{"id":4987,"date":"2026-03-26T13:46:41","date_gmt":"2026-03-26T17:46:41","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/labs.icahn.mssm.edu\/ensarilab\/?p=4987"},"modified":"2026-03-26T13:46:41","modified_gmt":"2026-03-26T17:46:41","slug":"one-small-habit-big-data-impact","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/labs.icahn.mssm.edu\/ensarilab\/one-small-habit-big-data-impact\/","title":{"rendered":"One Small Habit, Big Data Impact"},"content":{"rendered":"

How tracking at a consistent time each day helps\u00a0participants\u00a0\u2014 and our research<\/span><\/b>\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n

When we ask participants to complete daily check-ins through our app, a natural question comes up:\u00a0<\/span>does it matter when I fill these out?<\/span><\/i>\u00a0Maybe you’re\u00a0a morning person who likes to start the day by logging how you feel.\u00a0Maybe you\u00a0squeeze it in during lunch. Or\u00a0maybe it’s\u00a0the last thing you do before bed.\u00a0<\/span>\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n

Here’s\u00a0what surprised us when we looked at the data: it\u00a0<\/span>doesn’t\u00a0matter\u00a0<\/span>when<\/span><\/i>\u00a0you track. What matters is that you do it at\u00a0roughly the\u00a0same time each day.\u00a0So those reminders you set up for yourself only matter if you are actually able to consistently do it at that time.\u00a0<\/span>\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n

We analyzed over 14,000 daily check-ins from 218 study participants \u2014\u00a0including\u00a0both\u00a0women\u00a0living with chronic pelvic pain conditions (CPPDs) and\u00a0those without\u00a0three months. We wanted to understand what separates participants who consistently\u00a0track their\u00a0health in the\u00a0ehive\u00a0App\u00a0from those who gradually fall off. Is it\u00a0pain?\u00a0Pain-related interference with daily activities?\u00a0Or is it something else<\/span>?\u00a0<\/span>\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n

The answer\u00a0wasn’t\u00a0pain\u00a0severity\u00a0or motivation, or the time of the day the survey is being completed, but instead,\u00a0consistency.\u00a0As depicted in Figure 1 below, participants who tracked at a regular time each day completed their check-ins\u00a0<\/span>92% of the time<\/span><\/b>. Those whose tracking times jumped around showed only\u00a0<\/span>63%\u00a0consistency.\u00a0Interestingly,\u00a0<\/span>that\u00a030-percentage-point gap held true whether or not someone had chronic pain.<\/span>\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n

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We also learned that the time at which you\u00a0complete the surveys\u00a0doesn\u2019t actually matter as much as staying consistent in that time.\u00a0We were curious\u00a0for\u00a0our daily check-in survey:\u00a0what\u00a0time are people completing this?\u00a0I\u2019m\u00a0a morning person myself so I feel like I would do it first thing when\u00a0I’m\u00a0up before the day gets busy, but I\u00a0am\u00a0definitely\u00a0not\u00a0the norm.\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n

To answer this question, we used a\u00a0data\u00a0technique called\u00a0unsupervised learning and functional mixture modeling,\u00a0which\u00a0sorts the\u00a0participants into\u00a0naturally-emerging\u00a0groups\u00a0or \u201cprofiles\u201d.\u00a0This revealed\u00a0four distinct tracking patterns\u00a0based on\u00a0the data. Some people consistently tracked in the morning, some in the afternoon, some in the evening, and some were\u00a0variables\u00a0across all 3 time periods.<\/span>\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n

We refer to the first of these\u00a0groups\u00a0\u201c<\/span>the evening-stable group<\/span><\/i>\u201d,\u00a0aka.\u00a0people who consistently tracked in the\u00a0evening\u00a0(navy blue line in Figure 2).\u00a0They had\u00a088-90% adherence regardless of whether they had a CPPD or not. But the key word there is\u00a0<\/span>consistently<\/span><\/i>. Morning and afternoon trackers who\u00a0stuck\u00a0to their routine also did well\u00a0(orange and green lines in Figure 2).<\/span><\/p>\n

The V<\/span>ariable<\/span><\/i>\u00a0group\u00a0(purple line in the figure), no matter when they happened to track on any given day, lagged behind.\u00a0As you can see in the graph below (Figure 2), having a CCPD or not did not define if you were doing the surveys or not, it was the fact that people stuck with a time of day and continued doing their surveys during that time, which kept their responses stable.<\/span>\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n

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Why does this matter?<\/span><\/b>\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n

Every check-in\u00a0 that\u00a0is completed\u00a0enables a more complete picture of how symptoms like pain, sleep, mood, and mobility change from day to day. When data\u00a0are\u00a0missing,\u00a0it’s\u00a0harder to spot patterns\u00a0and\u00a0understand the\u00a0individual\u00a0experience.\u00a0If\u00a0people\u00a0only fill out a survey when\u00a0they\u2019re\u00a0feeling particularly bad (or particularly good), the data\u00a0tell\u00a0a skewed story.\u00a0However, consistent\u00a0daily\u00a0tracking\u00a0 even\u00a0on\u00a0the boring,\u00a0nothing-special days gives the full picture and allows us to get an overall picture of health.\u00a0<\/span>\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n

This is also one of the key differentiators of research studies \u2013 we collect new data designed specifically to answer these\u00a0research\u00a0questions, in collaboration with our participants.\u00a0This is\u00a0in contrast to the \u201c<\/span>User Terms & Agreement<\/span><\/i>\u201d you\u00a0might come across in many Apps, which can use your data retrospectively to answer a wide range of questions instead.\u00a0When you enroll in an academic research study, you are kept informed and consented at every stage during your involvement in the study.<\/span>\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n

A\u00a0take-home\u00a0from\u00a0these\u00a0results<\/span><\/b>\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n

So\u00a0participants\u00a0don’t\u00a0need to set an alarm for 7:00 AM sharp.\u00a0Finding\u00a0the right time of the day that works for\u00a0each individual\u00a0is what creates a habit\u00a0of\u00a0consistency. Some time periods to think about when setting up reminders for\u00a0survey\u00a0completion can be from below:\u00a0<\/span>\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n