Chronograph is a manual graphing aid and an autobiographical tool. It is a 24-hour clock face, designed to be markable on the in- or outside.
Unlike line-by-line, straight, or squared calendars, chronograph was designed to offer an intuitive, easily annotable overview of 24 hour periods for easier charting. It is similar to writing on a 24 hours military clock face.
Chronograph uses:
- tracking or planning diet, food intake, or liquid intake (coffee, soda intake)
- graphing a master medication schedule & tracking medications
- tracking or graphing alcohol, cigarette, or drug use
- event planning (special events, day trips)
- tracking habits, behaviors, or actions
- general project planning or tracking
- as a mood graph or mood chart
- as a quick diary of daily events
- sleep tracking
Below is a printable example, as well as links to printable PDF files.
3-up in PDF v2008
2-up with Halos in PDF v2008
2-up in PDF v2006
7-up in PDF v2006
Example Uses:
As a Food or Diet Tracker, annotation of food, drink and associated calories is easy. Just pencil in what you eat and the calorie amount, and watch it add up. Keeping a running sum of calories will help you discover problem areas. For instance, in this example, the burger & fries eaten at 6:15 pm is a total of 950 calories. Knowing the daily total was 1885 after this meal might have prevented the late night brownie (400 calories) at 10PM.
This is a similar example for liquids intake. This way, you can keep tabs on your alcohol, coffee and water intake, as well as keep a historical record for personal purposes, tracking changes in habits over time.
Below is a sample Master Medication Schedule, where the pill milligram dosages are written into the pill icons, and the icon legend is written in the inside of the chronograph. Use the 7-up view to track your actual medication usage throughout the week.
This next example tracks cigarette usage. At the end of the day, a quick count reveals this smoker smoked 15 cigarettes, or 3/4 pack. The graph reveals most of the smoking occurred in the late hours (8 cigs between midnight and 5:15, and 3 more between 10PM and midnight of the same day).
If tracking drugs or alcohol, simply use symbols and do not label your chronograph. That way, no one will know what exactly you are graphing.
www.cosmicdust.org - V.March, 2008
