Beginnings

Lao Tzu said, "A journey of a thousand miles begins with a single step." Imagine that journey is a trek through the woods and you're a practitioner of personal informatics. You might take that first step with a pedometer, a GPS tracker, and a camera to record various aspects of that journey. You will bring these devices to record how many steps you take, where you go, and what things you see—information that you will reflect on later to know more about yourself. Picking the right tools to bring is important; the right tools will provide the necessary information for insightful reflection.

The goal of this site is to serve as a resource for people who are starting their journey towards self-knowledge and want to bring the right tools. This site has a tools section where you can find applications, keep updated with new systems, and discuss with others your experience using the tools. This site also has a blog where you can stay updated about tools, research, and events related to personal informatics. You can also:

• Follow @allpi on Twitter.
• Join the Personal Informatics Facebook Group.
• Discuss various topics in the forum powered by Get Satisfaction.
• Subscribe to the blog feed.
• Subscribe to the tools feed.

If you want to help out or have comments, suggestions, or questions, please leave a comment below or email me at ianli@personalinformatics.org

P.S. Since I'm talking about beginnings, I must mention one of my favorite This American Life episodes, New Beginnings. It's the first episode of the show and it has four interesting stories about people starting new projects. One of the stories is about a person experiencing a revelation while in Jerusalem that prompted a personal project. That person is Kevin Kelly, who with Gary Wolf founded the self-tracking blog The Quantified Self.

P.P.S. Since I wrote about an episode of This American Life, I must record this mention on This Life Counts, my personal project to record how many times I listen to and mention the show.