Project LifeSlice

Project LifeSlice is a Show & Tell talk by Stan James given on 2012/04/218 and is about Time tracking. Stan James describes using hourly webcams and screenshots to track what he is doing while at his computer.

Project Infobox
Self researcher(s)	Stan James
Related tools
Related topics	Time tracking, Lifelogging
Builds on project(s)
Has inspired	Projects (0)

About the project[edit | edit source]

Stan describes the project as partly inspired by a project done by a friend's art project (which similarly took many photos of himself over time, categorizing them by algorithmic predictions of his emotional state).

Stan set up hourly automated hourly tracking on his computer to record: screenshot (his screen), webcam (his face), application in use and URL if browser, and latitude/longitude. In addition to the screenshots and device usage data, the webcam images provided additional context about "where he was and what he was doing" (e.g. using his laptop while attending a meeting).

In retrospect, Stan describes the impact of the project as similar to looking in a mirror at oneself. He also describes liking the periodic aspect (rather than more continuous): it felt like it helped him check in with himself, get himself back "on track" if he felt he'd become distracted. He agreed the data is likely biased by that self awareness, but an approach of "random intervals" would lose the tangential benefit of regularly nudging his own behavior.