January 2019 Quantified

So, at the start of this year I wanted to try something I've been meaning to for a loooong time - I wanted to track everything I was doing. Every book read, movie watched, times gone to the toilet, hours spent on homework - every-everything as a statistic. Two reasons:

1. It was an interesting fantasy of mine at a young age to get life statistics when I die. Having my whole life flash before my eyes, then feel it fade as my soul stumbles through the abyss into the 'afterlife' and being greeted by a statistics wall. It would be a grey wall with a huge number of colourful lists and statistics that I could observe and analyse. An old curiosity satisfied essentially.
2. You can't learn from what you can't observe. By collecting data about myself I may discover things about myself that might otherwise remain behind a shrouded curtain of mystery. I want to truly see how I spent my time. I had a lot of hypotheses about how much I spent gaming and how much time I spent socializing, but I didn't know for sure.

So here I am, me - the person who's constantly on a crusade to teach people about the importance of internet privacy, telling you the details of my month. Ironic in a way, but this time it's me giving info and not Google taking it by force I guess ¯_(ツ)_/ ¯

If you'd like to try something similar look up "quantified self," there's quite a few resources on it. I also suggest brushing up on internet privacy while you're at it to avoid giving your data to random apps and pages that capitalize on this movement.

The Big Sheet

So before new years I crawled around the world-wide-interwebs to find a way to track my day, thus landing on quite a few template sheets on reddit. Credit for the best template I could find goes to /u/kewpit.

January 1st to 31st

Legend in the first picture applies here too.

The legend explained:

• Sleep: Self-explanatory.
• Downtime: Healthy alone downtime, which means time spent relaxing that isn't gaming or surfing the net for the giggles. Chilling and eating food, meditating, walking the dog, watching shows or movies etc.
• Classes: Time I actually paid attention in class.
• Internet: Both useful (research, learning) and useless (reddit and youtube) browsing. Writing for the blog doesn't apply here.
• Reading/Writing - Reading books or any kind of writing (includes this blog).
• Socialising: Time spent with friends, other people.
• Exercise: Running, gym or biking.
• Gaming: Self-explanatory.
• Productive: Time spent doing productive things such as working on personal projects, researching and learning new skills or otherwise time spent growing and being useful.
• Family Time: Meaningful time with family - gatherings, family meetings, late night philosophy discussion with pops and a pair of whiskey glasses and stuff like that. (Note: I live with my family.)
• Homework: Self-explanatory.
• Waste time: Time wasted on commuting, waiting or being hungover etc, where the time spent can't be considered healthy relaxation and where I didn't do anything of use.
• Events: Going to the movies, theatre etc.

A quick summary:

• Sleep 36.4% or 271 hours
• Downtime 15.1% or 112 hours
• Classes 9.7% or 72 hours
• Internet 8.3% or 62 hours
• Reading/Writing 7.9% or 59 hours
• Socialising 6.5% or 48 hours
• Exercise 4.3% or 32 hours
• Gaming 4.3% or 32 hours
• Productive 3% or 22 hours
• Family Time 1.2% or 9 hours
• Homework 10 hours
• Waste time 8 hours
• Events 7 hours

Sleep

36.4% of my month or 271 hours were spent sleeping. That's a daily average of 8.74 hours - a mighty fine number if I do say so myself. It's a definite improvement from last year, but that's to be expected as I have learned quite a lot about the importance of sleep in the past half a year. When's the last time you slept over 6 hours?

The first week on the graph starting from January 1st Tuesday to January 6th was the winter break, so it's a little hectic there. After the break starting from the 13th I decided to set up a strict schedule: when the clock hit 21:00 I would read a book and then go to sleep when it hit 22:00. In a week I found myself feeling like my day was short a hour each day - kinda wanted an extra hour here or there to finish up some things or relax some. So I shifted the times a hour ahead from original plan - now 22:00 was the book time and 23:00 was sleep. I saw that I didn't really need 9 hours of sleep and 8 was plenty enough. It's been rock solid so far, save for a few parties, and it's been great! Having a schedule has been hugely transformative - I have way more energy and feel clear-headed most of the time. From the outside I might look like a fucking robot, but from the inside I have the brightest smile ever.

