Daytum: Your Life In Numbers

Have you heard about Quantified Self? It's a relatively new movement focused on personal analytics. Also called self-tracking and lifelogging, Quantified Self is based on the idea of collecting various data about yourself using mobile and web apps. You can track moods, habits, activities and hobbies, and learn about yourself through this process. By analyzing the data, you can improve your health and productivity, enhance your time management skills as well as identify and explore behavior patterns.

Sounds interesting? Then you should try Daytum.

I can't count how many times I've seen this question on Reddit and forums: “Wouldn't it be great if we could see stats about our life after we die?”. Well, here's some good news – it can be done and you don't have to wait until death for it. Self-tracking apps like Daytum make it possible to follow your life statistics every day, and the data is presented in a well-designed, aesthetically pleasing way.

True, these apps require some input on your part; you can't just generate statistics automatically, though it will be possible in the future as wearables become more common. There already are some fitness apps that gather your data, but in most cases you can't choose what's being tracked. Daytum excels in this respect because it lets you record absolutely anything - and everything - you want.

Your Daytum profile, once you've created it, will look something like the picture above. There will be sample information which you can remove to start adding your own. Before you do that, you might want to get acquainted with Daytum terminology, so to speak. Basically, there are several main elements of Daytum's interface: Displays, Pages, Categories, Statements and Items.

Items are individual types of data you want to track. For example, you want to create stats about how often you charge your tablet. Using Daytum, you'd create an item called “Times Charged” and increase the number every time you charge it. A second item might be logging backup times. Items can be added directly from your profile page, and you don't need to remember the name of every single item you're tracking thanks to the autocomplete option that activates in the input box.

These two example items can be categorized into, let's say, “Tablet” - a category which you will create. Categories are used to group similar items, and you can add new items into them whenever you want.

The next level in the hierarchy are Displays. They are the elements, or “boxes”, arranged on your profile page. Displays are meant to contain different categories and show the collected data on your profile. You can customize how the data is presented by choosing from different types of graphs, numeric displays and information about time (period during which the data was collected).

Statements are a separate type of “box” on your profile page in which you can write anything you want – a quote, a thought or a reminder. As with all the elements on Daytum, it will be written in a crisp, elegant font and colored in whichever color you choose in your profile settings.

Finally, Pages are the crowning element of your Daytum profile, containing all the displays you decide to create. The free version of Daytum allows for only one page, so it will be your default profile page. However, if you choose to upgrade to Premium, you can add more pages to better organize your data.

In the end, your data will look very much like an infographic, but you can export it in plain CSV format for futher tinkering and analysis. You can also put Daytum to creative use and turn your profile into an original resume, showing information about your work experience and skills instead of how many films you've watched.

The development of Daytum seems to have stalled, as there were no new features or updates in the past year or so. However, people still actively use the app – you can see all the information they share on the Daytum homepage. (Note that in the free version of Daytum your profile can't be set to private, so all the data you track will be visible to everyone.) There is also an iPhone Daytum app, and Android users need not worry, for they can use the mobile Daytum interface for quick and easy tracking on the go.

With all the apps and services that nowadays collect our data without permission, you might wonder why would anyone want to use Daytum. I'll counter with a question – why learn from your mistakes if you can predict and avoid them by learning from your personal data?

If you commit to personal analytics and regularly write down your data, you will soon gain insight into where your time goes and how it's spent. Daytum will give you an overview of your activities and help you see which ones you need to work on more, as opposed to those on which you should cut back. Besides, statistics can be interesting to look at, especially after a longer period of time. Who knows, 20 years from now you might wish to know how many pizzas you ate during the summer. Spare yourself the regret in the future and try out Daytum today.

Ivana Isadora Devcic is a freelance writer, copyeditor and translator fluent in English, Swedish, Croatian and Norwegian. She's a Linux user and KDE fan interested in web design, productivity and personal branding. Ivana tweets about the world around her as @skadinna.