That Feeling has Lifted

That feeling I described earlier this week of pending doom has lifted somewhat.  I'm not sure if it has been due to some small successes I've had this week or something else, but it's lifted a bit.  Perhaps it's a combination of things, such as the successes, better sleep, and really working Mood Sentry in the morning to get my day going.  I still have my typical feelings of stress and anxiety, but I can manage those and am functioning pretty well.  Today was a descent day mostly because I got some help I needed on a project I'm struggling with.  I set some goals for tomorrow and will turn in for a good night's sleep.  I'm ending today with the thought that tomorrow will be pretty good.

If you'd like to contribute one of your experiences, reminders, any tool entry or just your thoughts to possibly help others make better use of Mood Sentry, please consider e-mailing the item (or your thoughts) to 4theblog@moodappsllc.com. I'll protect your privacy and keep the source anonymous.

If your therapist would like to contact me with questions or suggestions, have him/her contact me at info@moodappsllc.com.

Have you Tried Customizing My Experiences?

Every now and then I post a questions like this to the use community.  I'm curious if anyone has tried customizing My Experiences for their self.  The reason I created that tool was to help myself gain a better understanding of the concept of Cognitive Distortions.  The examples on the web and in Dr. Burns' book Feeling Good were helpful, but really didn't capture my thoughts.  Thus, I created my own and tailored them over and over.  I found this exercise helpful and am curious if anyone else has tried and if so, did it help?

If you'd like to contribute one of your experiences, reminders, any tool entry or just your thoughts to possibly help others make better use of Mood Sentry, please consider e-mailing the item (or your thoughts) to 4theblog@moodappsllc.com. I'll protect your privacy and keep the source anonymous.

If your therapist would like to contact me with questions or suggestions, have him/her contact me at info@moodappsllc.com.

Getting Better

My day started off where I left off yesterday, but improved significantly by lunch time.  I'm not sure what really drove the improvement.  I briefly reviewed My Experiences in the morning, I re-checked my goals, and I looked over one of my entries related to this feeling of doom that can overcome me.  I made some good progress on one of my activities, which helped.  I got some other stuff done too, but I really don't think I made and significant progress, just incremental.  I did recognize that I was feeling less stressful by lunch, which I think is good.  Checking my goals, I hit most of them, and modified a couple of the others, for a fairly productive day.  I'll set some goals for tomorrow and see if I can get another good night's rest.

If you'd like to contribute one of your experiences, reminders, any tool entry or just your thoughts to possibly help others make better use of Mood Sentry, please consider e-mailing the item (or your thoughts) to 4theblog@moodappsllc.com. I'll protect your privacy and keep the source anonymous.

If your therapist would like to contact me with questions or suggestions, have him/her contact me at info@moodappsllc.com.

Having a Tough Time Today

I have this general feeling of depression that I can't seem to shake today.  I know I didn't sleep well last night, and was feeling a bit under the weather, but those usually don't make me feel like this.  Things are going fine at work and at home.  I have some little challenges, but nothing overwhelming.  But I just have this feeling that things are bad.  I'm looking through all the entries I have trying to see if there is something that can help.  I'm getting some relief, but not much.  This may be one of those times I have to let this thing run its course.  I just found an entry related to feeling like this, with nothing apparent driving it.  Unfortunately, that's about all there is to this entry.  I'm going to work on this a bit before turning in.

If you'd like to contribute one of your experiences, reminders, any tool entry or just your thoughts to possibly help others make better use of Mood Sentry, please consider e-mailing the item (or your thoughts) to 4theblog@moodappsllc.com. I'll protect your privacy and keep the source anonymous.

If your therapist would like to contact me with questions or suggestions, have him/her contact me at info@moodappsllc.com.

Little Challenges Today

For some reason I had these little challenges today.  It started with Quicken this morning, when I was updating my banking information.  Things didn't import into one of my accounts like they should have and then I noticed that an imported transaction from a couple of weeks ago did not import correctly followed by another similar discovery.  I started thinking that I'd never get my finances updated.  I caught this one fairly quickly and countered with something like "of course I'll my finances updated, it'll just take a bit longer than planned."  The "of course" lead-in actually helps me.  I had another challenge related to forecasts of conflict regarding a class I took this afternoon and a meeting I attended this evening.  Those I countered by imagining things going well and telling myself that classes and meetings are traditionally fairly neutral.  Finally, with so many things going on I had this feeling that I wouldn't get enough done today.  Well, looking back on my day (per my evening reminder) I actually got a lot done.  I have entries in Mood Sentry related to all these thoughts, which came in handy today.  Time to set some goals for tomorrow and turn in.