Downtime

In total I watched 6 movies, 5 anime, 1 series and listened to 2 podcast episodes. These, along with my other relaxation activities took up 15.1% of my time or 112 hours. Quite a percentage! But I can't imagine cutting it shorter, save for some fridays and weekends where I tend to loiter around more than I should. Though, I have been thinking that I should maybe be consuming less and writing more, otherwise I just watch and forget. Definitely a thinking point, there is some potential here to reorganize how I spend my time relaxing.

Movies: Time spent watching ~11h 10min. In total I watched 6 movies, of which I watched 5 at home and 1 at the cinema.

At home I watched:

• Enter the Void (7/10) [Directed by Gaspar Noé] - This was an extremely unique experience. I can't quite remember the themes (fuck, I should really write my thoughts right when I finish these), but I remember my emotions viscerally. It was an off-putting, but at the same time charming experience in the most twisted ways. Essentially it's of a junkie's perspective as a ghost after his death and how he observes his loved one's mourning and falling apart emotionally. It's cinematography and structure are unlike anything I've seen. Regarding the structure of it, there's an amusing story that perfectly captures how weird it is. It's been told that in one of the early screenings he accidentally switched two of the reels in the middle. According to Noe, the audience never noticed anything was amiss, and he himself said it "didn't really make a difference." It's so surreal by also being very tangible at the same time. If you aren't high when starting this, you will be after finishing it.
• Gifted (7/10) [Directed by Marc Webb] - Imagine a child prodigy, a genius able to achieve mental feats greater than the greatest of even adults decorated with multiple PhDs. Is the child obligated to channel their abilities for the greater good of humanity? Or are they supposed to live normal lives? The movie explores both of these questions by giving a taste of both extremes and then, for the end, slaps the viewer right in the face with a clear-cut boring answer of: it's a mix of both that's healthy. But ignoring that, it's oh-so-charming - just watching the father-daughter relationship makes it worthwhile, there were two adorable moments that made me smile ear-to-ear and close to tearing up (A huge achievement by itself!).
• Patlabor The Movie (6/10) [Directed by Mamoru Oshii]- Mamuro Oshii as the director was enough to get me to watch it even after dropping the original OVA. But... I was disappointed. There were a few very clear Oshii-moments like the montages of the two detectives searching through the city with shots of the cityscape and streets overlaid by the always brilliant music of Kenji Kawai. Other than that it falls flat. It tries to incorporate and mix together the light and fun moments from the original OVA with Oshii's ideas and styles, but the former sadly takes the prominent role. It ended up being quite a let down, but it was made competently enough I guess. Most of my gripes with the movie could've been of my high expectations.
• Patlabor The Movie 2 (8/10) [Directed by Mamoru Oshii] - Almost skipped this one after seeing the first, but I already had it downloaded and I had heard better things of this than the first one and boy am I glad, THIS is what I was looking for when I started watching the first one. It's a really well-animated slow-burn dialogue-heavy political mystery and this time with the light parts stripped out. Such a satisfying movie.
• Liz and the Blue Bird (7/10) [Directed by Naoko Yamada] - Perfectly cohesive drama about the usual topics of anime, that is the difficulty of communication and love. I can't quite criticize anything about this and at the same time it's the very thing that makes it just a bit lackluster - it's too safe and simple. No, actually, it's just plain boring and even frustrating at times. HOWEVER the sound design, let me tell you, is off the charts. I really want to give it a 5, but the this is the part that keeps tugging at me to up the score to a 7. Anything from the simple sounds of feet striking the ground to the orchestral piece made just for the movie are just so insanely perfect. Worth it for that alone, but other than that... Eh.

In the cinema I watched:

• Green Book (8/10) [Directed by Peter Farrelly] - This was a HUGE surprise. I was basically told "we're watching this, it looks interesting" and I thought "why not, I like to go into movies completely blind once in a while." Best decision ever. This one's just for fun and it's been criticised for being very simple, but from what I gathered it wasn't even trying to be anything else. I usually hate comedies, with a passion, but this one is different. This is what comedies are supposed to be! But I can see where the confusion may have come from, it walks a fine line between being a unique comedy of sorts, a charming friendship drama with a healthy amount of 60's racial problems mixed in. Go into this expecting a fun time instead of getting a serious commentary about race and you won't be disappointed.

