An Annual Report on One Man’s Life | Hacker News Reader

An Annual Report on One Man’s Life

bits.blogs.nytimes.com

19 pointspeter1237 comments

I feel that programmers tend to avoid manually collecting data. They program computers to do it for them, or have Mint.com do it, or use products like Nike+, but there are a lot of datapoints that cannot be automated and require discipline in order to accurately collect. Some of these datasets can be extremely insightful when analyzed.

Over the past year or so I've thought several times about writing a product like Daytum, although I can't tell you exactly how many times the thought occurred.

I'm glad to see that somebody made this type of product.

See also, Kevin Kelly's The Quantified Self: http://www.quantifiedself.com

I highly suggest buying the print version of Feltron's report, as it is inspirational, fascinating, and beautiful.

I am addicted to data. I track my workouts, my diet, my performance against goals, my net worth, my time (RescueTime), my habits, etc. I can honestly say that almost nothing else in my life has had as big an effect on my behavior.

"Not everything that counts can be counted" Albert Einstein

Other people's opinion of you may also have an affect. How do you chart a marriage or raising a child. (See also http://xkcd.com/523/ )

How do you chart a marriage or raising a child.

Secretly.

In all seriousness, I agree that much of what makes life worth living is qualitative in nature. However, I grew up in an environment where I missed out on some good habits and the general instillment of self-discipline. Like many here on HN, I was one of the smartest kids in my class, bored to death with school, and underperformed as a result. Throughout my late teenage years, I gradually began to realize that the pieces of my life weren't going to magically fall into place and I'd need to put in the work. But unfortunately, I sucked at hard work and self-discipline. The Navy helped with some of that, college helped some more, but mostly it's just been a long, steady slog up the hill of determination, learning every day a little more about myself and how best to ensure that I keep moving forward. My belief is that by tracking and managing the quantitative things in my life, I can better manage the qualitative aspects as well.

For example, one of the leading causes of failure in marriage is finances. Learning to track and manage my spending and net worth has been very helpful to me and my wife's finances, and has the added benefit of improving the qualitative aspects of our relationship as well. The same type of parallel could be drawn with my personal productivity, with health and exercise, diet, time management, etc, etc. I'm on a life-long quest to become a better person, which I can only assume will help me in my interactions with the humans.

Your early life doesn't sound too far off from mine, minus the stint in the Navy. Managing finances hasn't been a big problem for me, but achieving some other goals of mine has. Do you think your habit of tracking everything came about as your self-discipline improved, or do you think that tracking is a good way to fast track your self-discipline?

Reply on news.ycombinator.com