My Kingdom for a Source!

March 31, 2008 10:53 AM

How does one go about tracking and chronicling ones personal life efficiently using current tech?

I would like to begin tracking and chronicling my current state of existence using current technology, documenting everything that comes to me via mail, tracking how I am moving throughout the current zeitgeist and seeing what patterns are there that I am either currently missing or have intuitively gleaned. Traditional ways of doing the is a literal paper trail........inserting all mail into binders, scrapbooks etc (ala Buckminster Fuller.) This has to have changed since the advent of pc's and I am sure there are programs available to support this process. I actually read an article about 2 years ago of (I believe) a Microsoft programmer who was actually doing this with every thing he did, (recording phone calls, on-line time, times spent at certain sites, etc) Insights to how this can be done now would be appreciated.

posted by goalyeehah to technology (7 comments total)

In the extreme case what you are talking about is referred to as LifeLogging.
posted by phrontist at 10:54 AM on March 31, 2008

Why?

Seriously, how could someone begin to answer this question without at least a hint about what you're trying to accomplish here?
posted by gum at 11:57 AM on March 31, 2008

For a public version of this with your web surfing habits, you can try cluztr.
For a way to privately monitor your personal computer usage, you can try RescueTime robot.

As far as live video-streaming your life, there are a ton of sites that offer this, such as Justin.tv, but I'm not familiar with them.
posted by andoatnp at 1:22 PM on March 31, 2008

Evernote (I've never used it) might be similar to what you're looking for. They apparently have a new beta coming out soon.
posted by tayknight at 1:24 PM on March 31, 2008

Gum......I have read a lot on Buckminster Fuller the past couple of years. For most of his life, he had something he called a "Chronofile" in which he did what I have described, essentially tracking how his life and work "trended" essentially being his own guinea pig. Over time he would distill out information and patterns that he would use to clarify his own work. I would like to do something similar.
posted by goalyeehah at 1:46 PM on March 31, 2008

The Microsoft guy is Gordon Bell, and he's using MyLifeBits.
I seem to recall he has personal assistants helping him archive.
posted by MtDewd at 1:50 PM on March 31, 2008

Dandelife "is a place for you to record the events of your life, past and present, public and private. Have you photos and videos online in different places? No worries. Like you, your Dandelife is ultimate mash-up. Live well - we're listening! "
posted by chase at 5:43 PM on March 31, 2008