How to choose the right Template.
Start with the question you actually want answered — not the most comprehensive option. The right template is the one you'll actually use.
What is a Template, exactly?
A Template is a logging structure. It defines what Best Life asks you to record, how often, and in what format. Think of it as a form you fill out each day — except you either pick one that's already built for your situation, or you create your own from scratch.
When you log against a template, that data accumulates over time. After a few weeks, Best Life can start surfacing patterns — correlations between what you logged and how you felt, trends across your week, things you wouldn't have noticed just by living through it.
Templates are not permanent commitments. You can try one, adjust it, swap it, or add to it. The goal is to start collecting something useful — not to design the perfect system before you begin.
Picking five templates at once. It feels thorough, but it usually leads to logging taking too long — and then stopping. Start with one. Add a second only after you've logged consistently for two weeks and feel like you're missing context.
Ask what you want to understand — not what you want to track.
Finish this sentence: “I want to understand why I feel _____.”
Tired all the time. Anxious on Sundays. Good some weeks and terrible others. Better when I exercise, but not always. Whatever the honest answer is, that's your starting point — not what sounds most organized.
Match your answer to a template category below.
Each category is built around a type of question. Find the one that matches yours most closely. Don't aim for completeness — aim for relevance.
Try it for five days. Then decide if it needs adjusting.
You'll know pretty quickly whether the template is asking the right questions for your situation. If the log feels irrelevant, you can edit it. If it feels incomplete, you can add fields. If it feels like too much, you can remove things. Templates are flexible — they're starting points, not finished products.
What each category is for.
Each category is defined by the question it helps you answer — not by the data it collects. Find your question, then find your template.
Symptoms
“Something physical keeps showing up and I want to understand it.”
Good for tracking pain, fatigue, dizziness, nausea, or any recurring symptom you want to understand better. Works especially well alongside environmental data that Best Life pulls in automatically.
Energy
“I want to know what affects how I feel through the day.”
Log your energy levels at different points in the day. Simple, fast, and often the first place patterns appear — especially when combined with Sleep data.
Sleep
“I want to understand what helps or hurts my sleep.”
Track sleep duration, quality, and how you feel when you wake up. Most useful when logged alongside daily habits — what you did, ate, or felt before bed.
Mood & Stress
“I want to track emotional patterns over time.”
Log how you're feeling emotionally — not just physical symptoms. Mood data becomes especially useful when paired with activity, sleep, or nutrition, because the connections are often surprising.
Habits
“I'm trying to build or break something specific.”
Track whether you did the thing — and add enough context to understand why it worked on good days and didn't on bad ones. Not a streak counter. A record you can actually learn from.
Nutrition
“Food is part of what I'm tracking.”
Flexible food and hydration tracking — from simple (what did I eat today, how did I feel) to more detailed if you want it. Useful on its own, or as context alongside symptoms or energy.
Recovery
“I'm healing from something, or managing something I flare and recover from.”
Structured for tracking progress through a recovery period — from surgery, injury, illness, or a protocol your provider has given you. Good for documenting what helps and what sets you back.
Start here if…
If you're still unsure, find your situation below. This isn't prescriptive — it's just a reasonable starting point. You can always change it.
The best template is the one you can log consistently. A simple template you fill in every day for a month is more useful than a detailed one you fill in three times and abandon. Start small. You can always add more.
You can change your mind.
Templates are flexible starting points. If you pick one and it doesn't feel right after a few days, you can edit the fields, add a new one, or swap it entirely. Your logged data doesn't disappear when you adjust a template.
The goal isn't to get it perfect on the first try. The goal is to start collecting something — and refine from there. Most people adjust their templates at least once in the first two weeks. That's not failure, that's the process working.