.  The review went very well though I was a bit nervous much of the time waiting for things to blow up.  Didn't happen, nothing blew up.  We have a good team and prepared well.  If you've looked at some of my examples (which are my personal entries), I have something about how I prepare well in the disqualifying the positive section and probably elsewhere too.  I do a pretty good job preparing for things.  Something else I did today was take several short walks.  Physical activity helps me manage my mood.  I do tend to walk fast when I walk, and have since I was a teen. You also may have noted that I tell myself to get moving in at least one of my examples.  Finally, I did some self reflecting during the day, asking myself how all or nothing thinking could be affecting my outlook, thoughts, and mood at that time.  It all helped a bit, and together helped a lot.

Hectic Day Today

Got in to work, and things seemed fine.  I did my usual Monday morning things, checking e-mail and pulling performance data.  I took the time to review my entries in Mood Sentry and set some goals.  Things popped up, causing brief anxiety and then settling into a more  typical mood.  Then I learned that I needed to pull a presentation together to justify a change to a project I'm working on.  Suddenly I thought I'll never get all my work done!  I should have been working on this over the weekend rather than the stuff I did work on!  The meeting is is going to be a fiasco tomorrow!  I was able to counter these thoughts, partly because I prepared in the morning like I typically do (reviewing My Experiences and more) and partly because throughout the day I revisited my entries in the app as a booster.  By mid-day I had the presentation mostly done and sent to the team for review.  By the end of the day the presentation was complete.  I did stay a little later than typical to complete some of the other items I needed to work on, but it wasn't that bad.  I took a power walk when I got home, and felt even better.

Was Stressing Today

I think I finally figured out what was up.  I had several things I wanted to work on that were related to, work.  I addressed most of them, but not all.  I have this nagging feeling that I "should" have done everything I thought of.  That's that all or nothing thinking popping its head up, as well as a should statement.  I can get this way on Sundays.  I look at what's on my work plate, and think that I need to really clean that plate off before Monday starts.  The all or nothing drives that, but so does some forecasting.  I forecast the when I go to work I'll find something in my inbox that requires my immediate attention and takes up the rest of my day.  Thus, I won't get anything done tomorrow.  How did I fight this?  One way was with my prioritization scheme, which showed me that I hit the important stuff.  Another was reflecting back on what I have done, rather than what I still have to do.  That helped me feel a sense of accomplishment and is what my mid-day reminder is all about.  I also reflected on a couple of entries related to stress and tasks and stress and people.  Feeling a bit better now.  Tomorrow will be fine.

Better than OK today

The morning started off kind of odd.  I canceled an event due to weather and had made alternate plans for the day.  However, the weather turned out better than thought and I started to feel that my alternate plans were a mistake.  I had made an appointment with a realtor this morning to look at a house and started thinking I should have made the appointment for tomorrow so I could hike today.  I also planned on going in to work today to take care of a couple of things, and thought maybe I could put that off til tomorrow.  Because the weather was so nice, I wanted to take a hike today because tomorrow the weather is going to be "iffy."  This made me anxious about work because when I thought about the things I need to address I felt overwhelmed.  So what did I do?  I met with the realtor and was glad I did.  It was good for my wife and I to meet this realty team and talk about what we want with our next house, which we plan to shop for next year.  I then hiked.  On the trail I thought about a lot of things, such as the house and work.  Regarding work I thought about the things I need to do, and how my tendency toward all or nothing thinking drives a lot of my feelings of being overwhelmed.  I really only have a few things to do.  I cataloged what I need to do and realized that I can get it all done in a couple of hours.  I'll have plenty of time tomorrow to do what I need.  After the hike, and before this blog entry, I took the time to review some essays I have in my app related to work.  It helped.

Another Pretty Good Day

We finally delivered what we needed to the customer.  That was good news.  I did pretty well managing my mood, mostly by acknowledging that I have a natural tendency toward black and white thinking.  When an upsetting thought would come up, I would look at it as a by product of black and white thinking.  Recognizing that the thought was a by product of black and white thinking reduced the impact and made it easier to then bring up some counter thoughts.  I did have a mildly distressing incident late in the day, when something came up at around quitting time.  I didn't really analyze that thought but bet it was something on the order of "now I'll never get out of here."  Well, I'm home now, so it looks like I did get out of there.  Fodder for future distortions.

