More self improvement (also making another basic app)

4 min readJun 10, 2022

Content info: this is only interesting if you want to see some basic web app code get written from scratch.

Note

I will stop doing this soon, I keep rehashing/posting the same thing. Need to make new/novel content. Or at least more interesting than another CRUD app.

Background thoughts

So… I got a new job, thank goodness I was panicking since I have tapped into my credit lines a lot (like 90%+ utilization)… With this in mind I will work on improving my life again/have to stick to that 9–5 schedule.

I’m also currently overweight: 260lbs+ should be under 220/near 200lbs ideally. Fasting works, in the span of 2 months I was able to drop 30 lbs. The process I follow is: get up, not eat anything (except coffee/creamer) until 8hrs+ later (small snack/granola bar) then 3hrs later eat a big meal, so one meal a day pretty much. The reason for this other than fasting is for energy levels, I find that if I don’t eat, I can last longer throughout the day with regard to mental productivity.

I’ve also been “working out” everyday. It’s very weak haha, I can do it in 5 minutes. The “set” is:

standing back stretches, body squats
on hand/knees back stretches, then pushups
on back, back stretches then sit ups

I put on the song Holy F* by Tom Tom and get it done within that. I’m only at 20 pushups now lol, at some point I’ll get a band (biceps), probably only other thing I’m missing is a pull up bar.

Anyway I generally want to clear my mind before starting this new role. So I’ll get any small projects I have in mind/been working on out of the way. Then I can commit to my new role mentally, especially the first few weeks since I have to ramp up/learn the platform.

Started writing: 06/07/2022

Published: 06/10/2022

The app

This is going to be some form of a PWA (later decided against) since I still can’t easily develop mobile apps right now. Flutter is on my list of things to learn. I also want to keep extensibility in mind (add future features to it) and interoperability. Regarding the latter, shared APIs/data storage is what I mean. For ex. I recently made a chrome extension where I can write notes to, that uses the same data store (locally hosted) as my cross platform note taking apps.

The wake up/woke up, button is the main thing. I would tap this every morning as soon as I actually stand up/leave my bed. Then from this point on, I would not eat until the app says I can eg. 8hrs have elapsed. I’d also track my weight first thing. The debt part would at some point be interfaced with a spreadsheet (what I currently track my finances in).

I do have a bad habit of wanting to binge eat when I’m bored/over the weekends in particular. For this I would buy one of those frozen bag meals you can put on a skillet and cook. Not saying it’s healthy but it would be different from what I normally eat usually everyday eg. chicken/veggies/rice.

The system design (ooh)

This is not really a complete view, you’d need an API bridge between the two things on the right. But the idea is the app should work on its own and then sync data upwards for longer storage. The Google Spreadsheet bit would be another Node API accessing it, I just have to check the row count/increase it over time as I add more rows that particular spreadsheet tab. Would be good to show change eg. reduction over time.

I also will be doing some learning, I bought a Haskell book and I want to go through it. I keep saying things… I have this rule that I need to stick to (don’t post something until it’s done/real).

Development

I decided against Dexie, I don’t need to deal with that “secondary” async db. I’ll just ping my local server directly to store/get info. It doesn’t really need internal storage anyway.

Part 1 (main app) — written in just over 3 hrs

Part 2 (google spreadsheet interface) — to be implemented

06/10/2022 implemented, doing clean up work

I recorded myself building this, lots of video to edit but will post it/group as a playlist.

The videos will appear here, processing is slow and I have to watch them all start to finish/real time to make sure I don’t leak credentials/personal info.

This is a playlist, I’ll upload the videos over time

https://www.youtube.com/playlist?list=PLB8sP-yFWnJDBV-wzGBS4TjtGdRIdcdBN