I am a big fan of tracking certain things in my life. So far I am collecting the following data:
[list]
[]Weight (Withings scale)
[]Blood Pressure (Withings)
[]Activity (Fitbit, GPS Watch)
[]Sleep (Fitbit, Sleep Cycle App)
[]Temperature (RaspberryPi)
[]Gas consumption (only at fill up)
[]Monthly electricity consumption
[]Monthly Internet data
[*]Geo Location (best effort using foursquare)
[/list]
What else could I track? One requirement is easiness of tracking e.g. I do not track calorie intake as it is too much work. I want the collecting to be automated for the most part.
What are you guys tracking and how do you collect your data?
Foursquare is useful, but I’m considering using Moves or Saga instead. Both apps use Foursquare’s location database, but are more convenient (review check-ins when you have time), and record not just a timestamp, but also time spent. Saga is less of a drain on the batteries than Moves, but doesn’t have an API so far.
I like my Fitbit, but the BodyMedia FIT works better for recording sleep (no need to remember to start/stop), and I find the “calories burned” reported by the BodyMedia more useful for most purposes than step counts.
Resting heart rate could be another interesting metric, but I’m not sure about the best way to record it. Mobile apps seem too inaccurate, and chest straps are tedious.
Apps that let you record calories might be useful as a motivational tool, but I doubt the data is any good.
I track room temperature and humidity in my apartment using a self build solution based on a RaspberryPi: http://thule.mine.nu/temperatures
It does not measure CO2 though. Maybe I will add a sensor for that in the future.
Calorie intake is to cumbersome especially when the food is not standardized.
I suggest tracking where your time is spent. You can get actionable results out of that pretty quick e.g. spending 6 hours buying the same toiletries every month ? consider getting them delivered from Amazon.
“What else could I track?” is a question I’ve been asking myself a lot too lately. I started to track much stuff but all these things are spreaded through several services. I hope to make this much cleaner than it is right now.
Some day I want to make a nice visualisation on my website but I have not a clue how and at least need clean data so it’s not going to be done any time soon.
Maybe this helps to answer the question what else to track The following is coming straight from my tracking.txt-note:
What I am currently tracking:
Sleep: Jawbone UP
Steps: Jawbone UP
Mood: Jawbone UP (not consistent. I have a hard time describing my mood. It’s mostly “meh”.)
Daily Journal: Day One
new things tried/learned: Day One #new
hair cuts: see appointment in calendar
TV Shows: watched.li (kinda, since it doesn’t add dates)
my face: iOS App “Dayli” (previous used: “Everyday”)
Gaming on iOS: Jailbreak App called “App Stats”, shows app usage times
Gaming on PS3: I created two Drafts-actions in Launch Center Pro that I need to tap to append the “START” and “STOP” time to a txt file in dropbox.
visualisation ideas: Sleep, Steps, Movies, Restaurants, hotels, Tweets, Instagrams, Photos, Music, public/private
set up but not actively using, incomplete or not really needed:
Link shortening: bit.ly (not using short links anymore)
Food: IFTTT pushes all “food” Check-Ins from Foursquare to Jawbone’s UP App. This only tracks the location where I have eaten but not what exactly, since I don’t add it. Also doesn’t track home cooked meals.
Mood: proper tracking with Jawbone UP in the MORNING and EVENING
Food: every single meal (I’m not interested in calories). Probably doing this with Foursquare and IFTTT to Dropbox, just have to remember to add a comment to my check-in and do manual adding for home cooked meals or other situations where I don’t use Foursquare.
Heart Rate: testing Heart Rate app by Runtastic
Location movement: ok, Foursquare is nice, but I need an app that shows on a map where I went. I used the “Moves” App previously but didn’t like it. Just bought an App called Retrotrack (found on the forums, $3) which shows a map for the location. Have not tried it yet
new people met
Facebook Messages: I don’t think there’s currently a way to do that.
Podcasts I listened to: probably no way if I don’t write it down or use iTunes and let last.fm scrobble it.
Car: I don’t have a personal car but I’m driving alot for my job and I’m getting a new work-car in January which unfortunately doesn’t support the “automatic”-App thing. I’m probably just going to check the kilometers each months and write it down. Also: fuel. But that’s an easy one because I have keep the recipes)
Instapaper: articles I read in Instapaper and/or Safari Read Later
feedly: same as Instapaper
Bitcoin: what’s my bitcoin worth?
Keystrokes: maybe. Probably not at all.
Weight
END OF NOTE
If possible, give me suggestions how to improve tracking and how to visualise.
Edit: updated my post since I worked on some tracking things today