Did Pretty Good Today

I had a major issue at work today.  We had a contractual deliverable due today and it was not ready to go.  I knew that this would be a tough day and made the time to set some goals in the morning to help me stay focused on what needed to be done.  I also took the time to review my prioritization scheme.  That helped, because other items popped up during the day and I was able to put those aside.  Note that my first reaction to any pop-up was something like "oh no, I'll never get all this done."  However, I was able to counter those thoughts fairly quickly through prioritization and recognizing that my all or nothing thought process can distort my thoughts in times like this.  Most of the pop-up stuff could either be handled quickly or could wait until tomorrow.  So what happened? It looks like we missed the deadline.

Today Was Better

I kicked off my day reviewing My Experiences, then my Prioritization Matrix, and finally setting some goals.  Note that a couple of months or so ago I started setting multiple related goals on the same line and have continued to do so.  It just feels better and doesn't require me to modify this feature of Mood Sentry.  Doing those helped get me started on a good footing.  However, there was something else I did today that also helped.  I used my white board to capture the main tasks I need to keep track of for each project I am supporting.  I know this is a somewhat obvious thing to do, but I was getting so caught up in negative emotions recently that I just didn't feel I had the time to do this one simple thing.  For me, doing this helped relieve some anxiety associated with feeling overwhelmed.  Seeing the items on the board while keeping my prioritization scheme in mind helped me recognize what doesn't need to be worked on.  That's a good thing for me.  Otherwise I start thinking that everything has to be worked on.  Yikes.  As stated in a previous post, that's an unrealistic goal.

Feeling Stressed Today

This may be related to my tendency toward all or nothing thinking.  Building on yesterday's post, I have a lot of things on my plate at work and don't seem to be completing them as quickly as I expect myself to complete them.  No one has complained or even suggested that I'm not doing a good job.  Some things are more pressing and need to be completed, so there is a little more pressure on those items and they are getting attention as needed.  So I have this internally generated pressure to complete everything on my plate, which can't be done in a day and isn't expected to be done in a day.  This is exactly why I created my prioritization scheme.  I think I needed to review that tool at the start of my day.

An Epiphany?

I lift weights 3 days a week, something I've done for years.  I have this general belief that if I eat healthy, keep fit, and treat others well, that I've got a chance at beating my condition.  I think there's more to it than just doing those three things, but I still try to do all three.  This morning during my workout I was thinking about my upcoming day and was feeling stressed due to forecasting.  I then had this idea that my forecasts were really being driven by should statements.  Primarily that I should be able to complete all the things I thought about doing today.  That's an unrealistic goal.  Think of all the things you could be doing, and then give yourself the goal of completing them all in one day.  Anyway, I then wondered if my tendency toward all or nothing thinking was driving these thoughts.  Either I can complete all the things I thought of today, or not.  That then made me think that labeling may play a role too, in that if I can't complete it all then I'm a failure, or something like that.  I'm not sure this is an epiphany, because it might not be quite the thing.  But it sure feels close to a truth that I hadn't realized and may provide me some guidance in managing my condition.

Whack a Mole?

Sometimes managing my condition feels like I'm playing "whack a mole."  That's what it was like this morning.  I woke up early, 4 am, ruminating on something going in at work.  I was forecasting conflict in regards to a pending meeting and reporting status the could be sub-optimal.  I addressed this distortion using previous history (things are rarely as bad as I forecast), the fact that when there have been problems I have addressed them fairly well, and that nothing I've seen recently points to a major problem.  That worked.  So what happened next?  I started ruminating on an unrelated topic, this time about a task I've undertaken for a volunteer organization and forecasting that I'll never get it done.  Once more I addressed the distortion via evidence based on previous history as well as recent accomplishments.  This also worked.  Next I started ruminating on yet another item, this one related to my home life.  I addressed it, felt better, and then started ruminating on a different work item.  I'd whack one down and another would pop up.  Just like whack a mole.  I take comfort in that I was able to address the distortions and manage their impact on my mood.

Have to Admit to Only Limited Success Last Night

I tried a couple of things, such as sitting in a corner to keep most of the group's activity within a manageable cone and telling myself to focus on the person I'm talking to.  Each helped a bit, but I think I was helped more by the general level of background noise.  That noise muffled the conversation at the other end of the table to the point that I really couldn't make out what was being said.  That conversation just blended into the background, and thus wasn't a distraction to me.  That made it easier to focus on the conversation at my end of the table.  However, I did get a bit saturated from all the interaction and was quite tired by the end of the night.  I'm not sure if I'll ever be able to beat that symptom of social interaction.  That's something I'll need to think about.

