The Benefits of Collecting Data About Yourself

Because right now Google knows you better than you do.

Most people in life have goals they want to achieve, but not everyone reaches them. This is often because people don’t take stock of where they are, and thus don’t specify the steps needed to get to where they want to go.

If you want to change something, track it. Here are a few factors that a lot of people want improve and the apps/ software that I recommend.

Finances

Most banking and financial apps track your spending and some even categorising it by sector ( such groceries, subscriptions etc). However, I don’t think that this is personal enough. I prefer to input my spending into an Excel spread sheet. It’s much more painful because I see how much money I spend on Deliveroo, but therefore much more effective. It also means I have to think about whether a purchase is worth me pulling my laptop out later.

And burritos from Taco Bell just aren’t worth all the typing.

Physique

Everyone wants to look better and feel better in their body. Whether this means gaining weight, losing weight, becoming fitter or just drinking more water, pick your weakness and then track it. There are some good apps that allow you to note down daily stats. Then, they generate graphs with your information so that you can see your long-term trends. For ladies reading this, Flo is a brilliant health tracker app.

For any food related tracking, I recommend My Fitness Pal. It’s great for tracking calories and macronutrients in food if you have specific goals you want to reach.

Relationships

This is another common things that people want to improve, whether it’s romantic relationships or relationships with family and friends. Relationships are like plants: if you do nothing, they wither away, but if you water them, they thrive. Based on this concept, track the amount of times you “water” important relationships. This includes the number of calls, texts, home visits, and even number of memes you send them.

Final Thoughts.

Overall, tracking things will often feel uncomfortable at first- it exposes harsh truths that you could have ignored. But numbers don’t lie. Furthermore, what’s painful in the short-term is beneficial in the long term because often, the data is the kick up the butt that you needed to change your habits.

The data forces you to flourish.

So go. Arm yourself with tracker apps and excel spreadsheets.

Collect data on yourself and watch you life get back on track.