First, I want to save I’ve been loving Everdo for the last 2ish months that I have been using it. I’ve recommended it to several folks. Love the local sync option so my data doesn’t need to leave my network. The UI is very well thought out and I have a real good sense now of what is in front of me and an ability to organize that information is a way that allows me to take care of things in a timely manor while still moving forward on my bigger goals.
That being said even though it helps me see what is in front of me it doesn’t help me look at what I have been accomplishing. This desire isn’t just for the vanity of saying “look what I have done” (although that is a nice bonus) but it also lets me ask questions like:
- Am I making progress? Am I getting stuff done or still falling behind?
- Am I taking on too much or too little? Is my backlog just growing unbounded?
- What things have been hanging out too long and either needs to be prioritized or removed?
To answer these sorts of questions helps me make decisions about future tasks I take on and how much I feel I can pack into a day.
Luckily Everdo also has a open file format making answering these sorts of questions possible. I thought about using either spreadsheets or some sort of BI tool but in the end decided to just go for a bit of custom code. I’ve created a website where you can upload your JSON export and get these sorts of answers. This means no special tool is needed other than a web-browser. You can visit this website at:
https://eric1234.github.io/stats_for_everdo/
Even though operating on the SQLite database is probably more efficient for some of these stats I decided to make it operate off the JSON export to make sure there was 0 chance to corrupt the database. Also anybody can do it without digging around the filesystem since you can export right from the UI.
I know Everdo users value privacy so I wanted to note that your data is never uploaded anywhere. Even though you are using a website the file is just loaded in your browser, on your machine and only analyzed locally. The software is released to the public domain (open source) so anyone can verify this for themselves. It’s also deployed and hosted via Github so anybody can check that out to confirm what they are using is what is in the source code.
I also want to note that if the Everdo developers like the idea of some light analytics and add it natively to the app (obsoleting my code) I’m perfectly ok with that. This was just a quick hack project to scratch my own itch and I’m sharing it with the community as there is no value in keeping it myself.
I do want to note that I have only been using Everdo for about 2 months so I’m unsure how well it will perform for someone using it much longer or having a lot more data than I do given the fact that everything is processed in JavaScript client-side. But there is room for optimization so if someone want to help improve it for larger databases or to fix bugs I welcome any pull requests.
I hope this provides some use to others. Thanks!
