The end of the year is a great time to reflect--looking back at the year with a desire to quantify and understand ourselves.
With our increasingly digital (social, cloud, mobile, APIs) lives, there are more opportunities than ever to ask our digital self very specific questions, and with the power the API get an answer back.
Over the holidayz, I spent some time asking some questions I wanted to know about my world in 2012--things that were important to me, and help me feel healthy, happy, accomplished and ultimately successful. (aka. Optimize for Happiness)
I broke these questions up into interest areas, then using APIs set out to find the services I use, or could use, that would help me answer these questions.
Family / Friends
- How much time did I spent with my GF?
- How much time did I spend with my daughter?
- How much time did I spend with family?
- How much time did I spend with friends?
- How many friends do I have on social networks?
Storytelling
- How many blog posts did I write?
- How many long form stories did I write?
- How many books did I write?
- How much public speaking did I do?
- How many page views did I get on blog(s)?
- How many unique visitors did I get on blog(s)?
- How many blog posts did I read?
- How many blog posts did I curate?
Travel / Adventures
- How many cities did I visit?
- How many countries did I visit?
- How many check-ins did I make?
- What places were my top check-ins?
- What public transit did I use?
- How many miles did I travel?
Health
- Do I feel healthy?
- How many steps did I take?
- What health milestones occured?
Sports
- How many games did I watch on TV?
- How many games did I see in person?
- What were the big games?
Events
- How many conferences did I attend?
- How many hackathons did I attend?
- How many virtual webinars / hangouts did I participate in?
Programming / Code
- How many github repositories did I create?
- How many github commits did I make?
Tweets
- How many tweets did I send?
- How many followers did I get?
- How many people did i followers?
- How many retweets did I get?
Podcasts
- How many podcasts did I create?
- How many podcasts did I collaborate on?
Financial
- How much money did I make?
- How much interest did I pay?
- How much money did I spend?
- Which stocks did I trade?
- Which stocks did I wish I trade?
- How much money invested in stock?
- How many emails did I send?
- Who did I email the most?
Phone
- How many phone calls did I make?
- How many SMS did I send?
- How much did I spend on my phone?
Photography / Images
- How many photos did I take?
- Which photos were my best from the year?
Movies / Television
- How many movies did I watch?
- How many movies in a theatre?
- Which were my top movies?
- How many television shows did I watch?
- Which television shows were the top ones?
Discussions
- How blog posts did I comment on?
- How many forums did post on?
- How many questions did I answer on QA sites?
Games
- What games did I play?
- What games are my favorite?
Food
- What type of food did I eat?
- What is my favorite food?
Beer
- How much beer did I drink?
- What is my favorite beer?
- Where is my favorite place to drink beer?
Wine
- How much wine did I drink?
- What is my favorite wine?
- Where is my favorite place to drink wine?
Art
- How many works of art did I create?
- How many art galleries did I go to?
- How many images did I share?
First Time
- What brand new places did I go to?
- What other first time things did I do?
What I Didn't Do!
- What didn't I do that I want to?
- What didn't I do that was for the better?
This is all a work in progress. I wanted a list that could evolve, but I could use as a framework for actually answering some of these questions--either annually or real-time if possible, using APIs.
To facilitate this process, I've published as project on Github. I will be publishing all the questions I ask, and their solutions.
So far, I've been able to use Singly and answer a number of critical questions about 2012 using Twitter, Facebook, LinkedIn, Instagram and Google--via the Singly API.
If you have questions you'd like asked, you can visit my personal data questions project and comment via Disqus or if you want, you can fork and contribute your own questions and API driven solutions.
