Let’s say you visited your doctor and s/he asks you to track something. This isn’t make believe. Here’s a real world example from my doctor, “I’d like you to track your blood pressure and keep a log of the readings.”
- First, I needed to get the thing that does this (fortunately my wife had already purchased one - SunMark model 132SM). Nice!
- Next I had to create a log to track the readings. Now I could use a “Big Chief” tablet and a number two pencil. Put in column headings of: Date, Time, Systolic, Diastolic, Pulse, and Notes. I know that would probably be a problem because the tablet would probably be moved and then I’d have an excuse to not do it.
- I could use a spreadsheet to do it via Google Sheets or Microsoft Excel. Both are cloud based and available on my phone (which is almost always with me). So that seems like an excellent option.
- To quote Ron Popeil, “But wait, there’s more!” Both Google and Microsoft have another tool in the toolbox – Forms! Forms provides you with a way to automate filling out the spreadsheet and better yet you can save the form link to your phones home screen so it’s always a click away. You can also create a calendar reminder with the link should you need that extra reminder (I haven’t gone that far...yet).
So, what’s involved with creating a form?
- Open “Forms” in whichever tool you use.
- Create a “Form”
- Add questions:
- Google asks for a valid email as a question, Microsoft does not. This isn’t a useful question in this scenario. It is a critical question when you create a form with multiple people responding to it. See my piece on PAR for details.
- Enter “Systolic” – I selected “Text” as the field type because “numeric” wasn’t an option.
- Enter “Diastolic” – I selected “Text” as the field type because “numeric” wasn’t an option.
- Enter “Pulse” – I selected “Text” as the field type because “numeric” wasn’t an option.
- Then I add a “Notes” field to enter something which might have caused a change from the norm, for example “I just drank three cups of Cuban Coffee before taking my readings”
- Then “send” it to your email as a link or as a form. Either work.
- Voila – You have the form ready to go.
Once you have a fair amount of results to see them in a spreadsheet you return to the form and select that you want to review the data in a spreadsheet – and it’s all there and shareable. Sweet!
You might wonder how I figured this out. Well, I originally learned about forms using a phone database tool called “Memento” to track mileage for work. It was simple to use and tied to Google Sheets so I could fill out my mileage expense reports. I realized after switching phones and not having Memento that perhaps #Forms could do the same thing and it did. The shift in logic from miles to heartbeats was an easy one.
If you’re not using “Forms” whether #Google or #Microsoft, you might want to check it out.
