Hey everyone 
I am curious about how often you are confronted with the subject of perfectionism or self-optimization when it comes to the practice of self-tracking? Do other people think of you as a self-optimizing person or do you yourselves even think that way?
I look forward to your answers
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This doesn’t directly address your topic, but I’ve been thinking about how self-tracking can become a positive or negative force depending on people’s attitudes. If metrics are viewed as “judgements of value” (common with things like body weight), it’s easy to have them become sources of shame or obsessive perfectionism. But if they’re viewed as “experimental feedback” (easiest with metrics like mood, sleep quality, and exercise performance), they can be a positive, motivating force.
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Thanks for your answer I totally agree with you. Tracking and monitoring your own body can have many different aspects and psychological effects as well. So has the aspect of self-optimization. Using metrics in a very obsessive way to achieve perfection must be seen as a rather negative and destructive way of self-tracking… but of course is contains a lot of very positive and life improving impacts too.
But what I wanted to know is if self-tracking is really always used to improve oneself or maybe there are totally different reasons. Speaking for myself, I mainly use apps to track my sleep and sometimes track my steps and of course I want to improve these things but I am also interested in discovering behavioral patterns on myself which I am unconscious of. But I am also thinking of aspects such as experimenting, using it as a new hobby, joining a community like this and so on…
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I am looking for passive tracking for self-optimization. Ideally using the data to reinforce positive habits and cut out bad ones. I should add I consider being happy an optimization, so it’s not just being more efficient or better at something.
My friends and family see me as something else… I think “geek” is probably the most used term!
Matt
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Very interesting topic! I am also thinking a lot about this topic. I am a healthy young male without any problems but I track a lot. For example; I track my weight twice a day but not for optimization purposes, and it is no meaningless obsession to track it. I don’t have any problems with tracking it. As @Ouiouian states, for me it is just a quest for deeper understanding my life, I am just curious what exactly affects my weight, my productivity, happiness, or whatever. But I am also optimizing things that are going well, I have to admit that. Lastly, I am also tracking things to prematurely signal myself of changes in a variable (which aren’t occurring yet).
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Thus, for me it is: 1. Deeper understanding, 2. Optimization, 3. Premature signaling of change.
But I also have to mention that I don’t put to much pressure on the outcomes of my measurements, like weight, productivity or even happiness. I accept that everything cannot be perfect all the time, so I am not worrying about it that much. That mindset is something I learned having by self-tracking itself I suppose, data told me this lesson.
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To your original question - I confront myself with this kind of question periodically, several times a year, usually when I am reviewing how my overall system is working. I tend to keep my QS-obsession to myself, so I really don’t hear from others about it. I think QS is a dangerous combination for me: perfectionist + data nerd + analytical mind set + productivity nerd. It’s easy to get carried away and measure and chart things because it’s interesting rather than because it is useful.
I have to actively remind myself periodically to focus only on those measures which help me reach a goal. And then, I also have to remind myself to focus on those measures which are leading indicators (reducing carbs and sweets, exercising regularly) rather than lagging indicators (e.g. weight). There’s nothing wrong with having fun with QS, but I want to prioritize getting some actual benefit!
If you know people who really get into personal productivity systems (like GTD) there is a similar dynamic at work, and a similar danger. You can spend so much effort optimizing your system, that you have less time to actually do productive work. Investing time in things like GTD have a great return on investment, up to a point. Knowing where that point is, and respecting it, can be tricky if your passion verges on obsession.
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For me the key is the data produced (and insights drawn from it). This data helps create a feedback loop (as @danwich mentioned) to inform actions in an effective way, especially necessary in complex domains like the human body. For me it is not so much about improving oneself as it is improving the effectiveness of decision-making across the multiple dimensions of well-being.
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Curiosity.
As for “self-optimization”, I’m still stuck at the first stage, which is to make sure I’m not doing anything stupid
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