Visual and Data Balance of my 2023
2024-01-17Hitchhiking through Degrowth
2025-09-27After 12 months since my last post, I did again an annual balance. This time, instead of a dashboard like last year, I focused on charts and notes. The goal was to try a more “standard” approach for each variable. I am happy with quality of the charts and the low time I needed to create them… although I miss some of the color and dynamics of the dashboard.
Various Charts Dimensions of 2024
Click the image to enlarge it and allow zoom
Looking at the six areas all together it feels like it was quite a stable year, especially taking into account that in 2023 I took a 4-month sabbatical where I read and explored more. The overall conclusion is that I am in a stable phase in my life, in between changes, so one could argue that data tracking is not so relevant for me. Guess what, I do it because I like it 🙂
Even if stability reigned, I still made a list of the key global findings:
- Time Allocation: No major findings. Just more work, since no longer on Sabbatical.
- Books Read: Quite nice. I was able to read in several dimensions and keep attention on Self-awareness and Sustainability, present during last year’s Sabbatical (see list and recommendations below)
- Listen to Podcasts: Strong variety. Although started listening more in 2023, I only started logging time in 2024. Data surprised me on how podcasts complemented topics I was no longer finding nice books to read about, like complex systems.
- Carbon Emission: Still far from Sustainable Level. Flying for work and a slightly more meat-based diet made 2024 worse than 2023.
- Sports and Walking: More stability was impossible in Sports. Less Steps is probably due to more working hours.
- Relationships: More quantity but less quality. It’s always hard to give all the time you would like to all the interesting people around you. I connected to new groups but the core of Occasional, Regular or Constant Relationships actually got down a bit.
If you feel engaged in using such a life data analysis. Reach out to me and i can give you some hints!
Book List and Recommendations
| Type | Name (with Link) | MyScore | Pages | Released | Author |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| Sustainability | Limits and Beyond: 50 years on from The Limits to Growth | 5⭐ | 416 | 2022 | Ugo Bardi |
| Sustainability | Le Monde sans fin – O mundo sem fim | 5⭐ | 196 | 2021 | Jean-Marc Jancovici |
| Sustainability | The Story of Upfront Carbon | 4 | 192 | 2024 | Lloyd Alter |
| Sustainability | Silent Spring | 4 | 378 | 1962 | Rachel Carson |
| Sustainability | Post Growth | 4 | 256 | 2021 | Tim Jackson |
| Self-Awareness | Four Thousand Weeks: Time Management for Mortals | 4 | 271 | 2021 | Oliver Burkeman |
| Self-Awareness | Vita contemplativa | 4 | 129 | 2022 | Byung-Chul Han |
| Self-Awareness | The Little Virtues – As Pequenas Virtudes | 4 | 160 | 1962 | Natalia Ginzburg |
| Self-Awareness | The Burnout Society | 3 | 60 | 2010 | Byung-Chul Han |
| Self-Awareness | 168 Hours: You Have More Time Than You Think | 3 | 272 | 2010 | Laura Vanderkam |
| SciFi | Exhalation | 5⭐ | 368 | 2019 | Ted Chiang |
| SciFi | Children of Dune | 5⭐ | 609 | 1976 | Frank Herbert |
| SciFi | Dune Messiah | 4 | 336 | 1969 | Frank Herbert |
| SciFi | Annihilation | 3 | 195 | 2014 | Jeff VanderMeer |
| Comics | Ne m’oublie pas – Não me esqueças | 5⭐ | 224 | 2021 | Alix Garin |
| Comics | Palestine – Palestina | 5⭐ | 299 | 1996 | Joe Sacco |
| Comics | A Teoria do Grao de Areia | 3 | 112 | 2007 | François Schuiten |
| Comics | Le Tournesol Illustrado | 2 | 96 | 1994 | Albert Algoud |
| Management | Switch – Come cambiare. | 5⭐ | 294 | 2010 | Chip Heath |
| Management | The Fractal Organization | 3 | 336 | 2008 | Patrick Hoverstadt |
| Kids co-read | Chocolate à Chuva | 3 | 179 | 1982 | Alice Vieira |
| Kids co-read | Tobias Lolness | 3 | 336 | 2006 | Timothée de Fombelle |
| Kids co-read | O colar mágico | 2 | 140 | 2020 | Rosie Banks |
Recommended Podcasts
In 2024 I listened to a lot of podcast time (75h) and it help me a lot connect to the frontier in many topics that are not yet, or never reach book publication. Here goes the list of my favorite podcast from 2024.
