The Data-Driven Life
nytimes.com
nytimes.com
That's the kind of sound but vague advice that people are really good at doing exactly nothing with. But as luck would have it, I've been counting calories with a web app for the past six months. I went back and saw that on a typical day, 55% of my calories came from carbs, which is known to increase LDL and triglycerides levels.
Telling someone, "You know how DailyBurn says you're getting 55% of your calories from carbs? At the end of each day, I want that number at 33% instead" is so much more effective that it's a wonder people who don't have this data can manage at all.
Of course as a lawyer I do have to track the time I work for clients, and that (and the associated issues that come with it) is probably one of the things I really dislike about this profession.
If it's just that the act of collecting the data seems like a waste of time, I can readily accept that. (That's why I don't do any of it; it seems interesting, but most of the systems seem like they're not transparent enough to the user. Yet.)
But if it's that the data itself would be depressing ... The data to me would just be a mirror. If you don't like what you see, and you have the capability of doing something about it, that strikes me as a better solution, in the long run, than just avoiding the mirror.
To each their own though. The article does mention someone who decided after doing a lot of personal metrics for a while to stop doing it, and some of the reasons they had for that decision. It's clearly not for everyone.
One simple idea is to have an API to enable easy collection of quantified self data as well as to consume it. Thought about it myself at one point but I am not passionate about it.
Daytum (http://daytum.com/) has a nice webapp but no API...
I already know I procrastinate too much on reddit, I don't need a graph really (or maybe graph it for a week to shock myself, but no more). Reading medical and psychology journals with properly designed tests would be much more beneficial. I know people like to think they are unique snowflakes, but in reality the effect of coffee or fish oil on people is going to be pretty much the same. And journal articles point out if there are groups that are different anyway. This is just OCD channeled into something partially useful.
You can then use this knowledge to develop heuristics and rulesets that you can apply to better live your life. For example, maybe you discover that when you eat a banana, you get a surge of energy ~30 minutes later that lasts for ~1 hour. Now you know that when you need an hour's worth of energy, you can eat a banana a half-hour before.
That's a pretty simple example, but if you analyze various aspects of your life, you can gain much better control over it.
The title even hints at that: a data-driven life, i.e. what you do is determined by what the data says you should do.
I wouldn't want to have to poke myself in the fingers a few times a day to get it, but if there were a non-invasive way to do it, it'd be pretty interesting. You can learn a lot about how what you eat affects your body just by watching that number change over time.
As I said in another comment, if I could passively collect all this information, it'd be great to have, but I feel like the cost of collecting it outweighs its usefulness in most cases. But I'll certainly grant you that the equation varies per person.
Data analytics' value is in insight. The problem is insight is that it's surprise. If you already know what's in there, there's no surprise and hence no insight. If you don't think there to begin with, you aren't going to look and hence no insight.
It only works if you THINK and SUSPECT something's in there, but don't know exactly what it is.
This is why passively recording the data is the way forward. I myself ordered one of these:
They're also a YC startup.
Interesting how I never thought of how it fit into this bigger concept of using data in your personal life, especially how such quantification might take something away from our imperfect judgment, which is what makes us feel human.