How to Use Quantified Self Strategies to Improve Your Life

Step-by-Step Guide

1. 1

   Step 1: Consider whether you're already self-tracking in some part of your life.

   Many of us self-track in certain parts of our lives without necessarily equating it with the concept of "self-tracking." For example, runners and walkers who wear step monitoring equipment to measure how far they're running or walking are self-tracking.
   
   Even people who keep a journal to gain control over emotions and to self-explain events in life are self-tracking because they're able to review emotions and feelings from the past and gauge these against the way they are in the present.
   
   Self-tracking is a good way of setting goals, measuring their progress, and meeting them with certifiable points through the process that can help motivate, invigorate, and ultimately bring you to congratulate yourself.
   
   If you're already doing some form of self-tracking, you're going to find it even easier to increase your use of it to other areas of your life.
2. 2

   Step 2: Identify a specific goal you’d like to track.

   Before you decide to track anything, consider if it’s worth your time, effort and be sure that it's what you truly wish to achieve.
   
   Of course, nearly anything in life can be tracked, even moods or thoughts; whatever you choose, it should be something that will truly enhance and improve your life.
   
   It could be something you’d like to improve, change or remove from your life.
   
   Then, if tracking this goal works for you, you can try additional goals later.
   
   In deciding on a goal, here is some guidance:
   Consider a project or goal that is important to you but you've failed to make headway or progress in pursuing it consistently.
   
   For example, have you been trying to lose weight since New Year’s Eve or have you tried every remedy to rid your body of a newly acquired allergy but you've found yourself making little progress? Perhaps you're concerned that your efforts to getting promoted aren't bearing fruit or maybe you'd like to catch and stop negative thought processes.
   
   Whatever it is, choose something that really matters to you now.
   
   Another way to identify a goal is to follow something that inspires you but that you haven't yet managed to launch.
   
   Do you want to go vegan, lower your carbon footprint, volunteer regularly or turn your garden into a completely edible one? Being inspired to make changes is another great source of a goal to apply self-tracking to. , What would happen if you lost weight or finally cleaned out the garage? Whatever your goal, imagine what your life would be like once you’ve reached it.
   
   Visualizing the outcome will help to provide you with additional motivation, as well as giving you clarity on the benefits involved in sticking with it.
   
   Decide what you ultimately want to result from tracking this goal.
   
   Although you have a goal such as “lose 20 pounds” or “improve endurance while running”, what is the ultimate result? Is it being able to ask out a guy you’ve had your eye on for years, but have been too shy because of your weight? Or is your goal being able to regain a healthy lifestyle so you can play with your kids or have the endurance to keep up with the rest of your family? Perhaps your goal is to identify whether eating healthily shows a drop in cholesterol rates.
   
   Whatever your goal, a deep motivation will help you to stick to achieving the goal and help you to integrate the regular tracking into your everyday life. , Before you can determine how you will track this goal, you need to break down your goal’s features and anything that directly influences or impacts achievement of this goal.
   
   To help you analyze these variables, here is some guidance:
   What are the individual components of your main goal? Although the main goal could be the same for many people, factors that influence how you will achieve that goal may differ markedly from how another person would approach achieving it.
   
   For example, say you want to lose weight.
   
   Which components do you see as necessary for losing weight––for you in particular? You might find that a certain type of exercise is an important part of your weight loss plan, while someone else with a similar goal might prefer to focus mainly on restriction of calories from sugar.
   
   Each main goal has a unique set of circumstances surrounding it and it's vital to establish which ones resonate best with you so that you can stay focused on the goal.
   
   What surrounding variables (influences) will factor into your tracking? For example, say you wanted to improve lung function.
   
   You might consider exercise an important main factor but then also find relaxation exercises and yoga to be additional useful influences.
   
   You will also find that if you're smoking, this is a negative influence that needs to be given up to achieve your goal.
   
   Another example might be poor sleep.
   
   When you measure your diet, exercise, workplace tension, alcohol intake and vitamin pills, you might discover that the bad influence is the alcohol intake and realize that this negative influence needs to be minimized or removed in order to achieve your better sleeping goal.
   
   In addition, you might find that adding a glass of warm milk before bedtime eases your pathway to sleep, making this a positive influence. , Although there are numerous ways to track your progress, not every tracking method will be applicable to your particular project and lifestyle.
   
   You'll need to take into account numerous factors, such as how you spend your day (at the office or outside) and what kind of access you have to your tracker (on-the-go or only when at a particular place).
   
   Fairly typical tracking systems used by followers of the Quantified Self movement include:
   Online trackers or mobile apps.
   
   These are great if you love taking your phone or digital device everywhere, even to exercise activities or outings.
   
   Instant input can serve as a great motivator because it feels like you're doing something now that is showing immediate tracked results (even if the real time results are rather slower).
   
   It's about feeling like you're achieving something and doing something about it.
   
   You could use either a site like Digifit (exercise) or Moodscope (moods) online or find suitable apps, whichever you prefer to use on-the-go.
   