If you'd like to contribute one of your experiences, reminders, any tool entry or just your thoughts to possibly help others make better use of Mood Sentry, please consider e-mailing the item (or your thoughts) to 4theblog@moodappsllc.com. I'll protect your privacy and keep the source anonymous.

If your therapist would like to contact me with questions or suggestions, have him/her contact me at info@moodappsllc.com.

Had a Good Day

I set several goals last night and only hit about half of them today, but it was still a really good day.  I spent a chunk of the day programming for both Android and iPhone apps.  I'm re-organizing the source code for Mood Sentry on both platforms to facilitate maintenance and re-use.  I've been working toward this for the past year, and over the next couple of weeks I'll be trying to work out the final touches on the code.  As I worked on this today I let the effort drive my activities.  As such, I diverged from the original goals I set last night.  I really did get a lot done today, just not what I originally planned.  That's something to keep in mind.  Setting goals helps keep me focused, but isn't the measure of how well I do on any given day.  Some days, just getting one thing done is good enough.

If you'd like to contribute one of your experiences, reminders, any tool entry or just your thoughts to possibly help others make better use of Mood Sentry, please consider e-mailing the item (or your thoughts) to 4theblog@moodappsllc.com. I'll protect your privacy and keep the source anonymous.

If your therapist would like to contact me with questions or suggestions, have him/her contact me at info@moodappsllc.com.

Hit Most of my Goals Today

It was a pretty good day today.  I hit most of my goals, and the one I didn't hit was really a stretch goal and important.  Regarding managing my thoughts, I did OK.  I had a low level of anxiety that was driven partly by some forecasts I had regarding a request for information.  Being me, I figured the information would be bad.  I caught myself thinking like that and tried some counter thoughts such as the information could be good, but would most probably be neutral.  That helped lessen my feelings but didn't eliminate them.  The information was in-fact neutral.  There really weren't any other pressing items on my agenda for the day other than some stuff related to the Android version of Mood Sentry.  I"m working on some updates to the code that should have little if any impact on the user experience, but are a bit complex and thus anxiety provoking.  Again, the feelings are driven by forecasts that things won't work right and I'll never get the updates working or something along those lines.  Those thoughts tend to drive procrastination, but I overcame them and got what I really wanted to get done, done this evening.  So how am I ending my day?  I set some goals for tomorrow, mostly recreation related, I reviewed a few entries in Mood Sentry, and I did this.  Let's see how tomorrow goes.

If you'd like to contribute one of your experiences, reminders, any tool entry or just your thoughts to possibly help others make better use of Mood Sentry, please consider e-mailing the item (or your thoughts) to 4theblog@moodappsllc.com. I'll protect your privacy and keep the source anonymous.

If your therapist would like to contact me with questions or suggestions, have him/her contact me at info@moodappsllc.com.

Some Background on Mood Sentry

What drove me to develop Mood Sentry was a decision at my company to dis-allow access to Google Docs from behind the company's firewall. Prior to that decision I had been using Google Docs to capture and record my thoughts, mostly via a running journal.  I also used my e-mail client, Microsoft Outlook to remind me in the morning and at lunchtime to think about what distortions might come up and prepare for them (morning) and to look back on my day and recognize what has gone well (lunch). Once I lost access to Google docs, I had two choices regarding my journaling, one was to go back to my old method of using e-mail to capture my thoughts and then mail them to my home e-mail account and the other was to see if I could develop an app that provided the tools I need to capture my thoughts and develop counter measures to those thoughts.  At first I chose the e-mail option, but that rapidly grew old and I started developing Mood Sentry.  My Outlook reminders turned into My Experiences and Daily Reminders.  My journaling turned into several of the Journaling tools, such as Cost Benefit analysis and Observations.  It took a while to learn to program an app, but I persisted and finally got Mood Sentry working.  I originally had a free version that had limited functionality and was good for 30 days, but I pulled that from the market.  I pulled it when I dropped the price from 4.99 down to 1.99.  I may once again offer a free, limited capability version, but right now it's not in the pipeline.

