Data gathering and usage are already a notable part of my personal life, and yet I know that I am capturing not even a fraction of the existing benefits and potential of this endeavor.
For years now, one of my primary data related goals is to have a customized dashboard that I use to manage some of the aspects of my life that I value.
This post is an introduction to this pursuit.
Project Outline
My Primary Topics to Visualize
After finishing with my most recent semester of studies, I took three full days of my summer to collect my thoughts. I wrote in my journal, perused my semi-scattered collected of ideas, and created a spreadsheet that visualized my ambitions against their merits.
As a result, I have a narrowed category list for my goals. There are four main areas that I can bring into our focus for the upcoming school year.
| Goal Type | Description |
| Spiritual | Related to personal spiritual growth |
| Family | For my children and other family |
| Career | Concerning career growth and financial stability |
| Physical Fitness | Developing a healthy body |
Underneath each category, there are a number of potential endeavors and projects that I can consider making a priority.
Spiritual
For example, in the spiritual category, I would enjoy writing in my journal more regularly, making a concerted effort to experience the outdoors, and finding opportunities to engage in service.
Family
In the family category, I hope to improve my relationship with my kids, and have a few ideas on how I can make that happen.
Career
In terms of career, I want to excel as a teacher, and I would love to find some way to revive the creative side of my life that fell dormant a few years ago.
Also, on a financial level, I would like to get to a point where most of my life is financially on autopilot, so that I can turn my attention elsewhere.
Physical Fitness
With physical fitness, examples of my goals include a hope to continue losing weight and to improve my diet.
Data Gathering Methods
Existing Data
As I look through my records, I see many types of data that I already gather. Here are a few worth mentioning.
Personal Journal
My personal journal is one of my most valuable qualitative data records. I have some entries written as early as my elementary school year.
Some of this data is on paper, and some is digital. Everything will have to be converted to digital for me to make use of it.
Memory Box
In my closet are a few large plastic totes that contain hundreds of memories via paper, photograph, and small souvenirs. For example, there is one tote that contains items from my LDS mission to Yekaterinburg, Russia, such as photographs of my Russian friends, and a mink fur hat, called a “shopka.”
Digital Records
Email and Other Archives
On my hard drives I have records going back decades, which includes email archives, artistic essays, and more.
Financial History
My financial history is fairly accurate over the last ten years. I keep track of my financial behavior in the Quicken software package.
While Quicken has benefits (namely, that it can automatically download financial data from a bank), it also has limitations. A user cannot access their raw data. Furthermore, Quicken is closed-source software; I would prefer open-source software, if possible.
To resolve these issues, I am slowly converting my financial history to GnuCash. This open-source software allows me to keep my data in a PostgreSQL database, and therefore I can access the data directly for analysis.
Physical Fitness Data
Overall Physical Health Records
My primary health-data repository is the Android app called Samsung Health.
This app has a number of features. Most importantly, the app can pull data from other apps, which allows for a centralized location for most of my health data.
Whether or not the app can support data export, is another matter. My aim is to visualize my data in my own custom manner. If Samsung Health doesn’t allow for this to be scripted, then over time, I may find myself slowly shifting to another tool.
Activity Monitoring Tools
My Samsung Galaxy Smartphone and my Samsung Galaxy Watch are indispensable. These tools track steps, calories burned, heart rate, sleep cycles, and more.
Unfortunately, the closed-source nature of the software, and the lack of data availability, may make these tools less desirable as my personal data visualization grows. For now, they do a wonderful job.
Food Journaling
To track my eating habits, I use the MyFitnessPal android application. This app provides assistance in recording the specific foods that I eat, and translating that information to calories, macros, etc.
I have about a year’s worth of recent data, and then I probably have some older data from previous attempts to lose weight.
If it were possible, I would change to an open-source database and software application for food journaling. However, my searches for such a resource has not revealed anything that can compete with MyFitnessPal’s consistency and completeness.
Morning Health Status Measuring Tools
To record my weight, I use a Yunmai Digital Scale.
This scale can connect via Bluetooth to my cell phone so that I can automatically record data. Even though the wireless connection to my phone only saves a few seconds of time, the ease of use makes a real difference.
That said, the scale’s performance is poor. The weight reported is typically three to five pounds below what my actual weight is, and while I appreciate the flattery, I would rather have accuracy.
Furthermore, the scale supposedly offers additional biometric measurements, such as body-fat percentage, etc. However, the scale only successfully captures this data on rare occasion. Most of the time, the scale only succeeds in capturing my weight alone, and the rest of the data I have to leave blank.
To receive the data on my phone I use the Yunmai android app, which then automatically pushes the data to Samsung Health on my phone.
Google Calendar
For scheduling, I use Google Calendar. This is simply the most reliable web application for this purpose, and the way the platform allows for interaction with other people proves useful.
The extensive history I have in Google Calendar may help me piece together bits of my data history.
Time Tracking Software
There are some open-source computer activity tracking monitors. These apps run on your local machine and monitor what you do, then allow you to see an ongoing record of your behavior.
These types of software applications interest me because I would like to track where I spend (and frequently waste) my time on my digital devices.
I won’t list any specific software applications here, as I have not yet tested any of them.
Target Software Supports
Backend and Frontend Software Suggestions
To create the dashboard, I imagine that I will use PostgreSQL for the backend, as mentioned earlier, and Apache Superset for the frontend visualizations.
Perhaps LibreOffice Base can serve for creating simple data form inputs, and LibreOffice Calc as a simple analytical tool.
Viewing Location
The end product would be hosted locally on my machine. There would be background scripts that automate as much of the data management process as possible.
The visualizations would be viewed via my web browser, and set as my web homepage.
As Related to Public Display of Personal Data
While I would like to be able to show this on my website here, bluesanta.io, I don’t believe I will be able to show anything more of the Superset product than screenshots. There are privacy concerns, and also there is the cost of hosting.
However, perhaps I could make some kind of simplified WordPress data visualization, for certain parts of my data story that people may find interesting.
Conclusion
My goal is to make a data visualization dashboard for my personal life. This introductory post discussed the concept and some of my existing data types.
In the future, I may be able to discuss more about how the dashboard can be structured, and begin making progress towards that goal.
Formatting the Final Product to Align with People who are Important to Me
An important final point to make is that I hope that this can be used both as a personal journal, and in a manner that would allow me to bring in other people to the journal.
Most importantly, I would like to be able to organize this so that my two children can be a part of the ongoing story.
For example, an idea I have would be to activate a feature where I can export the data-driven journal to a format that would make it a digital and interactive memory book for my family relationships.