"The Data-Driven Life"

I enjoyed reading this article[1] about increasing instances of using computers to help analyze ones own personal life. This is the kind of world I envision eventually, and that I'd hope to help create. Sometimes I wonder what I'm getting myself into.

While I count myself among those the author describes as data-driven, I don't agree with his portrayl. It seems like he's saying, in the data-driven life people let their data explain them -- praise or condem them. If you gain a pound, if you jump around through tasks, if you have too many drinks, the data is all there to prove it. But really, the data does nothing on its own. I would venture to think that few "data-driven" people think of their data (let alone the machines/tools that they use to record it) as separate from themselves. The details are just more of you exposed, and machines put it within easier reach. The tools and the data simply are you formulating ideas about yourself in different ways. They are an extension of you.

At the end of the article the author notes that his own personal tracking experience was only useful to him as a "source of critical perspective." My point exactly.

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[1] The Data-Driven Life
http://www.nytimes.com/2010/05/02/magazine/02self-measurement-t.html

Knowing where your [computer] time goes

Where does the time go? Whether you need to know for billing purposes or just want a better idea of how your work day is split up, you can always answer that question with a good time-tracking application.

- Five Best Time-tracking Applications

I use Ubuntu Linux and I've been using Hamster (http://projecthamster.wordpress.com/) for a couple of weeks now. It sits in a panel on the top of my screen. My favorite feature is that it unobtrusively notifies me every so often about what it thinks I'm doing (i.e. what I told it I'm doing). Now I just need to discipline myself to take 5 seconds and give it accurate information whenever it notifies me.