We are so close to gathering every possible morsel of data about us, imagine what could be possible once you owned every bit of data gathered about you. After some thought, I decided it’s more than just seeing personal data and abstract patterns of you. It’s about what these patterns will tell us about ourselves. Data collected about us will unfold a personal narrative and story to reveal a hidden part of us we are trained to ignore, a way to know ourselves and anticipate what comes next. Perhaps seeing the abstract patterns and rhythms of your self-tracking data is a short-cut to mindfulness. A quick and dirty way to boost your immune system, the benefits of meditation and self-reflection without much effort.

In 10 years, Felton says, all this data collection will be happening constantly and automatically. The idea sounds scary, at first, but Felton won’t mind a bit. By measuring ourselves privately and intelligently, we can potentially gain incredible insights into the choices we’ve made, and the choices we have yet to make. It’s not yet clear what kind of discoveries personal measurement will yield, but they’ll span the entirety of our lives from our health to our productivity.

Awais Hussain - Keeping Track of Time - Boston QS (by James Zhen)