If you'd like to contribute one of your experiences, reminders, any tool entry or just your thoughts to possibly help others make better use of Mood Sentry, please consider e-mailing the item (or your thoughts) to 4theblog@moodappsllc.com. I'll protect your privacy and keep the source anonymous.

If your therapist would like to contact me with questions or suggestions, have him/her contact me at info@moodappsllc.com.

Reviewing Past Entries

Because I've had Mood Sentry on my phone for a couple of years now, I have a lot of entries in the various tools in the app.  Every now and then I take the time to review the entries.  Not necessarily looking at specific entries related to a specific thought, but randomly selecting entries just to see what I wrote.  It's interesting to see how some things still apply and some don't.  I often delete the ones that no longer apply.  Another thing I do is edit for clarity.  Sometimes when I re-read these entries, I find grammar and spelling errors, and wording that's not quite clear.  Even though these are only for me and spelling and grammar do not count, I still take the time to edit the ones that can use some editing.  One other thing I may do is edit for accuracy.  Sometime what is written is clear, but on further reflection I find that it is not quite accurate.  I've noted here and there that creating entries in Mood Sentry is rarely a one shot deal for me.  I often will write and re-write my entries for clarity, grammar, and accuracy.  Persistent access is the main reason for having it on the phone.

If you'd like to contribute one of your experiences, reminders, any tool entry or just your thoughts to possibly help others make better use of Mood Sentry, please consider e-mailing the item (or your thoughts) to 4theblog@moodappsllc.com. I'll protect your privacy and keep the source anonymous.

If your therapist would like to contact me with questions or suggestions, have him/her contact me at info@moodappsllc.com.

Did Pretty Good with My Goals Today

I just checked my Daily Goals and  realized that I addressed them all and got more done to boot.  I've been making it a point to set some goals the night before to help me jump start my day and in the process I review the goals that are in the tool at that time.  That helps me see what I accomplished during the day, which is a nice by-product of this process.  Seeing what I accomplished before turning in for the night helps me generate a positive impression of the day.  That's a good thing, and it inspires me to set some goals for the following day.  When I set my goals, I just try to hit a couple of the more important things I need to do.  Also, as I've stated before (but it's been a while) I now list multiple items on each line of the accomplishments.  I debated adding more lines, but because the text boxes are long enough that I can enter multiple items on each line, I decided not to add more lines.  How are the Daily Goals working for you?

If you'd like to contribute one of your experiences, reminders, any tool entry or just your thoughts to possibly help others make better use of Mood Sentry, please consider e-mailing the item (or your thoughts) to 4theblog@moodappsllc.com. I'll protect your privacy and keep the source anonymous.

If your therapist would like to contact me with questions or suggestions, have him/her contact me at info@moodappsllc.com.

Things Went OK Today

The day started off with a feeling of doom, that something bad was going to happen.  I came to a realization this morning that things rarely go bad all at once.  When things go bad they tend to do so over time, and thus there are often a few opportunities to catch things early and correct as necessary.  This realization helped reduce, but not eliminate my feeling of doom because I'm pretty good at keeping track of my progress and recognizing when things are starting to get off track.  Actually, a chunk of my Monday morning is spent reviewing progress and looking for problems.  This will make it into a counter thought entry I have for this feeling of doom.  As the day progressed I still had this feeling of anxiety and pending doom, but the intensity of the feeling was not that bad.  I had a therapist appointment this afternoon and talked a bit about what drives this feeling, which seems to be a core belief that I'm no good.  I've addressed that core belief in the app too, mainly be addressing the totality of the phrase and that being no good at everything is a near impossibility.  I felt better after seeing my therapist and getting the thoughts out in the open.

I set some goals for tomorrow and will try to get a good night's rest.  Let's see what tomorrow brings.

If you'd like to contribute one of your experiences, reminders, any tool entry or just your thoughts to possibly help others make better use of Mood Sentry, please consider e-mailing the item (or your thoughts) to 4theblog@moodappsllc.com. I'll protect your privacy and keep the source anonymous.

