n of 1

Most of our decisions in life are often based on past experiences. We then modify these decisions based on external inputs (apprenticeships, education, podcast, journal articles, etc). The quality of these external inputs are incredibly important if you plan on implementing them. The coronavirus pandemic is challenging, improving, weakening, and without question changing how all receive data to make our decisions. The interesting thing about this pandemic and this is largely true in every area of our life is that we look at data to affirm the position we already hold. The position that we currently hold is a function of our past, often limited experience. This is where the ‘n of 1’ term originated. It is most of used in medicine to help us make decisions around something that is very rare and poorly characterized in the literature. Surgeons will occasionally say, “with my n of 1 experience on this I think you should treat it this way.” Make sense? The problem with making evidence based decisions is that it takes a lot of work to find the data, ascertain its quality, and then implement it in a productive and meaningful way.

That is a long term goal of this site is to locate and cite well done studies and practices while remaining objective.

So where is the first place I look for good data?

Health and Medical

1. Pubmed (a repository of all published, peer reviewed studies)

2. Collecting and analyzing my own data using JMP. Typically setup like a case control or cohort study

3. Local experts and mentors

4. Meetings and conferences (now a lot of these presentations are online)

5. Podcast- this is like having an expert with you in the car on the way to work

6. Textbooks- hard to come by and I imagine these will become a thing of the past.

Farming

1. Books- interesting how this is #1 in farming but the last place I look for health related decisions

2. Podcast

3. Collecting and analyzing my own data. I conduct small scale field trials and am becoming more familiar with Tend.

4. Local experts and mentors- I don’t really have anyone local but would like to find a farm mentor/consultant. I did hire a consultant 3 years ago but he never provided me with anything that he promised. He had a wealth of knowledge about trees but didn’t deliver on the planting plan. Basically just took the money and ran. I should have paid him half when he was here and the other half when he delivered the farm plan.

5. YouTube videos

6. Trial and error- I do take food safety very seriously and don’t take any risk there. But, I’m not afraid to try a new method of farming because it is not a source of income for me.

Finance

1. Books

2. Journal of Finance- I really don’t spend that much time looking at peer reviewed financial publications but I find them pretty fascinating when I’m researching a new investment strategy.

3. My own n of 1 experiences

4. Field trials- I designed 5 concurrent experiments on investing that I share in a later post. Basically I’m in year two of comparing: Active manager/Financial planner, Roboadvisor, Total stock market index ETF (VTI), Boglehead 3 Fund, and me actively managing (picking stocks, rolling dice, trading options, etc). I’m winning as of this writing (5-24-20). Here is the current ranking:

   1. My active management

   2. VTI

   3. Active manager/Financial planner

   4. 3 Fund

   5. Roboadvisor- which I really do not like.