   The Quantified Self site has lots of suggestions at:
   QuantifiedSelf.com/guide/.
   
   Some online trackers include an interactive element that lets you stay connected with other users.
   
   This can be both fun and motivating because others can see and share or comment on your data and progress, and you can do likewise with their data.
   
   Of course, using this interactive aspect is entirely up to you––the term for being as open as possible with your data is "data nudist"
   
   and you'll need to consider the ramifications of being so open on your personal privacy.
   
   However, for many self-trackers, the whole purpose of self-tracking is to keep records open and online, so that others can help spot connections/issues in your data and encourage continued progress.
   
   Some people begin self-tracking with a public contract placed on Twitter, Facebook and other social media so that others know you're pursuing a goal and can encourage you.
   
   This openness about your goal can be helpful in motivating you, as well as inspiring others.
   
   Pen and paper.
   
   For many people there is a sense of satisfaction in writing down results by hand.
   
   Again, this is a fairly portable method that can be done anywhere, including when out of the reach of cellphone towers or electricity, making it useful if you're likely to go back country or simply leave the electronic devices at home.
   
   With this method, you simply write down the data and/or observations each day, then reflect over or tally the totals each evening.
   
   Graphs and charts.
   
   This method is great if you love data to reveal itself visually; it's also great for the mathematically or statistically inclined tracker.
   
   This method can be either manual or electronic, with software such as Excel or Google Docs being useful for digital graphs and charts.
   
   This method is good for tracking facts and figures, making comparisons and seeing whether there are notable changes in particular health conditions, such as cholesterol or panic attacks.
   
   Lists.
   
   If you are a list-maker, using lists to track goals can work well.
   
   As a bonus, if you are keeping a blog or other socially interactive online record of achieving your goals, then lists are an enjoyable and easy way for readers to learn about your progress. , Clearly, tracking your progress for only a few days and then giving up because nothing seems to have improved won’t help you achieve your goal.
   
   For most goals, a period of time is needed before you start to see results and by setting a reasonable time period in advance, you give yourself the parameters by which to analyze your progress.
   
   There is also another side to this––knowing that there is an end date can be useful if you're trying something for the first time and you're not sure if it's going to work for you, such as going vegan.
   
   The end date provides motivation to at least get there before deciding something does or does not work for you.
   
   Start by estimating how long it will likely take to see results.
   
   Be realistic and be reasonable when making estimations and leave margins for error.
   
   For example, if you want to lose 20 pounds and losing two pounds per week is considered to be an average amount, determine how long it should take you to lose all the weight, including any special holiday or similar events that might trip you up now and then.
   
   Also, remember that nobody is average, so you need to also define your time according to your self-knowledge. , You don't need to do this step but it can help if you need the motivation or if what you're doing is something that will have an impact on others in the household (or where their "as-usual" activities will impact the changing you).
   
   For example, if you've decided to go paleo, having another household member invested in trying this diet may make it easier and more affordable for you to stick with the change.
   
   Or perhaps you've decided to go jogging every morning at 5am––a jogging buddy can serve as motivation and safety-in-numbers for you.
   
   Explaining what you're doing to others can be helped if someone else is doing the goal with you. , You may not be completely sold on your method of tracking, especially if this is your first time using the app or method.
   
   Commit to try the tracker for at least a week to discover additional functionality or components.
   
   If you are tracking your progress manually, try other methods such as writing results or tracking data on a white board in your office or posting your tracker in a convenient location such as your refrigerator or on the back of your bedroom door. , Perhaps you didn’t consider a surrounding variable or maybe you should be measuring goals differently.
   
   If your tracking method appears to be somewhat “off”, consider making adjustments and updating your methods.
   
   Acknowledge that there will be challenges and seek ways to overcome them.
   
   For example, changing your diet can be hard because of old eating habits, while deciding to exercise more frequently can be hard if you feel as if you're having to eat into time when you'd normally be doing something else.
   
   In every case, you'll need to weigh up what is most important and make space for it, as well as giving yourself the chance to make this work.
   
   If one element of your goal proves to be unsustainable, such as uploading daily photos of your progress, reconsider that element rather than the whole goal.
   
   Don't confuse the laborious nature of some aspects of your goal with the entire goal––if you've chosen certain ways of achieving the goal that simply cause you to yawn or run in the other direction, shift these out and replace them with something much more motivating.
   
   In some cases, you may not even need to keep including this element at all.
3. 3

   Step 3: Determine the way in which tracking your chosen goal will impact your life.

4. 4

   Step 4: Examine both the main goal and surrounding influences.

5. 5

   Step 5: Explore which tracking system will work well for your goal and lifestyle.

6. 6

   Step 6: Commit to track your goal for a certain amount of time.

7. 7

   Step 7: Find a buddy.

8. 8

   Step 8: Test drive your tracking method for a defined number of days

9. 9

   Step 9: weeks or months to determine if it is the right fit.

10. 10

    Step 10: Be flexible with your tracking method and be open to making adjustments along the way.

Detailed Guide

About the Author