Throwing a Bit of a Fit

My Fit Bit tells me lots of things.
12/21/2021 dwm

  I've been wearing a Fit Bit since the end of June.  I'll give it credit for nudging me to making incremental changes.

  My daily goal is 12,000 steps.  If I have a lot of donor appointments in a day, it's tough to reach that number, but I reach that mark five or six days a week.

  The encouragement to reach that number is passive, you reach it or you don't.  It's behavior altering function is a slight buzz felt around the wrist.

  At ten minutes before the hour between the hours you choose (my hours are from 7 AM to 3 PM) it buzzes if you haven't walked 250 steps that hour.

"55 to 250" it says on the vertical watch face when I glance to see how many steps I need.  It doesn't buzz again until you reach the goal or until the next warning an hour later if the steps aren't registered.

Occasionally, I'll walk starting at :55 past the hour until :05 after to secure the step goal and allow me nearly full two hours before the buzzer nudges me again.  If I'm watching a game at home, I'll get up to walk in place a long enough to reach the goal.  I look for ways to earn more steps, either by lengthening a trip or walking in place between morning exercises.

The watch gets me to move, but it can't make me sleep.  I started taking the Fit Bit off at bedtime after five nights.  It frequently didn't record my time asleep; its grading system seemed arbitrary; and it was uncomfortable.

That's OK.  If I get enough steps recorded during the day, I sleep better.