Self-check

Self-Check

Answer a set of yes/no questions to see which tips from the book you haven’t acted on yet: which area you’re missing most, what to do first, and what’s a one-time setup. Each item links to its evidence and source; nothing is reduced to a "you’ll live N years less." Your answers stay only in your browser.

Basics decides which questions appear

Your age (in years)

Your sex

Do you have a child under 4 at home?

Which areas to checkClick to deselect; a whole area won’t be asked

Smoking, alcohol & betel nut

You don’t smoke, or have already quit

You don’t drink, or drink very little

You don’t chew betel nut

Eating & drinking

You basically avoid sugary drinks like milk tea, soda, or juice

You rarely eat ham, sausage, bacon, or luncheon meat

Some of your staple carbs are whole grains like brown rice, oats, or whole wheat

You eat about a pound of fruit and vegetables every day

You eat a small handful of nuts daily

You cook with low-sodium salt at home If you have kidney problems or take potassium-sparing drugs, ask a doctor before switching; skip if not applicable

You let hot tea or soup cool before drinking; nothing scalding

You keep the range hood on from lighting the stove until cooking is done Skip if you don’t cook

Moving, sleeping & sunlight

You walk around 7,000 steps a day, or do 150+ minutes of brisk walking a week

You do some strength training weekly (push-ups, squats, gym machines all count)

You don’t sit for hours on end without getting up

You sleep about 7 hours a night on a fairly fixed schedule

You go outside for daylight; not stuck indoors all day

Your weight is in a healthy range (BMI 20–25) BMI = weight(kg) ÷ height(m)²

You brush carefully and clean between teeth daily, and fill any missing teeth

Safety at home & on the road

You wear a seat belt in both front and back seats

You don’t speed or drive after drinking Skip if you don’t drive

You wear a helmet and fasten the strap on e-bikes and motorcycles Skip if you don’t ride

You don’t push e-bikes into stairwells or charge them indoors Skip if you don’t have one

You have smoke alarms at home

You replaced gas hoses and stoves at expiry and never re-piped them yourself Skip if you don’t use gas

You don’t pick, buy, or eat wild mushrooms

You use condoms consistently with non-steady partners Skip if this doesn’t apply

Medication

Before taking two cold or pain relievers at once, you check the ingredient lists

You don’t ask a doctor for antibiotics for a common cold

While on cephalosporins or metronidazole, and for a week after, you avoid alcohol

If you have hypertension or dyslipidemia, you take the meds as prescribed Skip if you don’t have these

Checkups & vaccines

You measured blood pressure in the past year and control it with meds if high

You checked your hepatitis B vaccination history and got any booster your doctor advised Antibody may drop after vaccination, so a redo isn’t always needed; check the original entry if unsure

You’ve been tested for Helicobacter pylori

Emergencies

If someone collapses, unresponsive and not breathing normally, you know to press hard on the chest at once and send someone for an AED

You know sudden facial drooping or one weak arm means call emergency services now, not drive yourself

You know chest pressure lasting over 15 minutes without relief means call emergency services

You can give back blows plus abdominal thrusts to someone choking

You know to rinse a burn with cool running water for 20 minutes — no toothpaste or soy sauce

If bitten or scratched by a cat or dog, you rinse first then get the vaccine the same day

You know not to induce vomiting after swallowing cleaner, pesticide, or medicine; take the bottle to the hospital

You know to stay low in a fire, feel the door first, and take stairs not elevators

Energy & mood

You’ve turned off unnecessary notifications and keep your phone out of sight while working

You wake up at about the same time even on weekends

You avoid coffee or strong tea after 2 p.m.

You don’t stay up late gaming or scrolling short videos

You avoid glowing screens an hour before bed

You don’t check peers’ updates every day

You work under 50 hours most weeks Skip if you’re not employed

You can say "no" to requests you don’t want to take on

You meet friends and family regularly, not only when you feel low

Money

You’ve turned off unused auto-renewals

You do the annual tax reconciliation and claim all eligible deductions Skip if you have no wage income

You don’t pay just the credit-card minimum, and avoid consumer installments and loans

You’ve saved 3–6 months of living expenses you can withdraw anytime

You walk away the moment you see "principal-safe", "high returns", or "guaranteed profit"

You’ve enabled family medical expense sharing in the insurance app Skip if you’re not on employee insurance

If you drive, you carry enough third-party liability coverage Skip if you have no car

If someone depends on your income, you’ve bought term life insurance Skip if no one depends on you

Long-term money goes into broad-market index funds, not active funds or single stocks Skip if you don’t invest

Accounts & scams

You’ve enabled two-factor authentication on email, payments, and social accounts

Your email has its own password, reused nowhere else

Your phone has a lock screen and your SIM has a PIN

If family video-calls or texts asking for a transfer, you hang up and call back the old number saved in your contacts

You never lend your bank card, SIM, or payment account to anyone

You’ve checked your own credit report

Before signing, you read the whole document and never sign a blank sheet

Fill in the basics first

About the self-check

What is the self-check?

The self-check is a structured self-assessment and behavior-diagnosis tool built for the open-source life guide How to Live Better. At its core it is an interactive questionnaire driven by logic and evidence-based data.

It turns the book’s 34 chapters and 765 cost-and-benefit-rated tips into concrete, objective yes/no questions, helping you measure how well your behavior matches the guide. Technically it drops subjective scoring: each answer is binary. After you enter basic parameters (age, risk behaviors, etc.), a filter algorithm generates a question set tailored to you. Every question is anchored to one entry in the book and inherits that entry’s cost, benefit, and A/B/C evidence grade.

On data and privacy: the self-check runs fully in the front end. Your answers and results live only in your browser’s local storage — nothing is uploaded or processed on a server. Its boundary is clear: it is an information matcher and behavior filter, not a medical or legal tool.

What is it for?

Its purpose is the "knowing is easy, doing is hard" gap. With endless fragments of advice, people lack a path to act. By breaking the guide down, the self-check turns a huge bibliography into a personal, doable action list.

It also quantifies where your effort pays off. A weighting algorithm ranks what you haven’t done by ROI, evidence strength, and friction, sorting it into "one-time setup" or "easy habit". That drops pseudo-needs and surfaces the low-cost, high-leverage moves.

It also breaks analysis paralysis. Facing 765 tips, people freeze. After each run the self-check extracts the top three priorities — the highest-benefit, lowest-friction items — to give you a painless starting point.

How do I use it?

Four stages. First, calibrate: fill in the "Basics" panel (age, sex, kids). These gate which questions appear, so the test fits you. You can also toggle whole areas (health, money, law) on or off.

Second, judge: answer each question yes or no from your real life. Third, read the report: an overall percentage, a per-area bar chart (where you’re weakest), and a tagged list of what you haven’t done (ROI, evidence, friction).

Fourth, act: the "Start with these three" area gives the top priorities and a "Copy this list" button to export them with evidence grades and links into any to-do app. Each un-done tip links to Chapter X, tip Y of the book. Answers persist after refresh; use "Back to questions" to add more or "Reset" to start over.