An Introduction to My Quantified Life

This blog is about living life, and also quantifying various aspects of it as they occur. Why bother?

Why Quantify?

Reticent as I am to quote management gurus, Peter Drucker did usefully say: "If you can't measure it, you can't improve it.” Despite popular belief, even - or perhaps especially - in scientific circles, measurement doesn’t have to be numerical. Quantity can be measured by a simple ordering: this is more than that. Frank et al. (2008) contend that the Pirahã, who famously do not have numbers, still can and do compare quantities of things. But it is easier to summarise the relationships between numbers over time and space if we express them numerically, and many tools have been developed within mathematics to do just that. In quantifying my own life, and talking about it on this blog, I plan to exploit whatever techniques I can.

It has to be Worth it

A fundamental requirement for me is that the effort I put into measurement and analysis pay off. I’m interested to a small extent in doing it for its own sake, but I am happier if, for example, the measurement effort can be reduced by recognising some measures as redundant.

Fields and Forms of Quantification

Here are some of the ways in which I see quantifying as a possibility, even if I am not yet actioning them.

• Quantified Body - what I can measure of the state of my body’s mechanical properties (e.g. blood pressure), its biochemistry (e.g. blood glucose), its macro performance, training performance and stress (e.g. sleep, exercise, fitness),
• Quantified Mind - can measure time spent on mentally useful activities (e.g. meditation), scoring from mental evaluation (e.g. solving puzzles), external testing systems (e.g. TheQuantifiedMind),
• Tracking Time, Locations - using apps to help track time on computer (e.g. Timing), location (e.g. using Backitude),
• Tracking Finances - track expenses (e.g. public transport usage), download transactions from bank, download pay slips, scan and OCR receipts,
• Tracking Projects, Plans - I use a Bullet Journal for these, so am not quantifying them in a way that is readily integrable at the moment,
• Tracking Habits - when trying to develop new habits, or practice (e.g. language learning), quantifying time spent is a good way of tracking whether more pressure needs to be exerted in that area,
• Gamification - quantifying the fit between your behaviour and your goals can help you achieve them .. I haven’t had success with this test, but will try it again.

The Blog

In this blog, then, I will describe what I measure, how I analyse it, reasons for doing so, the general philosophy of quantified living, and special tools and techniques that have made doing this easier.