In the last session of the day, we had a few experimental talks on noticing how food changes physical condition. It was also an interesting series of talks that shows the importance of collecting our own subjective data to back up or refute the other technological data that we might also have access to. I…
I led a very interesting discussion at Quantified Self Europe this morning with about 10 attendees with a variety of backgounds. There were entrepreneurs who wanted to start genetic information based companies, a designer, a think tank analyst, and people who are just interested in where the field is and where it was going. The…
We started Quantified Self as a casual meeting for users and makers of self-tracking tools. Now that our project has evolved into an active, international community, I’d like to offer a concise description of what it’s about. This will help if you are organizing a Quantified Self show&tell, giving a talk, or launching an independent…
Recently, Technology Review invited me to do a guest post on one of their blogs as part of their feature, “The Measured Life.” I chose to engage a claim I saw on Ethan Zuckerman’s blog — that at the QS Conference, it seemed that “quantified self” = “quantified health.” He asked about mood, attention, emotions —…
I recently received an email from someone having trouble keeping up with her experiment. While there is lots of general advice about discipline and motivation, this got me thinking about how doing personal experiments might differ. Following are a few brief thoughts, but I’d love to hear ways that you keep motivated in your quantified…
When I want to start tracking a metric in my life, most of the time I use an app or service that enables me to do it more easily or provide options like statistics or sharing. I’ve tracked a lot of different things, some better and more easily than others. Sometimes my data would be…
We see a lot of cool things here that people are experimenting with, such as health (sleep, water intake, mood) or productivity (interruptions, hours/day, attention), but we are also trying odder things. My interest is in widening the definition of what could be considered an experiment, so I thought I’d ask, what off-the-wall things have…
As I continue trying to stretch the concept of experiment so that a wide audience understands applying a scientific method to life, I struggle with defining success. While the trite “You can always learn something” is true, I think we need more detail. At heart is the tension between the nature of experimentation’s trial-and-error process…
We experiment on ourselves and track the results to improve the way we work, our health, and our personal lives. This rational approach is essential because there are few guarantees that what works for others will work for us. Take the category of sleep, for example. Of the hundreds of tinctures and techniques available, clearly…
What’s the smallest thing you’ve tracked that had a short turnaround time but generated useful results? I’ve noticed that the kinds things we try here in the Quantified Self community are often longer-term experiments that seem to be a week or two long at a minimum. I think this is primarily due to the effects…
Some time ago I was asked for the ultimate productivity tip, and instead of giving a straightforward take-away, I said that in the end the answer is “it depends.” That wasn’t a cheap shot because what works for you might not work for the next guy, and vice versa. Sound familiar? It’s the same case…
In 2007, while training for an Ironman triathlon, one of the many daily QS rituals I did included waking up in the morning and strapping on my heart rate monitor before I got out of bed to measure my resting heart rate (HR). My coach had made it one of the mandatory data points I…
Considerations for the future of big data in self-tracking and personal informatics.
A guest post from futurist Walter de Brouwer on his suggestions for the ‘periodic table’ of tracking gadgets still to be invented.
A post debunking some of the misconceptions around the practice of self-tracking.
QS advisor Seth Roberts offers suggestions on tracking wisdom by evaluating daily decisions.
In the IEEE Spectrum, Paul McFedries, the author of Word Spy, writes about new words generated by new kinds of science made possible by cheap computing. Perhaps the biggest data set of all is the collection of actions, choices, and preferences that each person performs throughout the day, which is called his or her data exhaust. Using such data…
While talking recently with my QS fellows (thanks Alex, Eri, Seth, and Rajiv) I realized I’ve been using the term “citizen science” rather loosely. Expanding on my short section in Wandering minds, self-tracking, and citizen science, I’d like to use this post to explore how the expression is used, sketch a little vision of where…
I started self-tracking a long time ago, but I recently came across an interesting thing I would like to share. I wanted to change one of the services I use, but I could not find a way to export or get my data. I searched Google for a way to access my data for the…
Misha Chellam had a great suggestion to create a form so people can share their experiences tracking their goals and resolutions. Here’s a form where you can share your experiences. Note that the data is publicly shared here. To help you start, Misha’s example was: My name is Misha, my goal is to be more…