Got a Social Event Tonight

Going to dinner and then to a holiday craft fair with friends tonight.  One of my biggest problems in groups like this is staying focused on the person I'm talking to.  When in a group, with multiple conversations going on, I have this tendency to go into a monitoring mode in which I constantly scan all the conversations.  I'm not sure why I have so much trouble focusing on the person in front of me, but I've been like this far as back as I can remember.  Sometimes the person I'm talking to notices.  I will often pull back from the group and drop out of any conversation because it's easier on my brain.  I'm more aware of this now than I have been in the past and will try some stuff tonight to see if I can beat this.  I'm going to try telling myself that I don't need to monitor the group.  I'll also try focusing on something about the person I'm speaking to.   I'll let you know how this goes.

Worked the New Entry a bit

I'm focused on the Event version of the entry.  I think this makes more sense, even though I'm not referring to one specific event with this entry, but a recurring event.  The way it's developing, I think this is the way to go.  What I'm doing is capturing the general thoughts that these pop-up events trigger in the Event+Thoughts window, and then documenting some notional mitigation ideas in the Mitigation Ideas window.  After I get the initial version completed, I'll try it out on some real events and tailor as needed.  These entries are never one shot deals for me, but iterative endeavors.

Working a New Entry

This one is related to pop-up tasks.  I'm not sure if it's an observation or an event.  Right now, I'm working it in both tools.  This happens on occasion.  I'll look at a thought pattern through two different lenses, entering my thoughts in two different tools.  As I develop the entries it usually becomes clear which tool is more appropriate for the the analysis.  I think this one might end up as an event.  They way the write up is developing it reads more like an event, with a manifestation and some mitigation strategies.  We'll see.

Working my Issues

The more I work my issues, the more I learn about myself.  That probably seems fairly self evident but it's something for me to keep in mind.  That's because every now and then something pops out at me that makes me think I'm getting what this is all about.  Today I had a moment like that.  I was at work, feeling a little overwhelmed with some pop-up tasks along with a plate that felt overloaded to begin with.  Then it dawned on me that I have this tendency toward black and white thinking that led me to believe that I had to complete everything on my plate, today.  I often start the day planning to get several things done, then when pop-up items arise I think I have to complete them too.  The simple task of prioritizing and re-arranging my schedule to accommodate these new items can alleviate a lot of stress for me.  Recognizing that all or nothing thinking plays a role in this thought process helped me define the problem a bit better, which ultimately helped me reduce my stress and anxiety.  This helps keep me motivated to work on my issues.

Using my Reminders

Even though I've used my reminders for well over a year now (note that I've had the app on my phone longer than the app's been on either market), I'm still surprised at how effective the reminders can be.  For me, it's the simple act of looking back on the day and noting what has gone well.  I can still get wrapped up in the stuff that's not going well that I forget that some things are in fact going well.  I can't remember the last time EVERYTHING was going bad.  There's always something, and quite often lots of things that are going well. The reminders help me in this one, simple way.

Changing my Attitude Toward Cost/Benefits?

I've posted previously that I really hadn't used the Cost Benefit analysis tool that much.  I think I have about three custom entries.  The entries just didn't feel that compelling to me.  However, I've been thinking about those entries recently and think I know how to use them.  On their own, they don't do much for me.  But I can use them as inspiration to review other tools.  For example, the example analysis has to do with forecasting.  I have a couple of essays regarding forecasting that address interactions with other people and how tasks typically play out.  The cost benefit analysis isn't strong enough to get me to stop forecasting, but it does help nudge me to review and think about these essays, which do have an impact on my mood.  I'll need to think about this a bit more, but may be developing a better understanding of how to use the Cost Benefit analysis tool.

How is this working on the iPhone?

I have an iPod that I use as a test device, and had a friend load the app on her iPod to test before I released it on the market.  I may have made the drop down menu bar at the top of several pages a bit too small.  The symptom would be that you'd need to tap it a couple of times to get it to work.  Are you having that issue?  I'm also wondering if the "feel" of the app is like other iPhone apps.  I think it is, but I'm just wondering what you think.  I have not seen any crash reports, so all the testing I did before releasing the app seems to have paid off.  Of course, there really are not that many downloads at this time.  Feel free to post on this blog or drop me a line at support@moodappsllc.com.