Streaming the Minutia of My Life
Offline Planner Stream
I have been recording the trivial details of my day to day life since 1991. Every year I buy a day planner that I use to record the little things that I do each day. I don’t use the planner to schedule appointments or as a hip journal, but instead record the mundane events that occur. For example, today’s entry would say:
tired. didn’t get enough sleep. alex to zoes’. home for hour. work – not very motivated. tired and grey, rainy day. spent time with jim. home made yummy dinner. dishes with alex. read. bed. worked on website.
Often I mention what I read, what I watched, or what game I played. If I exercised, I record for how long and what type. I also use codes for special days, the start of my cycle, and sex.
My record is dull and is certainly never going to be published but is something that I feel compelled to do. Time slips away and memory is so elastic that this record creates some permanence. I can read the planner and discover what I did on August 11, 1997 and how I felt on my 31st birthday.
Mary Shelley’s Journal Stream
Mary Shelley, the author of Frankenstein, kept very similar records in her journal. It is unbearable to read because of the abbreviations she used and because overall it is sleep-inducing.
She did, however, record what she was reading, which assists academics in determing what works influenced her novels. But like me she was recording the trivialities of her daily routine. An entry from May 1815 reads:
“Monday 8th – Go out with Shelley to Mrs Knapp-not at home-buy Shelley a pencil case-return at one-read Spencer-Go with Shelley again to Mrs. Knapp-she cannot take Clary-read Spencer after dinner Clary goes out with Shelley-walk with Jefferson–write to Marshall-Read Spencer-(Canto II) they return at eight-very tired-got to bed early-Jefferson-scolds” from The Journals of Mary Shelley. ed by Paula R. Feldman
Recently, as I began researching Lifestreaming, which is a daily record of your online activities, I realized that I had been doing this for years in my day planners just as Mary Shelley had been lifestreaming in her journals.
Mark Krynsky, in his Lifestream blog, defines lifestreaming as
… a chronological aggregated view of your life activities both online and offline. It is only limited by the content and sources that you use to define it.
Once defined, I found myself fascinated by the concept and researched ways to create one. It was only in the last couple of days that I realized that I’ve been “lifestreaming” offline for years and saw the connection between my day planners and Mary Shelley’s journals. In Mark Krynsky’s article, "Why You Should Be Lifestreaming", the first point states that you should do it for the benefit of others – that it’s a digital version of telling your friends what you are up to. I disagree with this because I doubt my friends find my online lifestream any more interesting than my day planners. It is too personal and is simply a new way for me to record what I am doing. My Mom may want to know when new photos have been posted of her granddaughter and may find some of my links interesting or humorous but otherwise she’s not going to find the lifestream compelling. And I highly doubt anyone else will either.
But to me, it is extremely interesting and informative. I enjoy tracking information, scheduling my time and cataloging these activities. Lifestreaming gives me the means to record and preserve my online activities in the same manner that i use my day planners to record the mundane details of my daily life.
I currently have two lifestreams on this site. They contain information such as links posted to diigo, photos uploaded to flickr and music I am listening to on last.fm. One was created with the self-hosted RSS reader, Gregarius, and the other with the Wordpress plugin, RSS Stream. In part II and part III of this post, I plan to discuss how I created the lifestreams and the information that they contain.
Resources Mentioned
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May 27, 2008 at 9:57 pm
My sister, Anna, knows you from Twitter and that’s how I found this site. (I’m starryeyedtree on there)
Just wanted to say, I liked reading what you have to say. I’m trying to get back in to the writing thing, but my brain has been blocked in the last few months and all I can seem to write is the same thing over and over again in various disguises.
Any tips?
May 27, 2008 at 10:57 pm
Hi Julie,
Well, as you can see I have only written two posts so far. I have a number I have started but have decided to hold off on posting them as I am currently working with a designer on this site’s theme.
I find writing very difficult. What I do have is a lot of ideas but expressing what is in my head can be very hard. I see that you use blogger – are you able to save drafts on the platform. What I do is every time I have an idea I create a new draft even it is only the title. That way I don’t forget the idea. It also allows me to work on multiple posts simultaneously. If I am having trouble writing on a topic I leave it and work on something else.
I’ve also found it very helpful to follow successful bloggers who offer practical advice such as Darren Rowse from ProBlogger – http://www.problogger.com There is so much to learn. Today he posted an article about building relationships with other bloggers, which I found very useful.
I guess the most important thing is to write about something that you enjoy; something that you are passionate about. If you are really interested in the subject matter, it is much easier to write about it. I see that you are currently keeping a type of online journal. That is fine if that is what you want to do. I do get the impression, however, that you want to write about something else. If you think about what you really love, the answer will come to you.
