Draft content — pending editorial and medical review.
Before you start
- One sentence describing what you want to find out
- Two to five metrics that relate to it
- A way to measure each one the same way every time
- Two to four weeks before you start, for a
Steps
Write the question
For example: “Does knee pain on stairs change over eight weeks?”
Pick metrics that answer it
Pain on stairs 0–10, distance walked, sleep score. Fewer metrics, logged reliably, beat many logged occasionally.
Fix how you measure
Same time of day, same scale, same conditions. Weigh in before breakfast, not whenever.
Record a baseline
Log the metrics before you start. Connected devices can fill this in automatically.
Set checkpoints
Add review dates to the schedule — for example at week 4 and week 8.
Log side effects as they happen
Use the quick tags. Memory is unreliable after a week.
Common mistakes
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Tracking everything. Logging fatigue sets in and the useful metrics get skipped.
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Changing how you measure mid-way. A new scale or a new time of day creates a fake trend.
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Reading meaning into one day. Look at weekly averages, not single points.