The Monkey Type tutor is the best single-metric quantified self tool.

Summary

For years I've wished for a single quantified-self metric I could use to measure my current productivity potential, which is affected by both mood and health.

I searched the subreddit and didn't see it mentioned, so here it is:

https://monkeytype.com (free, donor supported)

It is designed to be a typing tutor, but has such polished UI and metrics that it is also great for QS. (I tested one other app, Klavaro, which was dubiously usable.)

Basically, you just take the 30-second simple random-word speed test to benchmark your energy and whenever your focus is slipping. Correct mistakes so that WPMs are comparable.

Benefits:

separate focus/fatigue from mood
resolve self-doubt
gamify improvement
reward effective meditation (stillness)
notice subtle changes in health
know when to rest

I am still in the training-gains period, so I can't convert the data into stdev for scientific insights yet. However, it has already gamified my workday, rather than being a chore. It is an excellent way to recenter between tasks.

Distinguishing energy from mood reduces procrastination, which can otherwise lead to time sinks such as video games and fiction. It's encouraging to understand that even if one's mood has declined, one's body has warmed up and is ready to work.

So far I've seen a huge WPM improvement from meditation, which has convinced me to meditate more while working, making me happier. I'm also better at distinguishing between physical fatigue and negative emotions, which helps me rest properly and practice calm.

Humans are horrible at objectively evaluating their acuity trends, so one can just decline without really noticing. Hopefully I can use this app to mitigate the aging of body and mind.

Basically, it solved a huge worry of mine about how to properly track and manage my overall health and improve my rest/work performance. I had the qualitative data but could never quantify or distill it.

Alternatives

from the subreddit

Companies:

Quantified-mind
Luminosity

Threads:

You might not like this. But, in the past, I summed the total time it took me to play three games of Microsoft Freecell on Expert mode. Could try easy mode to start. I found there was a high correlation with my deep sleep and my general well-being (ability to carry on a conversation, remember small facts, etc.)

There are some paysites that track and purport to train those things. I used Lumosity for over a year, seemed good to me, but some say it’s too pseudoscientific.

There are a few apps on iOS that have a Psychomotor Vigilance Task which works well for this.

Arithmetic

Seth Roberts wrote a quick-addition QS app in R to test reaction speed, which I used but never found satisfactory. It took far too much training and consistency to provide useful data, and was always a source of stress. There was no way to eliminate the tension between accuracy and speed, and the skill itself was fairly useless.

Typing tutors

The Klavaro test makes error correction too difficult with poor font, and it only offers error correction on more advanced paragraph texts that aren't randomized, which detracts from mindfulness and causes unwanted variance.

The basic Monkey Type test is perfect: just 30 seconds of random word typing with no punctuation. This results in a reliable test that doesn't have variance caused by random difficulty spikes in key-chords.

Monkey Type can export CSV, so I will just convert the WPMs into standard deviations to get my fatigue/energy scores. I guess on bad days I might be frustrated and do more tests while fatigued, thereby exaggerating the decline. However the daily average would still be useful.

The zen of touch typing:

Transcribing text accurately, even if one must backspace a few mistakes, is inherently satisfying. By contrast, solitaire always leaves one second-guessing decisions.

Simple arithmetic forces one to vacillate between speed and accuracy, trying to keep one's data comparable and accurate.

The input rate on typing is much higher than for arithmetic or solitaire, allowing corrections at subconscious speed, leaving no time for distracting critical thoughts to develop. This makes it better for mindfulness.

Heartrate and brainwave monitors deliver too much information. I just want to gamify one productivity number, not ponder my autonomic processes.

Revision history

Corrected Seth Roberts' name.