Anime: Time spent watching ~15h 20min. In total I watched 5 anime, of which I completed 1 and dropped 4. The shows I started watching and am still watching were not counted here, thus the seasonal shows are missing here.

I completed:

• Neon Genesis Evangelion (10/10) [Directed by Hideaki Anno] - To put it into perspective: It's the only 10/10 I have ever given. 5th time watching this and I rarely rewatch stuff. I hope to spill my guts about this in depth some time in the future.

I dropped:

• Samurai Champloo (7/10) [Directed by Shinichirō Watanabe] - It's fun, it has a unique artstyle and music. But that's kind of it? I respect it for what it is, but I am not the target audience for it. Shinichirō Watanabe is such a weird director, he has made so much different stuff across the board that I find it hard to define his handwriting at times, but that keeps me stumbling into stuff I maybe otherwise wouldn't even try so that may be a good thing.
• Kakegurui xx (4/10) [Directed by Yûichirô Hayashi] - More of the same. The first season was a bit goofy and out there which I liked, it also helped that I was craving more of the Darby gambling from Jojo's, but now that that's worn off I can see Kakegurui for what it is. And I don't like it. Big-titty psychos beating their gums over life staking bets, didn't we have enough from the first season already?
• Boogiepop wa Warawanai (2019) (5/10) [Directed by Shingo Natsume] - I tried watching the original adaptation a while back and loved it's directing, but didn't really care for the story, but now it's vice versa. The directing is a mess. I'm no stranger to interweaved multiple-timeline plotlines, but this is not how you do it. Just cutting to another timeline like it's part of the one that came before it? It's like trying to navigate a bowl of interdimensional time-traveling spaghetti where some of it is a week old and poisionous and the other part is fresh - how do I tell them apart? And for what purpose is it like this? I guess I'll be missing out on this answer and I'm not that bummed about it - there's quite enough on my 2019 Winter Season plate already.
• Rounoni Kenshin (6/10) [Directed by Kazuhiro Furuhashi] - I've been told that if I can watch through a hundred episodes of this then I'll be able to experience the most masterful and emotional movie anime has to offer. Well, I didn't make it too far. It's the usual 90's episodic comedy with a ton of on-the-nose moralistic lessons. "Police abusing their power is bad!" "Being evil is bad!" "Violence is bad!" Yeah? Well no shit, anything else you want to say? Sadly not, but at the very least the main cast was quite likeable. I'll still be watching the movie sometime, but I can't see what the big deal around this is.

Podcasts: Time spent watching 4h 51min from two episodes:

• Hello Internet: "12 days of HI" - HI is still the only podcast I have listened every episode of and still continue to keep up with. Weird couple of dudes - a robot and a caveman - that talk about anything, everything and nothing.
• Corridor Podcast: "Steve the landlord" - I have seen Steve in Corridor Crew vlogs so many times, and like they say, his weird personality combined with his odd life experiences really make it every time. Wasn't much of a surprise to see that he's an artist and hearing his personal stories is in this podcast was a goldmine of unique stories.

Series: Total time watched ~3 hours from 1 completed series:

• Black Mirror: Bandersnatch (9/10) [Directed by David Slade] - What can I say? I just love meta-textuality. They might've overdone it with the amount of 4th-wall-breaks, but it didn't take much away from the experience. I'm especially fascinated by the circular structure and how the story really has now end. Definitely a fresh idea with a stellar execution.

Classes

Classes where I actually paid attention took up 9.7% or 72 hours of my time in January. It was really interesting to see that I spend close to a quarter of my classes surfing the web or reading books. No wonder people puzzle over why I'm not doing anything in class, but am still getting straight A-s. It can't be helped, some of the classes take material so slowly that I am able to do my own things for most of the course and then learn the material in a night or two before the test. History, community and biology classes are the worst in terms of this, it's laughable how I can learn the same material the class as a whole had to process for months in about 2 hours. I see nothing worth changing here.