If your therapist would like to contact me with questions or suggestions, have him/her contact me at info@moodappsllc.com.

Did Things a Little Different This Evening

I was preparing for Monday, and what I did was set some Daily Goals first, before reviewing My Experiences.  I think this worked out pretty well.  Setting some Daily Goals got me thinking about what I would be working on tomorrow.  Mondays involve lots of status updates and presentation preparation.  This often leads to forecasts.  Setting the goals made it easier to assess what thoughts might pop up tomorrow and what mitigations to have at the ready.  I was also better able to identify some relevant journal entries that relate to Mondays.  If preparing for tomorrow is part of your evening routine, try setting some Daily Goals first, and then doing the rest of your routine.  See if it helps.  Good luck.

If you'd like to contribute one of your experiences, reminders, any tool entry or just your thoughts to possibly help others make better use of Mood Sentry, please consider e-mailing the item (or your thoughts) to 4theblog@moodappsllc.com. I'll protect your privacy and keep the source anonymous.

If your therapist would like to contact me with questions or suggestions, have him/her contact me at info@moodappsllc.com.

References

We've had the same references for a while.  Two are related to the concept of Cognitive Distortions, and one is related to the concept of Resilience.  Have you checked them out?  What do you think of them?  You can probably guess that I like them.  The one at the top of the list is something I printed out a couple of years ago and have posted next to my desk at work.  It's handy, and I still review it every now and then.  The second down the list is similar to the first article.  The third is the one regarding resilience.  I like this last one because I think it complements the Thriving Tools.  Do you have any references you think I should consider and maybe include?  I'm interested in web based references, things that are not too long and will work on the small format of a phone.  Drop me line and let me know your thoughts.

If you'd like to contribute one of your experiences, reminders, any tool entry or just your thoughts to possibly help others make better use of Mood Sentry, please consider e-mailing the item (or your thoughts) to 4theblog@moodappsllc.com. I'll protect your privacy and keep the source anonymous.

If your therapist would like to contact me with questions or suggestions, have him/her contact me at info@moodappsllc.com.

Journaling vs. Thriving Tools

How are the tools working for you?  There's a lot right now, and I still rely on only a few of them.  I thought I'd be using several of the new tools, and have, but not as often as I had thought.  Anyway, I want to take a moment to talk about the differences between the journaling tools and the thriving tools.  The Journaling Tools I mostly use for capturing past events, experiences, and the like.  They tend to help me recognize what's been going on in my thoughts and the impact those thoughts have had.  The Thriving Tools are mostly geared toward upcoming things, such as events, tasks, or my daily activities. These are forward focused tools that are intended to help me perform better throughout the day.

So what do you think about having both tool sets?  Do you use both types of tools?  Are you like me, with a tendency to focus on just a few of the tools?  If so, which ones?

If you'd like to contribute one of your experiences, reminders, any tool entry or just your thoughts to possibly help others make better use of Mood Sentry, please consider e-mailing the item (or your thoughts) to 4theblog@moodappsllc.com. I'll protect your privacy and keep the source anonymous.

If your therapist would like to contact me with questions or suggestions, have him/her contact me at info@moodappsllc.com.

Tailoring My Experiences

It's been a while since I've posted about tailoring My Experiences.  I've left most of them as is, because what you see in the examples are what I was using at the time I created the database with those items.  However, over time I have modified a couple, just a bit.  When I modify them I usually delete the text that says "Example:".  That makes it easy for me to identify when I've modified an entry.  The system has two database fields for each manifestation and two for each mitigation.  One field is for the example text and the other field is for your customized text.  The way the logic works is like this: if the customized text field is blank, then the system displays the example text.  The result is that the system will usually show something.  Once takeaway is that once you customize the text, the system will show you your custom text.  I created this tool because I thought customizing each distortion to my own experiences would help be understand the concept of cognitive distortions, and I think it did.  I hope it does for you too.

If you'd like to contribute one of your experiences, reminders, any tool entry or just your thoughts to possibly help others make better use of Mood Sentry, please consider e-mailing the item (or your thoughts) to 4theblog@moodappsllc.com. I'll protect your privacy and keep the source anonymous.

If your therapist would like to contact me with questions or suggestions, have him/her contact me at info@moodappsllc.com.