- Art of Accomplishment – The one that influenced me more.
Deep conversations on Self-Awareness, Emotions and Coaching. - Simplifying Complexity – The one I liked more.
Deep and Crazy Explorations on Complex Systems and Science.
Similar but less crazy: Complexity - Ted Talks Daily – The one I listened more to.
Short episodes on positive-minded stories around the World
PS: Similar but more focused on Science: Science Quickly
Others I also listened on different topics - A.I. Daily Breakdown – News and trends on Artificial Intelligence.
- Masters of Scale – Business Stories from top Entrepeneurs.
- 7Margens – Spiritual positive-minded news journal
- Unconfuse me from Bill Gates – few but nice stories from Bill Gates
- História Gloriosa – Huge episodes on Benfica’s legendary sports history
How did I track the data
If you use the correct tools it does not take that much time to track all this data. Really!
Check the instructions below for each dimension you could be interested in.
TIME ALLOCATION: How to track data
For the Time Allocation data, I used Google Calendar with a “full 24-hour calendar filing” approach with no hour duplication and with color categories in all events. You can see more info at the end of this other blog post.
To extract the data from these two sources, I used a complex method that involved giving google sheets access via app script to the app and then organizing the data. Check more info here for Strava Sync and here for Google Calendar Sync.
PODCASTS: How to track data
For Podcast I use the Mobile App Podcast Republic that includes a statistics per period, that can be annual.
SPORTS AND STEPS: How to track data
For the Sports data, I tracked my activities with a Samsung Watch (both bicycle and swimming) that connects automatically to the Strava App.
CARBON EMISSION: How to track data
In this case, I used different data sources and approaches for each carbon category. For Work Travel and Vacations I simply know how many flights or driving km I have done since it’s a few events a year. For the Commute, meaning moving around in my daily or weekend routine, I wrote down the total km made by our two family cars. For the Food, I made some assumptions about my diet of low meat. For the Energy I measured the total electricity and gas consumed in our house using the grid meters. For the Assets, I made a list of the biggest things I own (house, cars, electronics) and used some online calculations to transform that into an annual impact.
Each data measured needed then to be transformed into tonnes of Carbon with its method, making assumptions like unit per km driven or per kWh of electricity. I used many online sources that I learned from this lifestyle pilot I did in 2021. The site includes a googlesheet we built so you can try on your own!
BOOKS: How to track data
I use Goodreads to take note of all the books I have read and want to read. I also set an annual goal on the number of books and it shows how I am doing on that. You can also see which books your friends in Goodreads are reading.
I followed these instructions to extract the data to excel. It includes reading dates, year of publication, author and number of pages of all the books in your goodreads. The data is not perfect so I needed to some manual cleaning and completion.
EXTRA – PHONE CALLS: How to track data
I created a list in Excel of all my significant relationships with my parents, sisters, cousins, nephews and aunts. I also added some key colleagues and friends. The idea was to focus on the people that I care most or that have contributed more (now or in the past) to my life and not to list all my network of relationships.
This just took one or two hours to finish, including adding a 4-step level of proactive Investment I did per relationship in 2023 and another 4-step level of Intensity, as a measure of time I dedicated to that person.
In parallel, I installed an app on my mobile phone that records the contact and duration of the calls. I used Call Log Analytics for Android because is simple, free and you can easily export raw or report data but there are many others out there.