Internet

Internet took up 8.3% or 62 hours of my time. That's 2 hours daily. The data here is probably skewed a little because of small phone usage times of like 5-10 minutes that are all too common thoughout the day, but don't count under the main activity that was noted down on any paticular hour. If I paid attention most of the class, but decided to take two 5 minute phone breaks somewhere in there then I would still mark that I spent my time paying attention as that took up most of the hour. I have tracked my time on the phone with an app before though, and there I averaged about 3 hours a day, which isn't that bad to be honest. But even with the skewed results I have gotten better managing my time. I still need to work on it and sometime I'd like to recondition myself to not carry my phone in my pocket at all times.

Read/Write

Reading and writing took up 7.9% or 59 hours of my time in Januray. Most notably I started reading before going to bed this month and started this blog which have boosted the numbers quite a bit. I have made progress in starting to read even more, but I think I could do with more writing. As I write this in the middle of February, the time spent on reading and writing has increased even further, so I guess that's been going well.

Books: In total I read 1222 pages from 6 books, of which I completed 3 and dropped 3.

I completed:

• Chapterhouse - Dune [Written by Frank Herbert] - Here it is. The end of my favorite book series. In Chapterhouse, Frank continued with the style of Heretics of Dune, where he toned down the philosophy heavy aspects from God Emperor of Dune just a tad_,_ while exploring Bene Gesserit in depth. It doesn't reach the heights of God Emperor for me, but is still quite enjoyable. Has an ironic, but a perfect ending to this saga. There's a lot to take away from this book, but the most important lesson that this book helped to internalize for me was how ambivalent and changeable truth and knowledge is. The moment I say I'm sure of something, is the moment where I rob myself the chance to progress. If, however, I have the power to doubt and question all of my knowledge and convictions, then I am able to grow and accept changes as they come. Ahhhh, what a journey, I will definitely re-read this series many a time (Though, I will probably stop at God Emperor when I do). Quotes:

1. _"_Seek freedom and become captive of your desires. Seek discipline and find your liberty."
2. “Confine yourself to observing and you always miss the point of your life. The object can be stated this way: Live the best life you can. Life is a game whose rules you learn if you leap into it and play it to the hilt. Otherwise, you are caught off balance, continually surprised by the shifting play. Non-players often whine and complain that luck always passes them by. They refuse to see that they can create some of their own luck."
3. “Power attracts the corruptible. Suspect any who seek it.”
4. “Show me a completely smooth operation and I'll show you someone who's covering mistakes. Real boats rock.”
5. "Face your fears or they will climb over your back.”
6. “Ready comprehension is often a knee-jerk response and the most dangerous form of understanding. It blinks an opaque screen over your ability to learn. Be warned. Understand nothing. All comprehension is temporary.”
7. “How tempting it is to raise high walls and keep out change. Rot here in our own self-satisfied comfort.”

• Sapiens: A Brief History of Humankind [Written by Yuval Noah Harari] - A dose of completely new perspectives of human life brought to you by an Israeli historian! You know, as fact-heavy as this book was, I needed to check up on them, because the author seemed to love hand picking examples that fit his statements while mostly ignoring the other side of the arguments he made. After digging around it seems that it's a common gripe with this one and apparently some of it is just plain wrong. But it could be the uncertainty and plasticity of history at play here, rather than incompetence, but best to approach it with a grain of salt and healthy amount of critical thinking as always, I suppose. Ignoring that, there's quite a lot of interesting perspectives explored here. Some of it seems obvious in hindsight, but can be appreciated for putting some unconscious convictions I've had into words. Some of the heavy hitting questions I was left with were: How do you statistically measure happiness? Am I happier than a farmer centuries ago? How much of human progress can be attributed to money and religion? How far has consumerism grown and how will it affect the future?