How Did Things Go Today?

I just reviewed my Evening Reminder, and that's how it starts.  My objective with this is to get me to really reflect back on my day and see how things went.  Sometimes I get these thoughts that everything is going poorly, and reflecting back can help me realize that some, if not most, things were either neutral or good.  Today I made some progress on something I'm working on at my regular job, which is good.  Things at home are somewhat neutral.  And things related to Mood Sentry are a good to just below neutral.  I'm having a dickens of a time trying to get a new development tool working on the Android version.  I spent several hours this evening trying to get it to work, but have yet to succeed.  I'm handling this better than I used to handle things like this. I used to get very upset and would have a tough time putting something like this down for the evening.  I'd ruminate on the issue and not sleep very well.  I'm better at handling things like this now and will be able to put this issue down until I get home from work tomorrow.  Looking across everything I did today and how everything is going, I think things went pretty well today.

If you'd like to contribute one of your experiences, reminders, any tool entry or just your thoughts to possibly help others make better use of Mood Sentry, please consider e-mailing the item (or your thoughts) to 4theblog@moodappsllc.com. I'll protect your privacy and keep the source anonymous.

If your therapist would like to contact me with questions or suggestions, have him/her contact me at info@moodappsllc.com.

Set my Goals Late Today

I didn't get around to setting any goals until late this afternoon.  It turned out to be a pretty good exercise, because it made me look back on what I had done throughout the day which was a lot.  I never used the Daily Goals like that, and my first thought when I realized that I hadn't set any goals was to punt and focus on tomorrow.  However, since there was still plenty of daylight left in the day, I figured I would set the goals for today.  Like I said, it was a pretty good exercise, similar to my mid-day reminder in that I recognized all the things I have done.  Something I'll try to keep in mind.

If you'd like to contribute one of your experiences, reminders, any tool entry or just your thoughts to possibly help others make better use of Mood Sentry, please consider e-mailing the item (or your thoughts) to 4theblog@moodappsllc.com. I'll protect your privacy and keep the source anonymous.

If your therapist would like to contact me with questions or suggestions, have him/her contact me at info@moodappsllc.com.

Using the Reminders

I've included three reminders you can set to prompt yourself to take action.  Before I created Mood Sentry, I used Microsoft Outlook and other e-mail programs to set reminders to take some sort of action to better manage my mood.  Reminding myself to do something gave me the little extra nudge I needed, on occasion.  My original morning reminder was a combination of the morning reminder on Mood Sentry and My Experiences.  It was basically a one sided sheet of paper I would review each day, though after a while I had two versions of the sheet.  When I created Mood Sentry, I was concerned that having all that text on one screen would result in a lot of scrolling, so I broke the reminder into a short prompt and My Experiences.  This fit much better on the small format of the phone.  The mid day reminder was originally just this: "What has gone well so far today?"  The idea was to take a moment and recognize that some things have gone well.  The evening reminder was something I developed for the phone.  I figured that as long as I have a morning and mid-day reminder, I might as well have an evening reminder.

Do you use the reminders?  Have you customized the verbiage to yourself?  Let me know how the reminders work for you.

If you'd like to contribute one of your experiences, reminders, any tool entry or just your thoughts to possibly help others make better use of Mood Sentry, please consider e-mailing the item (or your thoughts) to 4theblog@moodappsllc.com. I'll protect your privacy and keep the source anonymous.

If your therapist would like to contact me with questions or suggestions, have him/her contact me at info@moodappsllc.com.

Used the Event Prep Tool

I had an event tonight, a farm dinner, for which I used the Event Prep tool.  These events tend to have a lot of participants and commotion going on which can saturate my hearing and my attention.  The result is that I can feel overwhelmed and then withdraw.  I used the event prep tool to identify some things I can do, such as excuse myself and take a short walk to "decompress" a bit, to manage the situation.  This technique works because, well, a farm dinner is usually held on a farm so there's usually plenty of places to walk.  Using the event prep to identify things I can do to manage my thoughts and mood was helpful in this situation.  I'm glad I created it.  Have you tried it?

If you'd like to contribute one of your experiences, reminders, any tool entry or just your thoughts to possibly help others make better use of Mood Sentry, please consider e-mailing the item (or your thoughts) to 4theblog@moodappsllc.com. I'll protect your privacy and keep the source anonymous.

