I have been thinking about how I can track data within my everyday life. Which road should I go down? Exercise activity, like location or type? Food intake, like what kinds of foods I ate, tea/coffee/ snacks, how many times I ate?

Tracking my interaction styles

I was doing some work before a camping trip with my partner and was talking to him about the idea. I was going over the different examples that had been given, and what ideas I had for my own data tracking.

My partner says: “How about tracking your daily interaction styles? You talk to so many different people everyday.”

GENIUS. Mad I didn’t think about it first.

How would I track the data?

But how would I specifically start tracking ALL of my interaction styles? My Digital Wellbeing feature on my Google Pixel can only track the digital communication that comes through that device, not my work or school emails, or the amount of times my friends send me memes on social media.

A tally system will have to do, and will be dated at the top so I can compare the data by day.

I’m thinking about tracking my daily interaction styles with people. Whether phone, email, video chat, or in-person.

I think it would also be useful for in-person interactions to say the locations, but maybe I’m going too deep into this. For the strictly digital, I think it wouldn’t matter the location unless I’m present physically with someone and I get a call. 

Collecting the data

I used a dedicated mini notebook to track the interactions, and carried it wherever I went for 6 days. My days are usually varied, going to different places and seeing different people.

Some notes from each day:

Here are the final numbers put into a spreadsheet:

Data in its final form

Going back to the Dear Data Project (again, I know!), they tracked and presented their data in such unique ways each week. I based mine off of star maps, as that was the example that caught my eye the most.

Here’s the final drawing of my data, inspiration taken from the Dear Data Project.

My takeaways

What would be the point of doing all of this for 6 days if it wasn’t for something? I learned so much about my daily styles of interaction.

Professional

I don’t really receive that many incoming messages from either of my jobs. Which feels weird to say because wheneve I see a notification from the research study I feel very overwhelmed.

Personal

I clearly have friends that like to communicate with me a lot, and enjoy spending time with me. I think I should be tuning in less, and focsusing more on what’s around me.

School

I subscribe to some newsletters that I just delete as soon as they come into my inbox. I’ve also been communicating with my professor much more frequently than in past classes. I’m really enjoying the increase in communication, as it’s helping me understand assignments more.