Posts tagged ‘technology’
Quantified Self Experiment
What is quantified self?
Quantified self is a discipline of self-tracking for the purpose of self-awareness and personal improvement. The Ancient Greek aphorism “Know thyself” is one of the common ways to explain quantified self movement. People who are interested in self-knowledge through self-tracking usually want to change or improve something about themselves. One of the best ways to do this is to understand where you are now and where you want to be.
People have been tracking themselves for hundreds of years through journals, introspection, and observation. For example, Benjamin Franklin improved his character by reviewing his day to see if he has followed one of his 13 virtues, which he developed at age 20 and continued to practice in some form for the rest of his life. While Franklin did not live completely by his virtues, he believed the attempt made him a better man contributing greatly to his success and happiness (1).
Purpose – Why I am interested in tracking myself.
“Who we are is but a stepping stone to what we can become.” – Deus Ex (2)
I enjoy life and everything that it has to offer. I believe that one of the main drives in human beings is to strive for self-actualization or the motive to realize one’s full potential (3). I want to travel the world, connect with people, improve myself as a human being, and continue contributing to the evolution of our society even when I am 90 years old. This is why one of my goals is to live longer by taking care of my mental and physical health.
Joining the quantified self movement allows me to take better care of my well-being and help me achieve my goal of living a healthy, long, and meaningful life. Self-tracking allows me to see where I am now in relation to where I want to be in my life.
Intention – What I want to achieve by tracking myself.
Physical Health
Fitness is an important part of my life. There was a time when I used to go to the gym and take martial arts classes, today I keep things simple. I work out 3-4 time a week mostly using my own body weight, jog, and walk as often as I can. After doing my own research and trying different things, I came to a conclusion that to maintain a fit body I do not need a gym membership. What I need instead is a clear understanding of why fitness is important and how to use basic exercises to keep myself fit. Nowadays, it usually takes me 25-40 minutes to complete my exercises without a whole gym “ritual”. Think of it as a minimalistic approach to fitness (4).
Another simple but very important part of my physical health is walking. It is hard to explain in just a few sentences how crucial walking is for our body and our brain, and yet very few people in America walk the recommended minimum every day.
Not only does exercise improve your physical healthy, but it also boosts your brain power. Our brains were built for walking 12 miles a day! If you want to improve your thinking skills, you need to move. Exercise gets blood to your brain, bringing it glucose for energy and oxygen to soak up the toxic electrons that are left over. It also stimulates the protein that keeps neurons connecting (5).
I recommend these resources to learn more about physical fitness:
- BodyRock.TV – simple exercises using your own body
- You Are Your Own Gym: The Bible of Bodyweight Exercises by Mark Lauren and Joshua Clark
- Brain Rules by John Medina – Rule #1: Exercise boosts brain power.
Mental Health
My quantified mental health consists of working on my goals and tracking my reading. My goals are divided into five areas of my life: health, love & sex, work, finance, and relationships (see the well-being star above). Every week I spend some time analyzing where I am now and where I want to be. By focusing my attention on the most important parts of my life, I am able to track changes and make improvements. As for reading, I mostly read non-fiction books during the day and fiction before I go to sleep.
Spiritual Health
We live in a time of great innovation and technological achievements. It is also a time when many people are stressed and depressed because they are unable to adapt to changes around them. During the time of Jesus Christ an average person probably had to make 5-7 important decision during their lifetime. Today, people have to make 5-7 important decisions during the day. Facebook, Twitter, Email, TV, news, books, work, family problems, traffic, and many other things contribute to a stressful day.
Many people in America come home overwhelmed by all the information they have received during the day and stressed out by all the little problems they had to deal with. Most people take care of their stress by watching TV or eating food, both of which can make you feel good. However, stress management through TV and eating can lead to bigger mental and health problems. After all, being distracted from a problem is different from solving a problem.
The alternative is to use 20-30 minutes a day to meditate or use any other form of focused attention exercise that helps you relax. I practice The Key Method to help me relax, clear my mind, and find solutions to problem in my life. If you already have a method to help you relax then start using it, if not, then now is a good time to learn one, and start practicing.
Instruments – How I am tracking myself.
A growing number of cheap consumer gadgets are providing data for people interested in “quantified self”. In science, politics, medicine and many other spheres, data is collected to improve effectiveness and efficiency of something that works well or change something that does not work. Similar concepts can be applied to yourself.
I collect and use data to improve my self-awareness and make positive changes in my life. By collecting my own personal information I am able to better understand myself and make positive changes in my life.
Physical Health
I track my fitness activity using an iPhone App called Fleetly. “Fleetly is the best app to reach your fitness goals. Earn points for logging your workouts, connect with friends and join challenges at all levels, from beginner to pro.” I like Fleetly because it is simple, visual, and fun to use.
I also track my physical activity using FitBit Ultra, which shows me how much I have moved during the day and how well I sleep. Fitbit helps you make every step you take a step toward better fitness. The Fitbit Tracker shows your real-time activity stats so you know how close you are to your goals. It’s with you every step of the day, motivating you to make small changes that add up to big results. My personal goal is to make 10,000 steps a day. Fitbit syncs with RunKeeper, which then syncs back with Fleetly.
On occasion when I need to track my jogging, I use RunKeeper, which is a running app designed to track various cardio workouts..
Mental and Spiritual Health
I use Evernote to track my goals and to keep a journal. My journal is based on the simple technique called “The Three Blessings”. Each night before I go to sleep I:
- Think of three good things that happened today.
- Write them down.
- Reflect on why they happened.
This technique from positive psychology allows me to review my day and remember all the good things that happened during that day. I also try to understand why they happened. Not only do I reflect on how my day went, I also train my brain to focus on the positive aspects of my life.
I track how I feel, where I am and who I am with using an iPhone App called (GottaFeeling](http://gottafeeling.com). This app helps me analyze where I feel my best.
My relaxation/mediation sessions are tracked using an iPhone App called Equanimity. Equanimity has been carefully designed to help you establish and maintain a daily meditation practice.
I track my time spend on the computer using RescueTime, which is a personal-analytics service that shows you how you spend your time & provides tools to help you be more productive. At the end of week I am able to see if I have used my time productively or wasted it on something that was not important.
To track my read and want to read books I use Goodreads, which is virtual bookshelves with online community.
Conclusion
Remember, it is not about how you track yourself and what you use to track yourself. It is about having a clear understanding of why you track yourself. Neither a cool gadget nor a well-designed iPhone app will be useful if you do not know why you want to quantify yourself. First establish a clear purpose for self tracking, then figure out how you are going to track yourself, and only then research what you can use to maximize your purpose.
I will experiment using all these tools to help me maximize my purpose. I will do this for several months and will write an update about my results. So far these tools work as a good reminder to keep moving towards my goals.
Quantified Self Resources:
- The Quantified Self Forum is a place for the community to discuss any topics they want.
- The Complete QS Guide to Self-Tracking is a collection of tools, apps, and projects. Our goal is to gather and organize the world’s collective self-tracking resources in one place.
- Quantified self tools.
- Videos from the meetups are available at the Quantified Self Vimeo Group.