If your therapist would like to contact me with questions or suggestions, have him/her contact me at info@moodappsllc.com.

Color Scheme

For those new to Mood Sentry, I'd like to take a moment to talk about the color scheme.  When I use this app, and in particular when composing an entry such as an Essay, I tend to stay on the screen for quite some time.  Because of this, I was concerned about batter life due to having a white background.  To mitigate that concern, I opted for a dark background, which can seem kind of gloomy but will definitely save battery life.  I've toyed with the idea to let the user select a different background color, but have yet to implement such an option.

So what about the blue to yellow borders?  Well, that's actually blue to sunny!  I know that's kind of silly, but I like it.  I can't be all gloom and no fun.  Hope the app is working for you.

If you'd like to contribute one of your experiences, reminders, any tool entry or just your thoughts to possibly help others make better use of Mood Sentry, please consider e-mailing the item (or your thoughts) to 4theblog@moodappsllc.com. I'll protect your privacy and keep the source anonymous.

If your therapist would like to contact me with questions or suggestions, have him/her contact me at info@moodappsllc.com.

Had an OK Day Today

I reviewed My Experiences in the morning, I reviewed a couple of entries, and had a pretty good day today.  There were no meetings to attend, no pending interactions with other people, and I really only had one task to work on for the day.  Thus, there was less fodder for forecasting.  It was a fairly stress free day as a result.  Tomorrow is Saturday.  I'll get some exercise in and work on the next update to Mood Sentry, which will just be some minor tuning.

If you'd like to contribute one of your experiences, reminders, any tool entry or just your thoughts to possibly help others make better use of Mood Sentry, please consider e-mailing the item (or your thoughts) to 4theblog@moodappsllc.com. I'll protect your privacy and keep the source anonymous.

If your therapist would like to contact me with questions or suggestions, have him/her contact me at info@moodappsllc.com.

How Are the Hints?

Every now and then I check on things and invite feedback on certain aspects of Mood Sentry.  Today I'm asking how the hints are for you?  Are they helpful?  Would you like to see more, or perhaps different hints?  Check them out with these thoughts in mind and let me know what you think.  Those are some of the easiest things to change.

If you'd like to contribute one of your experiences, reminders, any tool entry or just your thoughts to possibly help others make better use of Mood Sentry, please consider e-mailing the item (or your thoughts) to 4theblog@moodappsllc.com. I'll protect your privacy and keep the source anonymous.

If your therapist would like to contact me with questions or suggestions, have him/her contact me at info@moodappsllc.com.

Sharing a Barriers and Breakthroughs entry

I've been talking about sharing one of my new entries in one of the new tools, and finally got around to it.  This is one from the Barriers and Breakthroughs tool I've woking on and I think is good enough to share at this time.  Note that I used the e-mail function to send this to myself.

Title: I'll Never Finish
Barriers
Sometimes I get this thought that if I start something I'll get hung up and not finish.  Not finishing will prove that i'm no good or useless.

Breakthroughs
There have been a few things that I could not finish, but none of them proved that I'm no good.
No good is all encompasing.  It probably is impossible to be no good. Useless is similar.  It's all encompassing and probably impossible to achieve.

If you'd like to contribute one of your experiences, reminders, any tool entry or just your thoughts to possibly help others make better use of Mood Sentry, please consider e-mailing the item (or your thoughts) to 4theblog@moodappsllc.com. I'll protect your privacy and keep the source anonymous.

If your therapist would like to contact me with questions or suggestions, have him/her contact me at info@moodappsllc.com.

Slept Well Last Night

I slept well last night and it made a big difference on my mood this morning.  I wasn't as tired as I had been and things just seemed better.  I reviewed My Experiences this morning and again this evening.  I also took some time to review some new entries I've been working on and developing them a bit more. I know I keep saying that I'll publish some of these, and I'll do that this week.  I'll just do a couple of the ones I have in the new tools I have.  Perhaps an Auto Thought or a Barriers and Breakthroughs entry.  We'll see.  Other than that, do you have any feedback for me?  Have you used the new tools?  Do you have an entry you'd like to share?  Let me know.

