Late last year I wrote a personally pivotal blog post on Total Recall, Personal Informatics and Life Logging.  This was an eye-opening post for me since I discovered the work of Gordon Bell, learned more about his MyLifeBits project which parallels my own Personal Memex project (albeit MyLifeBits was started 10 years ago and has quite a head start) and picked up his book Total Recall.  The book has reaffirmed my belief that a need for an intuitive and consumer-friendly personal memex is on the horizon, and made me aware of a number of devices on the market today that that help assist with e-memory and personal informatics.   From the article on what personal informatics is all about:

“(Personal Informatics is)… characterized as the monitoring and displaying of information about our daily activities through intelligent devices, services and systems. This information allows us to see trends and opportunities for change that we would otherwise miss.  With the rise in network and RFID technology we are pointing to a time where personal informatics can play an important role in our lives. If people can access this information about their daily routines, and interact with their own personal data currently invisible to them: would they make more informed decisions?”

And, from the PersonalInformatics website:

“Personal informatics is a class of tools that help people collect personally relevant information for the purpose of self-reflection and self-monitoring. These tools help people gain self-knowledge about one’s behaviors, habits, and thoughts. It goes by other names such as living by numbers, personal analytics, quantified self, and self-tracking.”

Immediately after reading these articles, and further researching in the book, I decided to start experimenting with some of these devices.  Although there are a lot of different type of lifelogging and personal informatics devices, the area that caught my interest for a practical application is for fitness.  Having devices that can automatically track your weight, fitness activity, and workouts and keep you informed on what decisions you should be making is powerful.

I’ve already evaluated the FitBit device for tracking fitness activity (calories burned, miles walked, sleep patterns) and have successfully created an API for pulling this information directly from fitbit.com (See my Fitbit Hacks projects).  I’ve also been using the WiThings Wi-Fi Scale for the last 6 months.  This scale is amazing in that as soon as you step on the scale it will automatically connect over Wi-Fi and upload your weight, BMI, and lean mass info to the WiThings site which can be viewed on your PC or iPhone.  For workouts I’ve been using the iFitness application for both the iPhone and iPad and love the simplicity of tracking workouts.  And, I just recently came across the Zeo Personal Sleep Coach which provides very detailed information on the quality of your sleep (I haven’t tried it yet, but it looks amazing and I’ll be getting a device shortly and will evaluate).

All of these devices (combo of hardware and software) have a couple things in common:

* They make tracking personal information VERY easy.  In most cases they just work automatically (e.g. step on scale, clip device onto your belt, etc.).

* Data is ready made available for viewing: you can see trends via graphs and make informed decisions

But, there are also some major downsides:

* Getting data from these 3rd party websites is not always easy

* There is no cross integration (e.g. Weight gathered from WiThings can automatically be uploaded to Fitbit or my workout logs, etc.)

I’ve been thinking about ways to integrate all of this data from various products into a single interface.  My ultimate goal is to make this a sub-project of my Personal Memex project.  All areas of your fitness and health could theoretically be tracked from a single place.  I created a quick diagram to illustrate (Large diagram also available on Gliffy):

So, this looks fancy, but what are the practical applications?

1) Keeping your weight under control.  Being able to see your trends, coupled with current activity (coming from FitBit and workout sheets) will allow you to gauge how active you need to be.

2) Staying motivated to workout.  Again, being able to see trends on how many times a week you’re going to the gym or going outside to be active (walking, hiking, running) and getting real-time notifications is a way to help you stay on track.

3) Observing your sleeping patterns to see how it relates to your overall stress and productivity.

This may seem like a high degree of information logging and complexity for most people.  But, I think the real benefit is this: Low-maintenance and High-reward = Great results.  Most of these devices are already tracking this information, and with minimal development, systems could be built to collect, aggregate, and present this information in ways that can help you shift your behaviors and actions.  These are all preliminary ideas right now, but my hope is to start prototyping this over the coming months, integrate into my existing personal memex system, and then release this proof of concept as an online demo.

