an unprecedented avalanche of data

One of my main aims in life is to have enough available data to reconstruct me from recordings (of course) and in thinking about this I came across this discussion of big data where, slightly lovably, the introduction declares that "there’s no need to worry about insufficient sample sizes or test group results—because the sample size is no less than everything".

It's never everything, of course. There are people who life-log madly, record belches and shits. They always have; before the internet there were little flexible books full of spidery writing. Somewhere back in the dawn of time are scratches on bone, cuts in clay, which say "Good day, ate fish, weather dull." But no, I like to think of myself as a curator, and I was amused to be given in the same article the 8 vs of big data - a metric to measure myself against! Wonderful.

Volume asks, is there so much data you get lost in it? And I don't think I do. It's fun to get lost in it sometimes, of course, but generally my autobiographical data sits at a manageable quantity.

Value refers to how good your indexing is, I think. I use tag-based indexing in my photolog, but rely on titles and roughly rememebering when things happened for my online diary. Needless to say my sketch a day doesn't help unless I know which block of time something happened in. If I know that, it's fine. So my volume level is not overwhelming, good.

Veracity, though. Do I lie, exaggerate or tweak what happened? That's a very interesting question because everything is filtered through the authorial process. That means inevitable obfuscations and adjustments. I'm a fairly reliable narrator, though, especially on private filter.

Visualisation is the name of the game for my sketch diary, though I only occasionally include diagrams. The decision it most often triggers is to sort out clothes or hair.

Variety of modes and approaches and subject themes is definitely in place. Sometimes my information is not very balanced though, I will admit.

Velocity Evolution in real time is something that really took off with my twitter and instagram, but I remember experimenting, a very long time ago, with text message microblogging live from abroad. Some of my readers (I was on a long-form blog at the time) howled in pain, I don't understand. Velocity, immediacy, that crease through the present moment. I can't find these, suggesting a problem with volume (although it's really just that my journal is among the many bits of the web google doesn't index).

Viscosity Ohhhh, stickiness. I love a bit of data stickiness. All of the recording activities are designed to improve that, really, to make a thing stick in the mind. Some of my records are very sticky indeed. Others like wisps of mist that dissipate.

Virality I only ever went viral once. I was boing-boinged, for pictures of toys, of all things. I didn't send it in, it happened as by-catch -- they had a story about Barbie dolls and wanted to make a joke about it all being the fault of Ken dolls, so probably just ran an image search and turned me up. We bought more server space, and I left a polite message on the post, but I would generally not aim for virality. When your story spreads significantly beyond your sphere it is no longer about you, but about the feelings, ideas and attitudes of the people propagating the story. 

and now for.... sleepio!

I've been a fan of online self-directed self help systems since the days when Moodgym was free to anyone who was prepared to role-play being an Australian student. As anyone who combines depression, anxiety and social awkwardness knows, six sessions with the therapist is probably going to be barely enough to stop feeling awkward and trying to put them at their ease, unless you have laser-like focus or a lucky connection. So removing the therapist from the therapy can be very practical, if you're fairly self-challenging and find other people quite distracting.

Of course, Moodgym's been off the table and behind a paywall for years now, and the various other ones are a bit, well, non-structured I suppose - there are good individual exercises, but nothing that sits you down and says, right, this week we're working on this.

Until I hit Sleepio, that is. I hit it for professional reasons. I needed to know what kind of people it might appeal to/suit and running it through is often the best way to get a good feel for that. And it's only four weeks, 1 hour each week, so I felt it would be a light and easy commitment.

Six months later, I'm still doing Sleepio. I've long since worked through all the exercises (even the weird one, where you record the ambient overnight noise in your bedroom), listened to all the helpful sleep advice from the little animated sleep professor with his soporific Scottish accent, giggled at his dog being called Pavlov, and activated the bulk of recommended changes. I'm sleeping better, and although we also did swap old our old futon for a smart new memory foam mattress during this time, which may have been the prime mover in the sleep improvement, a lot of the feeling better about sleep came from Professor Sleepio and his suite of small incremental changes.

And every morning, I go back to it, to journal last night's sleep. I get a percentage rating for my sleep efficiency (aim for 90%+, but accept that it sometimes won't be up there), and I get to track how much I sleep (a fairly consistent 6.5-7 hours), I can tag nights with things like stress, nausea and exercise (I set my own tags) and I get to record brief notes of how the night went in a free text field. Here's one from a 67% night:

I started feeling like I was drowning again
In fairness, my mouth and throat
Suddenly went into mucus overdrive
Tim was trying to hold me in a bad position
I just couldn't and started coughing
Eventually left him to sleep
And read a book. It had a significant severed head
But I couldn't even remember the who is was
Who's Sam? Why is his head on a silver dish?

Sleepio. It's made my insomnia into a source of personal entertainment.