If you'd like to contribute one of your experiences, reminders, any tool entry or just your thoughts to possibly help others make better use of Mood Sentry, please consider e-mailing the item (or your thoughts) to 4theblog@moodappsllc.com. I'll protect your privacy and keep the source anonymous.

If your therapist would like to contact me with questions or suggestions, have him/her contact me at info@moodappsllc.com.

Had a So So Day

Made time to review Mood Sentry this morning, which helped jump start my day.  However, as the day wore on I just found myself in a mild funk.  I think it was mostly a type or emotional reasoning driven not by thoughts but just being tired.  I didn't get a great nights sleep last night.  It probably would have been better for me to sleep in a bit longer rather than getting up early and going to the gym.  I can always change my routine and go to the gym on Tuesday.  Anyway, I've been fairly tired in a sleepy way for most of the day, and I think that contributed to a type of emotional reasoning.  I'll see if I can get a good night's sleep tonight and if I feel better in the am.

If you'd like to contribute one of your experiences, reminders, any tool entry or just your thoughts to possibly help others make better use of Mood Sentry, please consider e-mailing the item (or your thoughts) to 4theblog@moodappsllc.com. I'll protect your privacy and keep the source anonymous.

If your therapist would like to contact me with questions or suggestions, have him/her contact me at info@moodappsllc.com.

Had an OK Day Today

This was the last day of my vacation, and I had these nagging thoughts that I didn't get enough done this past week and that I would never complete the stuff I wanted to address today.  The result was some procrastination throughout the day.  I managed to have some fun, learn some stuff, and my wife even treated me to dinner down by the marina.  Not bad.  I made time to review My Experiences and reviewed a couple of my entries, which helped me handle these thoughts that came up.  I even made time to do a quick clean up of my work e-mail to jump start my day tomorrow.  There we no major issues.  I have a couple of minor things to address, but that's fine.  Not bad for taking a week off.  I'll set some goals tomorrow and make the time to review My Experiences.  I think it will be a good day.

Regarding Mood Sentry.  After spending the week working on the scripts for the videos, creating the videos, uploading the videos, and updating the website, I'm looking into the next update.  It will be minor stuff, I think.  I may do some clean up of the interface and try to bring the look and feel of both the Android version and iPhone version a little more in-sync with each other.  I'll also fix any bugs people tell me are out there.

If you'd like to contribute one of your experiences, reminders, any tool entry or just your thoughts to possibly help others make better use of Mood Sentry, please consider e-mailing the item (or your thoughts) to 4theblog@moodappsllc.com. I'll protect your privacy and keep the source anonymous.

If your therapist would like to contact me with questions or suggestions, have him/her contact me at info@moodappsllc.com.

Updated the Videos for Mood Sentry

I spent a chunk of this past week working on the scripts for the videos for Mood Sentry, and today I created the videos.  I'm never ecstatic about my videos, and these are no exception.  There are always errors in the videos, things like slurred speech, awkward pauses, and the occasional cockatiel tweet in the background.  However, these are functional and I hope will help people get a feel for what Mood Sentry is all about.  I did my best to keep them succinct, but they are still kind of long.  I have a total of 6 videos, 3 for Android and 3 for the iPhone.  Here's a link to the Mood Sentry website.  You should be able to tell which videos are for the iPhone and which are for Android by the tabs across the top of the page.  Let me know what you think.

If you'd like to contribute one of your experiences, reminders, any tool entry or just your thoughts to possibly help others make better use of Mood Sentry, please consider e-mailing the item (or your thoughts) to 4theblog@moodappsllc.com. I'll protect your privacy and keep the source anonymous.

If your therapist would like to contact me with questions or suggestions, have him/her contact me at info@moodappsllc.com.

Another Funk of a Day

I'm not sure what happened, but I winged it today and didn't use the app until this evening.  I think I'm nailing down the thought that is preventing me from doing things.  I hate to share this because it seems kind of silly (Labeling?), but I think the thought is that if I start something, it will take longer than expected and I won't have enough time to get to all the other things I have to do.  This is especially true because all the other things I have to do are all going to take longer than expected too.  The result is I procrastinate doing anything, which really doesn't help and assures that I won't get to all the other things.  I see forecasting as well as all or nothing thinking in these thoughts.  I have the new Task Timer tool, but timing everything I do?  That sounds like a bit much.  Writing this right now is helping.  First, I can combat this with some logic.  Sometime things do take longer than planned, sometimes things take the expected time, and other times they take less time.  I've never had the experience that everything takes longer.  Second, I can use my prioritization scheme to help identify what is important, and focus on those items first.  That should help narrow the list.  For things that repeat, I can use the task timer tool.  I'll also make sure I review My Experiences tomorrow and focus on the forecasting and all or nothing entries.  We'll see how things go tomorrow.