My research has paid off. I’ve leveraged my interest in information visualization, organization, and mind maps to create a unique approach to goal setting, and I want to share this technique with you. The entire process of getting your goals into the mind map takes 4 steps:

Overview
Step 1 – Find Your Purpose and Passion
Step 2 – Create Your Vision
Step 3 – Download the Mind Map Template and Install Mind Mapping Software
Step 4 – Write Down Your Goals

Overview

The mind map template I’ve created serves two purposes:

1. Give a quick overview – All of your goals can be easily printed and viewed on a single 8 1/2 X 11 piece of paper. Goals are organized by a particular area of your life (Physical, Financial, Relationship) and allows you to be reminded to keep a healthy balance. And, all goals have visual markers to show their priority in relationship to each other.

2. Save detailed information – Since the mind map will also be saved on your computer, you can add much greater detail than the printed version. This detail includes specific information for how you will achieve your goal (who, what, when, where, and why). And, also allows you to write down your longer-term goals, and even keep a personal journal.

The Internet and Blogosphere is literally filled with thousands of e-books, articles, blogs, and websites with tons of information on how to set goals. I’m not going to try to reinvent the wheel for this article, so I’m just going to give some pointers to some of the more useful resources I’ve found. OK, so let’s get started.

Step 1 – Find Your Purpose and Passion

Many people (my past self included) usually start setting their goals, and don’t spend a lot of time figuring out who they are, and if these are the things they really want. It’s like the analogy of making progress climbing the ladder, but only finding out that your ladder was up against the wrong wall the whole time. The point of finding your purpose is to locate the one thing that your absolutely passionate about in life, and then realign all of your activities and goals to that purpose. Here are some great links:

Steve Pavlina – How to discover your life purpose in about 20 minutes

Curt Rosengren (Passion Catalyst) – The Occupational Adventure Guide

Personal Development Ideas blog – Discover Your True Self

Step 2 – Create Your Vision

Once you’ve uncovered your true purpose and passion, you should be feeling a lot clearer about the direction you want to take. Let’s take it one step further and create your vision. You’re vision is the long-term plan for what you *really* want in your life. Visualization is key, and there are some fantastic techniques you can use.

- Visualization

Instigator Blog – Achieve Your Goals With 3 Types of Visualization

- Written Vision Statements

Radical Mutual-Improvement – Write your ideal scene

- Vision Collages (Treasure Map)

Curt Rosengren (Passion Catalyst) – Treasure map

- Video Vision Statements

I’ve started blogging about this recently. Malcolm Cohan has created a fabulous way to make your own video vision statement. I’d highly recommend this!

Malcolm Cohan’s Website
Eric Blue – Vision Statement: The Power of Goal Visualization
Eric Blue – My Personal Vision Statement

Step 3 – Download the Mind Map Template and Install Mind Mapping Software

I used MindManager to create the mind map template, however I can recommend some other (and free) mind map applications.

Mindjet MindManager 6 (Free 5-day Trial/Commercial)

FreeMind (Free/Open Source)

ConceptDraw MindMap (Free 30-day Trial/Commercial)

IMindMap (Free 30-day Trial/Commercial)

Now you’re ready to download the goal mind map template:

Online Preview

Online Preview Using MindMap Viewer (flash)

Downloads
[Right-click and select Save Link As]

Goals Mind Map Template (.mmap)
(63KB, Mindjet MindManager format)

FreeMind (.mm)
(24KB, MM format)

Goals Mind Map Template (.xml)
(246KB, XML format – can be imported to other programs)

Screenshots

Step 4 – Write Down Your Goals

OK, this is it, the moment you’ve been waiting for! Fire up your mind mapping software, and load the template you just downloaded. To make your goal mind map most effective, I’d recommend setting a few guidelines when settings goals:

1. Balance in your life is important. I’ve created 8 major areas for categorizing your goals, ordered from right-left: (1) Physical/Health, (2) Career, (3) Contribution, (4) Finances, (5) Rest/Play/Hobbies, (6) Relationships, (7) Mental/Emotional, (8) Spiritual. These are not set in stone, so feel free to rename or modify these categories.

