Keep the Number You Measured Each Time — the Measurement Section

It started with one goal: “lose 3 kg in a month.”

In fecit, a goal like that becomes a task you repeat. You make a workout template, and each time you make a task from it and do it. But what you want to know for this goal isn’t “did I complete today’s workout” — it’s “how many kilograms am I now.” There was no place to put that number. You could write it in the result field as text, but a number inside text doesn’t line up next to last time’s.

So we added a Measurement section to tasks.

One item = name · unit · target · reached when

You turn Measurement on in the section settings. It’s off by default, and when on it sits right before the retrospect.

The + in the section header adds an item. An item has four parts.

• Name — what you’re measuring. Weight, pull-ups, attendance.
• Unit — kg, reps, people.
• Target — the value you want to reach.
• Reached when — at or below the target, or at or above it. Things that should go down, like weight, are “At or below target”; things that should go up, like a count, are “At or above target.” Equal to the target counts as reached.

A task can hold several items (up to 20) — weight (kg) and body fat (%) together, for example.

On the task row, the current value and the target appear on two lines, with the difference from the target next to them as a signed number. When the target is reached, a ✓ turns on.

Templates have no current value

Define measurement items on a template, and every task and routine occurrence made from it starts with the same items. But it starts with the current value empty.

That’s because the current value is “what I measured this time.” A template is the plan you’ll use again, and last time’s weight isn’t part of next time’s plan. So whichever way a copy is made — making a task from a template, a routine, duplicating, saving as a template — only the definition (name, unit, target, reached when) travels. The value doesn’t.

Trend — the last ten, filled from the left

Tap an item to open its detail, then tap the line-chart button at the top center to open that item’s trend graph.

The graph draws the last ten tasks made from the same template that have a value. The horizontal axis is fixed at ten slots, filled one at a time from the left, oldest first. The target is drawn as a horizontal line, so you can see at a glance how close the points have come.

Items with the same name and unit are joined into one line. So if you change the name or the unit, the graph starts over. You can open the trend from the template or from any task made from it.

The first time you reach the target

The first time a value you enter on a task reaches the target, a celebration card appears and it counts once toward achievements. This applies only to items with “Reached when” set.

“First” matters. Among tasks made from the same template, it counts once. If you reach 84 kg and are still at 84 kg next week, that’s holding, not reaching again. If you change the target or “Reached when,” it counts again against the new target.

While building it — the graph that showed only completed tasks

The first version of the graph drew values only from completed tasks. The thinking was that only finished work counts as a record.

In use, that didn’t hold. On a day when you weigh yourself in the morning and work out in the evening, that value isn’t on the graph until evening. A value you entered that doesn’t appear on the graph looks like a bug. A measured number is true the moment you measure it, whether or not the task is done. So the graph now ignores state and draws every task that has a value, in the order the tasks were created.

The horizontal axis changed too. At first points were placed in proportion to time, so three days off spread the points apart and two measurements in one day overlapped. Now they stack from the left across ten slots. What you want to know is less “how many days apart” than “how does this compare with last time.”

Edited items go back to the template

If you add or remove an item on a task, or change its name, unit, target, or “Reached when,” template improvement can send that change back to the template. If partway through you decide to track your waist as well and add an item, the next occurrence has it from the start. Here too, the current value isn’t carried over.

So the number sits next to last time’s

fecit is a tool that stacks up preparation so that the more you repeat something, the better the next run goes. Until now what stacked up was text — materials, sequence, retrospects. Measurement adds numbers. The value you measured this time sits next to the previous nine.

Turn Measurement on in the section settings of a task or a template. Steps don’t have it. The details are in the Measurement guide.