Chalkboard

I enjoy collecting information about the things I do and looking back over it, just as a form of journaling. Since tech is my jam, I try to automate collecting as much information as I can. There isn't a real point to it. I'm not trying to discover anything or achieve some kind of life hack. Currently, I'm not tracking any sort of health data, even though I've got an Apple Watch. It can collect information on heart rate and sleep quality/quantity, both of which I've been interested in before. I even have a digital scale and a blood pressure monitor, both with Wi-Fi to feed information into Apple's health app.

The type of information I'm interested in these days has more to do with culture and creativity. I use web services that track my television and music consumption automatically. I record the books I read into Goodreads because that information can be exported into other formats. I use a location tracking app that doesn't send the information anywhere other than to my encrypted iCloud account. I also use an app to bookmark notable places I've been, like restaurants, parks, coffee shops and hotels. That app stored its data in a cloud account that only I have access to.

When I was training for long-distance cycling, data collection had a different flavor because I had numerical goals: trying to hit 10,000 miles and get 30 or more rides of 100 miles completed in a calendar year. My Garmin bike computer recorded all of that, along with speed data plus my heart rate and pedaling cadence. Some people even have power meters on their bikes to determine the wattage they generate on rides. I didn't use Strava, but I did use the Garmin website to store my information.