2. Try not to have more than 5 goals per each area.

3. S.M.A.R.T. (Specific, Measurable, Achievable, Realistic, Time-Based) guidelines should be followed
*Who: Who is involved?
*What: What do I want to accomplish?
*When: Establish a time frame.
*Where: Identify a location.
*Why: Specific reasons, purpose or benefits of accomplishing the goal.

4. Assign each goal a priority within each respective area.

1 = Most Important: Critical!
2 = Desired
3 = Nice to Have

5. Focus is on short-term goals, but long-term goals are listed to keep perspective. Write down 3 year, 5 year, and lifetime goals.

6. Emphasize between 1-3 Top goals for the year. These take precedence over all others.

Malcolm’s first stop will be in Los Angeles in a couple weeks, and then he’ll be moving on to Chicago, Miami, London, and back to New York. Here’s a link to the latest seminar schedule and info:

VISION Statement 2007 Seminar Schedule

AND

What happens at a VISION Statement seminar?

In the meantime, checkout one of Malcolm’s latest videos and his vision for humanity.

For the last few weeks, I’ve been slowly adding photos and modifying my statements. Today, I added a fantastic version of U2’s song “Where The Streets Have No Name” by Joel Cage. Joel’s acoustic version is really amazing. This song has always been inspiring to me, and I think it really helps bring a lot of meaning to my vision statement.

The video is ready now and available on YouTube.

Here is the direct video link:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=QMFZkAV8NRI

1. Think About the Future

2. Create a Five-Year Vision

3. Take a Test Every Day

4. Think About Your Goals

5. Commit to Excellence

6. Focus on Results

7. Concentrate on Solutions

8. Dedicate Yourself to Lifelong Learning

9. Retire Ten Years Early

10. Do It Now!

I’d highly recommend reading this article!

Dan Millman, author of numerous self-help books such as Way of the Peaceful Warrior, recently provided a refreshing perspective on the uber cool DVD The Secret. His overall feedback on the The Secret was positive, but he offers some (I believe) well deserved constructive criticism on some of the magical thinking that surrounds the Law of Attraction and Manifestation. In a nutshell, wishful thinking by itself is not enough. There needs to be real action behind thoughts, desires, and wishes. Dan ended his post with a truly great, and applicable, quote from Henry David Thoreau:

“If you have built castles in the air, your work need not be lost. Now put foundations under them.”

I briefly alluded to this on my recent post on Malcolm’s Cohen’s excellent Vision Statement meme that is hopefully going to get mass attention. Effective visualization brings about 3 key things:

1. Clarification – Know what you *really* want to do.
2. Focus – Repetition helps you narrow in on exactly what you need to do.
3. Passion – Adding emotion to your goals gives you the passion and energy to make things happen.

There were also a number of great comments on both Brian and Dan’s blogs. A few in particular really stuck out at me. The first (which inspired the title of this post) was from Nancy Shuford:

“Action + Visualizing = Actualizing”

What a great formula! And, Obi (Uberman) pointed out James Ray’s formula that he discussed on Larry King.

“You’ve gotta go 3-for-3!”

“… Your thoughts, your feelings, and your actions all need to be firing simultaneously in alignment.”

Definitely something to “think” about.

I found an amazing video this evening on MindHacks.org. A gentleman from Australia named Malcolm Cohan has put together a fantastic production titled “Think It So” that illustrates the power of goal visualization. You can visit his website here. Or, his YouTube page here.

His visualization technique, called a Vision Statement, is a twist on traditional affirmations and goal setting. In a nutshell, rather than using a paper-based goal visualization technique like a Treasure Map, or a Goal Collage, he has taken a high-tech approach and opted to create a slideshow/video of inspiring photographs, with music and captions that focus on what you want to achieve. Check out the video…..

