It's hard to tell if this is a genuine question ... it comes across as dismissive, and pretty much pure snark, and I suspect that's why you're being downvoted.
If you really do have a genuine question then we'd all benefit from seeing it asked and answered. If you're simply saying that in your opinion this is all a waste of time, then either have the courage to recognise that that's what you're saying and say it out loud, or don't say it.
I'm disappointed that you're not being constructive. I'm sure you don't really care about my opinion, but since you felt free to express yours, even if only in this coded form, then so I'm feeling free to express mine.
Is a genuine question. I wanted to know what he collected that was important in 100 notebooks. He links the Wikipedia article on 'quantified self' where it says that “[…]with the goal of improving physical, mental, and emotional performance. "
I just wanted to know if there was one thing that was worth doing all this for, because my opinion is that logging your data -quantitative data- doesn't make you better. That's all.
Then I'd ask that you read my comment and take it on board as personal feedback. Asking a rich question can be valuable for all of us, but what you said comes across as largely dismissive snark. Since you say you didn't intend it that way then I hope this feedback is useful for you.
As an example, I've tried to take my own advice and asked the rich question here:
I have argued my question and told you my opinion on self logging and quantified self. I don't understand what else I should be asking.
I personally am a strong advocate of note-taking and agree with your post above. I myself have collected notebooks, and now they rest on a shelf gathering dust since I don't do anything with them except flip through them for nostalgia and look at my drawings/sketches.
I use Obsidian to collect the information I'm interested in and try to connect them together and I can research and connect the dots to form new ideas and I find the value in just connecting the ideas.
Collecting and not using notes can be as therapeutic as those notebooks with mandalas to color.
> I have argued my question and told you my opinion on self logging and quantified self. I don't understand what else I should be asking.
I feel like I've explained clearly why your initial reply has been down-voted, why people have asked you for clarification, and how that could all have been avoided. So I guess I have nothing further to add on that issue.
I find your comments about your note-taking interesting ... I wish you had given them in your initial reply, because then it would have been a top-level, information-rich comment. But I assume you had your reasons for replying as you did.
Thank you for the clarifications ... I think this discussion is complete.
Thanks, and BTW I never asked about why I was downvoted.
People downvote just because they don't like my question because it sounds controversial? It's fine. This obsession with quantifying everything - life,likes, views, karma, upvotes, downvotes, page view, fitness data,health data - is typical of the mentality of the Lords of Silicon Valley. Thank you Morozov for enlightening me.
I'm not the author of the linked webpage, but here are some of the things I find valuable about my Markdown daily log:
- I don't have to rely on my possibly faulty memory about the details of past events. My logs often have considerably more detail than I remember over a year later, and I have already identified one instance where what I remembered was inconsistent with an email (not one of my logs, to be clear) I wrote at the time. I trust the email more than my memory.
- I can answer when something happened with full-text search.
- I can read through the logs chronologically to see the evolution of my thinking on many topics.
When I tell others about my daily log a lot of people seem interested in possible mental health benefits. I can say that I don't see any mental health benefits in my case. I don't write a gratitude journal or anything like that, as such things always seemed forced to me. I focus mostly on summarizing what happened in the day and what I'm thinking about that day.
I'm wondering if OP is able to make good use of all this 'self-logging' and find something interesting in these 100 notebooks. Is there anything worth having written ~1 page a day for, or not?
Not OP or the author but is "therapy" a worthy enough goal? I sometimes look back at some of my notes and feel a (nice) sense of time having passed by. Reminds me of how much little time we all have :)
If you really do have a genuine question then we'd all benefit from seeing it asked and answered. If you're simply saying that in your opinion this is all a waste of time, then either have the courage to recognise that that's what you're saying and say it out loud, or don't say it.
I'm disappointed that you're not being constructive. I'm sure you don't really care about my opinion, but since you felt free to express yours, even if only in this coded form, then so I'm feeling free to express mine.