[Help Thread] How do you track your solves?

[swburk]

Over the past couple of weeks, I've been using a combination of my StackMat, csTimer, and FiveTimer to time my solves, and I've noticed myself steadily improving.

But I want a centralized way of keeping track of my improvement and best times. For now I just have a text file on my computer that lists my pbs for single and a05 for each puzzle I practice, but I wondered how other cubers tracked their progress.

What do you use to time yourself? Do you save all of your solves or just your best for each day/week/month, or just pbs? Do you keep your solves in a single timer, or copy them to a single place like a spreadsheet?

It would be cool to be able to see a graph of some sort to visualize my improvement over time, as well as having a single place where all of my pbs are, so I don't have to remember them.

 

[Nmile7300]

Cstimer actually has a ton of features to help track your improvement. You can see your PBs on the left hand side, and swap between sessions when doing different puzzles. There are features that show graphs of your improvement as well as ones that show certain statistics like how many solves you have done or how many times you have under a certain time. I think that when used properly, cstimer is the most efficient way to track improvement.

 

[swburk]

Cstimer actually has a ton of features to help track your improvement. You can see your PBs on the left hand side, and swap between sessions when doing different puzzles. There are features that show graphs of your improvement as well as ones that show certain statistics like how many solves you have done or how many times you have under a certain time. I think that when used properly, cstimer is the most efficient way to track improvement.

Do you have any tips for using csTimer effectively? Do you have one session per puzzle? One session per day? Can I rename sessions? When I save my times using my WCA ID, will it back up my timer preferences too?

Sorry for asking so many questions. It seems like a great piece of software, I'm just not very familiar with it.

 

[I'm A Cuber]

Do you have any tips for using csTimer effectively? Do you have one session per puzzle? One session per day? Can I rename sessions? When I save my times using my WCA ID, will it back up my timer preferences too?

Sorry for asking so many questions. It seems like a great piece of software, I'm just not very familiar with it.

I just do a different session for each cube

 

[swburk]

I just do a different session for each cube

Thanks. I set up a session for each of my cubes, and I was able to rename them so I can find the right session easier. And syncing to the server does seem to sync preferences and sessions, so that's good.

 

[BenChristman1]

Do you have any tips for using csTimer effectively? Do you have one session per puzzle? One session per day? Can I rename sessions? When I save my times using my WCA ID, will it back up my timer preferences too?

Sorry for asking so many questions. It seems like a great piece of software, I'm just not very familiar with it.

When you save your times (I have a setting on so that it saves every 100 solves), it will also keep your settings, color choices, etc.

 

[Micah Morrison]

Do you have one session per puzzle? One session per day? Can I rename sessions? When I save my times using my WCA ID, will it back up my timer preferences too?

I do one session for each puzzle. Lately though I've been making a new session each day for 3x3 and doing an ao100 and then merging it afterwards because I find that I sometimes do worse when I'm thinking about big averages, and this helps me focus on each solve more.

 

[BenChristman1]

I do one session for each puzzle. Lately though I've been making a new session each day for 3x3 and doing an ao100 and then merging it afterwards because I find that I sometimes do worse when I'm thinking about big averages, and this helps me focus on each solve more.

How do you merge 2 sessions?

 

[swburk]

I do one session for each puzzle. Lately though I've been making a new session each day for 3x3 and doing an ao100 and then merging it afterwards because I find that I sometimes do worse when I'm thinking about big averages, and this helps me focus on each solve more.

Ah merging sessions is useful. Thanks! I may do that for the weekly competitions.

 

[Micah Morrison]

How do you merge 2 sessions?

Let's say I wanted to merge this totally legit 3x3 session into the end of my normal 3x3 session. Make sure you're on the session that you want to merge into the session, then follow the screenshots.

 

[Tabe]

I track all of my PBs in an Excel spreadsheet and a Google Docs spreadsheet. I would be happy to share the Google document with anyone who wants it. Basically, I have a tab for each event with columns for the averages I track. I keep track of date and cube used for each PB. Then there's a "home page" tab that has all of my current PBs for every event all on one tab.