1. “You could never convince a monkey to give you a banana by promising him limitless bananas after death in monkey heaven.”
2. “Culture tends to argue that it forbids only that which is unnatural. But from a biological perspective, nothing is unnatural. Whatever is possible is by definition also natural. A truly unnatural behaviour, one that goes against the laws of nature, simply cannot exist, so it would need no prohibition.”
3. “Consistency is the playground of dull minds.”
4. “One of history’s few iron laws is that luxuries tend to become necessities and to spawn new obligations.”
5. “We did not domesticate wheat. It domesticated us.”
6. “Money is the most universal and most efficient system of mutual trust ever devised.”
7. “Obesity is a double victory for consumerism. Instead of eating little, which will lead to economic contraction, people eat too much and then buy diet products - contributing to economic growth twice over.” “Our language evolved as a way of gossiping.”
8. “But the most important finding of all is that happiness does not really depend on objective conditions of either wealth, health or even community. Rather, it depends on the correlation between objective conditions and subjective expectations.”

• Breakfast of champions [Written by Kurt Vonnegut] - My first exposure to Vonnegut. After reading some opinions about it, it seems like it's a book I should revisit after reading more of his works. But even having missed a number of references I found it extremely good. I've been cooking an idea in my head of how I want to write about it in tandem with Bandersnatch by intertwining two reviews, but it's quite a hard idea realise.

I dropped:

• Thus spoke Zarathustra [Written by Friedrich Nietzsche] - Probably not a good first exposure to Nietzsche. I've heard and read about Nietzsche's philosophy from 3rd parties quite a bit and I've found much of it agreeable, hence my interest in this book. However, in the end I found it just a tad too difficult as an intro to Nietzsche. I shall return to this one day. Quotes:

1. “One repays a teacher badly if one always remains nothing but a pupil.”

• The 7½ Deaths of Evelyn Hardcastle [Written by Stuart Turton] - For mystery fans I would imagine this to be wonderful ride. But it seems like the solving of the mystery was the only driving factor of this book. I didn't care much for solving it though, so there wasn't much of anything left for me, which is why I dropped it.
• Neuromancer [Written by William Gibson] - Of course I had to see where cyberpunk got it's roots. Most surprisingly I felt at home with all the tech lingo as most of it aligned with that of Shadowrun's. The style of writing wasn't my cup of tea though, so I opted to read a summary of it instead and dropped it.

Socialising

Socialising took up 6.5% or 48 hours of my time. I spent way less time with friends than I thought, but I guess "tHE pATh tO SuCcEsS iS A lOnELy roAd." But really, this is common in the winter - I prefer to just stay home than dress up like the Michelin Man and step into the cold. I should definitely write to my friends more though, even if I don't go out as often.

I went to two parties - New Years and a classmates birthday, saw a play ("Väikekodanlased"), went to a ninja-warrior styled gym, baked waffles with a friend and had 6 DnD sessions.

Exercise

I spent 4.3% or 32 hours exercising, of which I spent 13 running, 1 biking and 18 in the gym. That's juuuust a tad over 1 hour every day on average. This is pretty much on how I plan it to be, save for the fact that I want to bike more, but the icy roads were to blame this month. Hit all my goals: hit 10k for running; switched to a new 6 day gym split (I have the opportunity to have a freaking free gym all to myself, of course I'm gonna capitalize on it and train as much as I can!); had no goals for biking, it's just as a support for running.

Gaming

I spent 4.3% or 32 hours of my time gaming. I think this is a huge drop from Fall of 2018, but I have no data from that time so I can't make comparisons. There are a few binges and a hour here and there, so I'd say I've gotten my gaming habits under control.

I didn't play much but Factorio. One of the most addicting games available, but not maliciously so! It's an open ended puzzle game in the vain of Zachtronics and offers a some mental gymnastics to those that like that sort of stuff. I definitely want to revisit this game and make a separate post about it.

Productive

I spent a puny 3% or 22 hours being productive. Most of my personal projects were finished in December and I didn't care to find myself anything new during the winter break and opted to just relax and read more books and watch more movies. Then I started this blog as a new project which has also zapped a considerable amount from my time. No excuses though - I should dedicate more of my time to being productive! I have a few goals for February: Start with learning Linux, Arduinos and the Raspberry Pi, possibly even Python if the latter goals require it; write more in this blog; start drawing more again and learn digital art since I haven't used my XP-Pen for a while.