The hot topic these days is quantifying aspects of your life: how far you walk, how long and well you sleep, how many calories you consume, your weight, your heart rate, and on and on. You now can record absolutely everything that happens to you with a camera you wear that takes a snapshot every time you move or somebody or something in front of you moves.
It's getting harder to separate the useful information from the narcissistic navel-gazing.
I confess to having a Fitbit that measures how far I walk but so far that's the extent of my participation in this trend.
I'm sure that some of the indicators of fitness and health will be very useful but in terms of being more productive and creative, what are the key things you might want to measure?
* Your output. For a writer that might be the number of words written per day or week. Obviously the ultimate question is whether what you write (or draw or create in some way) is any good, but often before it's good it's not so good. That's what rewriting is for. But even before it's not so good, it just has to exist, and that's where keeping track of quantity of words is helpful.
I do suggest using that rather than the number of hours as a measure; I know from personal experience that it's all too easy to justify a few hours of skimming articles as research that relates to writing...kind of.
* How much time you spend thinking, daydreaming, and reflecting. This kind of uniterrupted time is essential and harder and harder to achieve. Even ten or fifteen minutes a day can make a difference.
* How much time you spend stepping back from the everyday busyness to consider whether you're on the right track in the different facets of your life, whether some adjustments are needed, and whether you're taking care of yourself as well as others. An hour or so every month should suffice.
I reckon if we give enough time to these, we'll do pretty well!