Malcom is conducting an online seminar in Jan/Feb with step-by-step instructions for how to create your own Vision Statement. I’m definitely looking forward to this. I think this is going to be a powerful tool, and can see this gaining an enormous amount of momentum. I’m not sure if this is specific to my personal experience, or if these topics are becoming more mainstream, but there might be a new trend forming here.

Over the last year, I’ve had a couple recurring themes popping up in my research and day to day experiences. One major theme has been the Law of Attraction and Manifestation. Last year (in fact almost a year ago today) my wife’s aunt gave me her copy of Think and Grow Rich by Napolean Hill.

Shortly after reading this book, I started to dig back into success literature and some personal development websites. I was lucky to come across Steve Pavlina’s excellent blog and found a pivoting article on the Law of Attraction. Shortly after reading this, I discovered The Secret DVD and finally got around to watching it last week. It’s definitely an amazing piece of work, and hopefully will make many more people aware of how much they can affect their own reality.

Overall, I’d say the concept behind the Law of Attraction and Manifestation are intriguing. Regardless of one’s personal belief in the possibility of esoteric metaphysical phenomenon that help shape our reality, I think there is real power in intentionality. In the case of the Vision Statement, I think this technique above all helps to:

1) Bring Clarification – the shear act of producing a vision statement (or treasure map/goal collage) will help people better figure out what they really want to accomplish in life. I’d recommend reading Steve Pavlina’s numerous posts on finding your purpose and setting goals. It’s probably safe to assume that 90% of the population is not willing to spend the time doing this exercise. This means that you are going to be much more prepared to recognize and act on opportunity when it presents itself.

2) Reinforce Focus – if you truly intend to be serious about watching your Vision Statement everyday when you wake up and before you go to bed, then this type of repetition is going to dramatically affect your focus and attention. In a sense, repetition of something used in a positive context, is going to help raise your level of consciousness. Learning to focus daily on your goals and what you want to achieve is going to help filter out (or significantly lessen) obstacles to your goals. These obstacles can be negative/repetitive thoughts, negative situations or relationships, spending time working on the wrong things (e.g. things that won’t significantly help propel you to your goals). Short-term hurdles won’t stop you from reaching your long-term goals.

3) Magnify Passion – one thing I’ve read and experienced numerous times is that you can visualize all day long, but if there is no emotion/energy/passion behind your goal then not much is going to happen. I believe that the critical detail in getting an effective Vision Statement is to pick your images, music, and affirmation text carefully. Whatever the goal or desired outcome, it needs to hold a lot of meaning for the person. And, it should bring about an intense feeling (intellectually and emotionally) when viewed. Coupled with repetition, this type of experience can really help motivate people to achieve their goals and stick with them even when motivation is naturally lowered (due to time and mood), or when different opportunities present themselves.

Naturally, wishful thinking by itself isn’t going to be very effective. However, if you create an inspiring vision, energize it, and be consistent, then this is going to dramatically improve your mental focus and ability to acheive what you want. I think this, by itself, is going to really help a lot of people. Of course, factors like environment (physical and social), skill, knowledge, and determination are other tools that will ultimately help your chances with getting what you want in your reality.

The guys at 37 Signals have posted a great article on the topic of Flow. I first heard about Flow in the mid-nineties and have always kept this book (Flow: The Psychology of Optimal Experience) on my ever growing read/wish list. After reading this article I think it’s about time I start digging into this book (I need to deprioritize the other 290+ books on my list!).

Although I haven’t yet read the book, I understand what Flow is about since I’ve been fortunate to have experienced it on a somewhat frequent basis. Having had a music and software development background, on many occasions I’ve experienced (a sometimes magical) feeling of completely being in the moment, where time seems to melt away, and whatever I’m currently working on (work is a strong word) just seems to all click. I think this feeling of Effortless Effort is the main reason why I enjoy what I do for a living.