If you'd like to contribute one of your experiences, reminders, any tool entry or just your thoughts to possibly help others make better use of Mood Sentry, please consider e-mailing the item (or your thoughts) to 4theblog@moodappsllc.com. I'll protect your privacy and keep the source anonymous.

If your therapist would like to contact me with questions or suggestions, have him/her contact me at info@moodappsllc.com.

Had a Funk of a Day

It was tough for me to get motivated to do anything today.  If you've seen the Lethargy example in the Barriers and Breakthroughs tool you'll know what kind of day I had.  I just had a tough time getting motivated to do anything.  I took it one thing at a time, such as updating my finances in Quicken, going to the gym, and going to a coffee shop to read and do some Mood Sentry related stuff.  The example helped, in that focusing on one thing and looking looking back on that thing to see that I did get something done did counter the thought that I wouldn't get anything done today.  However, it was still tough to get motivated to do something else.  I'll work on this tomorrow and see if I can nail down the thoughts that are really driving this mood.  In the meantime I've set some goals for tomorrow to see if that will help.

If you'd like to contribute one of your experiences, reminders, any tool entry or just your thoughts to possibly help others make better use of Mood Sentry, please consider e-mailing the item (or your thoughts) to 4theblog@moodappsllc.com. I'll protect your privacy and keep the source anonymous.

If your therapist would like to contact me with questions or suggestions, have him/her contact me at info@moodappsllc.com.

Home Now

I was in Santa Barbara the past couple of days, relaxing and having fun.  I noted the other day that I bailed on the event I started the event prep for.  However, I retained the entry I started and will develop it a bit more, mostly for the experience working with that tool.  I don't have too many events that I've tried to prepare for, so even though I canceled the reservation I still want to work through the preparation for future events of that nature.  What I ended up doing was taking a big walk around Santa Barbara, visiting the art museum, zoo, and a learning center on the pier.  It was a fun day.

This morning at checkout I brought up an overnight parking fee with the person at the front desk.  I felt the fee was excessive and not clearly disclosed at reservations.  She thought it should have been in the reservation confirmation.  Since I didn't have that confirmation with me, there wasn't much I could do.  I was glad I brought the subject up, and had been forecasting conflict prior to checking out.  Thinking back, a confrontational response from the staff would be the exception, not the norm.  It was a fairly nice place, and the service was good, in general.  I'll record this experience, and think I'll do a retroactive event prep with it.

If you'd like to contribute one of your experiences, reminders, any tool entry or just your thoughts to possibly help others make better use of Mood Sentry, please consider e-mailing the item (or your thoughts) to 4theblog@moodappsllc.com. I'll protect your privacy and keep the source anonymous.

If your therapist would like to contact me with questions or suggestions, have him/her contact me at info@moodappsllc.com.

Bailed on the Event Today

Yesterday I posted that I had an event today that I was using the Event Prep tool to prepare for.  Well, I bailed on the event.  The event was a tour I had booked yesterday afternoon.  I decided I had other things to spend my time on today rather than an all-day event, so I canceled the reservation this morning and set about on an alternate agenda for this day.  I had a good time today, and updated my Daily Goals to reflect the revised agenda.  I had a good day today, which is my last day in Santa Barbara.  I'm heading home tomorrow, but will remain on vacation for the remainder of the week.  I'll set goals each day to keep myself focused on things I need to get done.

If you'd like to contribute one of your experiences, reminders, any tool entry or just your thoughts to possibly help others make better use of Mood Sentry, please consider e-mailing the item (or your thoughts) to 4theblog@moodappsllc.com. I'll protect your privacy and keep the source anonymous.

If your therapist would like to contact me with questions or suggestions, have him/her contact me at info@moodappsllc.com.