Life Pattern Journal
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What the app measures

This page is for people who want to know what is actually computed. The short version: five ordinary statistics over your own log, reported as sentences that carry their evidence with them.

The raw material

An entry is one day, described four ways: a valence dial from rough to good, an energy dial from drained to energised, both with five positions; tag chips naming what was in the day; and an optional short note. About twenty seconds of input, most nights, and nothing else is collected on a day.

The five checks work on the dials and the tags: positions and named days, the kind of data ordinary statistics handle well. The note is for you, not for the mathematics; it stays a journal, readable on the day’s page, and is never required.

The five checks, one by one

Lagged correlation compares one series against another, shifted by whole days: sleep against energy two days later, a person tag against valence the day after. It is the check behind the example below.

This looks like a real pattern.

After days when you logged more sleep than usual, your logged energy tends to be lower about 2 days later.

Drawn from 48 pairs of days, between March and August 2026.

Co-occurrence counts which tags keep sharing days more often than chance would arrange, across the whole log rather than a memorable fortnight.

Sequence asks what kind of day tends to follow what: whether rough days keep arriving after a particular kind of day, as a run rather than a one-off.

Change point looks for a date where a level shifted and stayed shifted, energy running a step lower from mid-June on, say. It is how a slow drift becomes a dated event instead of a vague sense that something moved.

Weekday cycle checks whether the calendar itself is the pattern: one weekday running reliably different from the rest, across enough weeks to rule out a single bad Monday.

How a finding is written

A finding is a sentence with its evidence attached. The verb is hedged on purpose: tends to be, not will be. The lag is stated in days. The day count is printed, and so is the date span, so the claim has edges you can check against your own memory of those months.

The day count is not decoration. “Drawn from 48 pairs of days” is the difference between a finding and an anecdote, and it is the number that lets two findings be weighed against each other.

What confidence means

Confidence describes evidence, not truth: how many days point the same way, and how unlikely chance is to produce that lineup. It is written as one of three fixed sentences, the same three for everyone, never reworded:

  • EmergingEarly signal. This might be a pattern, I need more to be sure.
  • ProbableThis looks like a real pattern.
  • StrongThis is a consistent pattern in your history.

A finding can be wrong at any level. The label says how much history agrees with it so far, nothing more. As the log grows, findings are re-checked: more days can move one up a level, and more days can also unmake it. Emerging exists to be visible early without being believed early.

What is not computed

There is no why engine in here and no pretence of one. The statistics establish what leads to what and how far apart; they are silent on mechanism, and the app keeps that silence rather than dressing an association up as an explanation. The conclusion, and what to make of it, stays with the person who lived the days.

That restraint is a feature, not a gap. A tool that reported reasons would be guessing with your history. A tool that reports lineups, distances, day counts and its own uncertainty is doing arithmetic you could re-do by hand, slowly, and that is exactly the kind of claim a journal should be making about your life.

The questions, answered

Does sleep affect energy a few days later?

That is the kind of question a personal log can put numbers on, one lag at a time. A real Life Pattern Journal finding reads: “After days when you logged more sleep than usual, your logged energy tends to be lower about 2 days later. Drawn from 48 pairs of days, between March and August 2026.” That is an association with a lag, not an explanation, and what it means stays the owner’s call.

How do I tell if a person affects my mood?

A log can carry a tag for time spent with someone, and statistics can then check the association: the dials on those days against other days, and in the days after. What comes back is a shape and a distance, never a verdict on the person. Life Pattern Journal reports that shape when the days support it, and the conclusion stays yours.

Can weekday patterns show up in mood data?

Weekday cycles are among the most common patterns in daily logs; work weeks stamp a rhythm on most lives. The check is straightforward: each weekday’s logged values against the rest, across enough weeks to rule out one bad Monday. Life Pattern Journal runs a weekday cycle check as one of its five statistics and reports a repeat when the weeks agree.

What is a change point in mood tracking?

A change point is a date where the level of something shifted and stayed shifted: energy running a step lower from mid-June on, say. It differs from a bad week, which returns to baseline. Life Pattern Journal looks for change points in your log, which is how a slow shift becomes a dated event instead of a vague sense that things moved.

How do you know a pattern is not random?

Strictly, you never know; you weigh evidence. The standard checks ask how often chance alone would produce an association this strong across this many days, and repetition moves the needle. Life Pattern Journal reports its uncertainty in words: a thin result is labelled “Early signal. This might be a pattern, I need more to be sure.”, and only a repeatedly confirmed one reads “This is a consistent pattern in your history.”

What does confidence mean in a mood finding?

Confidence describes evidence, not truth: how many days point the same way, and how unlikely chance is to produce the lineup. Life Pattern Journal folds it into the finding as one of three fixed sentences, so a hunch is never dressed as a fact. The middle one is “This looks like a real pattern.”, and it says looks like on purpose.

Why does a finding say how many days it is based on?

So the finding can be weighed rather than believed. “Drawn from 48 pairs of days” says the evidence is months deep rather than one odd week, and a smaller number reads accordingly. A finding that cites its evidence can also be checked against your own memory of those months, which is the kind of trust a journal tool has to earn.