In our last cast, we discussed the power of active tracking for greater productivity. If not, it’s highly recommended you go back and listen to that cast first. You will learn about empowered choice and for that alone, the previous cast is worthwhile. Today on this cast, we discuss the importance of taking charge of the passive data being collected about you already and learning to track data that you can use productively without having to do all the work. In contrast to our active tracking discussion, we delve into the world of ambient data ripe for the picking, if you know the right ways to do so. Also, the pitfalls, perils, and opportunities that abound with passive productivity/wellness data tracking. Pull up a seat and join us for this important and timely discussion on passive tracking for productivity.

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In this Cast

Ray Sidney-Smith

Augusto Pinaud

Francis Wade

Art Gelwicks

Show Notes

Resources we mention, including links to them will be provided here. Please listen to the episode for context.

Some recommended readings, even though we didn’t discuss these in the recording itself:

The Perils of Time Tracking

Productivity and Continuous Improvement - Measurement (and RescueTime) makes it happen, both Personally and at Work

If You’re Not Collecting Productivity Data, You’ll Never Succeed at Work

Items we discussed in the recording:

ManicTime

Statistics

Khan Academy - Statistics and Probabilities

Freshbooks

Google Fit

Getting Things Done by David Allen

Quantified Self

Nudge: Improving Decisions About Health, Wealth, and Happiness by Cass Sunstein and Richard Thaler

Exist

Instant

Gyroscope (mobile)

Time Doctor

WorkPuls

Worksnaps

RescueTime

ProcrastiTracker (OSS for Windows)

Workrave (RSI prevention but helps passively track your mouse/keyboard activity, free, Windows)

Upwork

Other notables we didn’t mention in this cast:

http://www.chronosmonitor.com/

https://motivateclock.org/en/features/

https://galapag.us/

Raw Text Transcript

Raw, unedited and machine-produced text transcript so there may be substantial errors.

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Are you ready to manage your work and personal world better to live a fulfilling productive life, then you've come to the right place productivitycast

the weekly show about all things productivity here, your host Ray Sidney-Smith and Augusto Pinaud with Francis Wade and Art Gelwicks. Welcome back everybody to productivity cast the weekly show about all things productivity. I'm Ray Sidney-Smith. I'm here with Augusto Pinaud, Francis Wade, and Art Gelwicks. Last cast we discussed the concept and the power of active tracking and looking at that data in order to to increase productivity and and so if you have not listened to the last cast. I highly recommend that you go back and you listen to that one before you listen to this one, but generally we talked about the idea of empowered choice and that means taking the information that you have and then making in that informed choice going forward. So today I'd like us to discuss the importance of taking charge of passive data that is data that's being collected about you already. It's just being picked up from ambient the ambient environment in which you operate and the importance of actively tracking data passively that is being able to get data tracked around you and going forward and doing that. So today we're going to we're going to talk about the world of ambient data, you know, which I believe is really ripe for picking if you and and really it's all about knowing the right ways to do so some of the pitfalls perils and opportunities that are around you. When it comes to passive data collection and tracking. So let's let's dive into this. I really want to discuss sort of a couple of things here what passive tracking is to you all to to to to us here on productivity cast and why you would track your data passively and again I'll probably make this argument several times, but the data is already being collected about you. You just don't know it yet. And then we'll talk about what other data you can track passively through other means what you should track what you should pay attention to what you shouldn't pay attention to and some ways in which you can harness that data, whether that be through apps or other kinds of devices. The technology is is certainly you know wide reaching today in terms of wellness and fitness applications and health applications to to all other kinds of passive tracking data. So let's let's start off with what is passive tracking. I mean, I kind of gave a compare and contrast there with regard to it being not active tracking, but I know that we had a little dialogue before we were recording about the itself so Augusto Do you want to start us off with how do you see the difference between active and passive tracking

the difference between the active and the passive is the active will require you to do some kind of effort. Well, the passive their electronic device or the system will track it for you without you needed to do anything. So last week I was talking about how impressed I was with my Apple Watch, and the tracking and I can give a perfect example inside of the watch. I said that I have been working a standing up for many, many years and now the watch out automatically track how many hours I am standing up or how many times in an hour. Stand up on that it does it automatically without me doing anything to just give me a report at the end of the day, but exercise, for example, is something that I need to tell so standing up is passive watch will do it with or without all that I need to do is where the watch the active will be for example when I want to register that I'm doing some kind of exercise so I need to go open a certain application and tell them. Okay. From this moment on I will be riding the bike or I will be walking or I will read run or will be swimming. So the difference will be how much interaction do require in order to track to to certain activity. I use a program that

tracks my time. It's called manic time. I think it's mentioned in the show notes and it's one that I set up and it tracks all of my basically my keystrokes and what I use my computer to do out call that passive, to some degree, even though I set it up. But the fact is I have to go in each week and actually assemble a full record of my time because I've been tracking my time for for years because my time doesn't track time. For example, when I'm in a meeting that doesn't involve my computer or when I'm on the road or when I'm doing some reading that's offline or away from my laptop so I have to supplement it. So there's some there's some active and passive that I have to do tracking I have to do in order to create an accurate record of my my week but that's the one that I that I use the most that question. And what do I use it for and that's that's as appropriate get into the next, I believe.

Okay. The difference for me between active and passive tracking is actually pretty simple. It's a matter of does whatever I'm tracking require me to remember to push a button. If it's active obviously I need to make a conscious effort to start and stop the tracking process if it's passive. I don't have to think about it, it's just going to happen and somewhere in the middle there are the actively passive tracking things where I start something tracking, but it will keep tracking and change state depending on what the state changes. So if I bucket this stuff active tracking is like a time tracking tool, something like in fresh books for example where I go in and say this is where I'm starting to work this is what I'm stopping to work done on the other end of the scale something that's completely passive maybe location tracking within Google to identify where I've gone within different places in the middle is things like my fitness tracker like a gusto was talking about where I say it's always kind of tracking things like my pulse rate and activity level for walking around, but if I'm exercising I push a button to started tracking the different types of exercises that I'm doing. So for me, there's kind of three areas, but it's still boils down to. Did I remember to push the button or not.

Yeah, and I think there's a very fine line between mincing active versus passive tracking and I think it's important to just recognize that there is, as you said, are a kind of Active Passive tracking and then a passive tracking. Either way, the, the reality is is that if you're not recording the data yourself and doing the measurements. I consider that passive, but I can see how because you have to push a button in order to start say a timer or start an application in order to start tracking what you're doing in terms of time or movement or otherwise you might consider some of that activity. It kind of harkens to my, you know what, what, how, how short should the next action be in sort of GTD you're getting things done lingo people start to get very manic about how much granularity you know is pick up a pencil, the appropriate next action for writing a book or drawing a picture when you know picking up a pencil really doesn't trigger you know you to actually do that thing you know becomes a little bit too too granular on some level that I think it's just a matter of is the data is the data being collected without you having to track all of the data points right and and i think that's important for everybody to just take heart to so I wanted to, I wanted to talk about a little bit about why you would track data passively and and some of the reasons behind

tracking this data and and how you can actually use it right.