Feel free to follow me on twitter as well. I’m not sure who Anna is – is that DaisyOlsen?
Thanks for being the first person to post!
May 28, 2008 at 4:13 am
Hi Kim, I found you through the AB blogging pack. :)
I’ve been journaling since before I was a teenager, but I must admit the last time I did “lifestreaming” was in those first few years. I never thought they would be significant. But I guess that’s the whole point of it.
May 28, 2008 at 5:49 am
Hi Joy,
Thanks for commenting. Do you mean that you were using your journal as a lifestream? That you had an offline lifestream? Or do you have one online? If so, I would love to see it.
May 31, 2008 at 6:03 pm
I always wished I could have kept a diary or something, never could get myself to stick with it though. At least with a blog someone (hopefully) is reading it so it makes it easier to stick with it.
May 31, 2008 at 11:06 pm
Hi Trisha,
You can always start now … it is hard to keep up with though. That’s why I only record the events of the day and don’t do any major writing. As it is, I still need to make it part of my morning routine in order to actually do it.
June 6, 2008 at 3:59 pm
Kim, I am so glad to see you writing about this. The “offline lifestream” is a concept I’ve been groping after for a few years now.
I’ve kept a journal off and on since high school. In college I started organizing my time with paper calendars; I later moved on to paper-based day planners and, in the mid-80s, electronic organizers. I used these tools not only for appointments and such, but also to jot down some of the same miscellaneous minutiae you write about. And you’re so right, most of it would be deadly dull to anyone but me, so I have no need to share it online.
As I’ve approached age 50, I’ve been converting all that paper stuff into electronic form (currently a Palm organizer and iCal on my laptop). I love being able to find trivia (and not-so-trivia) from my past.
Recently at dinner with friends, I put forth the following question: “Two years ago most of us ate at this restaurant, and we had a really wacky waiter. Does anyone remember his name?” Of course, no one did, but some people were close — and since I had notes about the whole event, I was able to help folks relive the previous dinner.
Nothing earth-shattering, but it killed some time while we were waiting for the food.
Anyway, I have a vision of an ultimate diary/journal/lifestream that would contain not only all my past notes and things, but also pictures, audio and video, relevant text (letters, emails, etc) — all searchable and readily available. I thought you might appreciate the concept.
June 6, 2008 at 5:30 pm
Don,
Thank you so much for sharing. I’m glad to know that I’m not the only one that has been doing this for years. I especially enjoyed your anecdote about the waiter’s name – I have been able to do similar things because of the notebooks I have kept.
On your blog there are photos of your “library”. Are you a librarian? I went to library school but have never formally worked as a librarian. Perhaps this offline streaming is common to those drawn to the profession – the need to organize and catalog data.
I’ve also thought about the complete online stream of personal data – it’s seems that we currently have tools for pieces of the concept but not yet a complete solution.
On a more morbid note, I have recently been wondering what will happen to our online streams when we die … the internet and “lifestreaming” is still so new that the first users have not yet passed and there doesn’t yet seem to be a system in place to preserve the data. Does it fall to our families as our personal belongings do? Will anyone even care to preserve it if we aren’t someone famous? What if I were to die unexpectedly – no one would know my passwords or even the web host that I use. I’ve also wondered if these morbid thoughts may be the start of a business idea.
Oh, my ex-husband is a huge Star Wars fan. And we both love science fiction, although I have never been to a convention. I did, however, attend Wizard World last weekend in Philadelphia and got my picture taken with Boba Fett :-)
Thank you so much for commenting!
June 14, 2008 at 10:50 pm
Howdy;
my Name is Pierro and im from Germany – thats why my badly english.
Anyway,i will start a small question:
I like your livestream. Im not a big coding nose, so my question is: I want embed a livestream like yours in mine blog. How can i do that ? Is this RSS Stream Plugin “enough” or does i need that RSS Stream plugin + another one ?
Maybee you find some time to answer my question and drop me a line via email, so i can find your blog again.
best wishes – salut
June 15, 2008 at 8:59 pm
Pierro,
The lifestream is created by the RSS Stream plugin. I have tweaked the CSS a bit and added some of my own feeds as well as using two feeds created by Yahoo Pipes. I have also added some of my own icons. I will send you a separate email. Also, I plan to write an article very soon about how to use RSS Stream.
March 25, 2009 at 4:43 pm
This is a good reflexion
March 25, 2009 at 4:51 pm
Hi Raju – Thank you. My focus for this blog has definitely changed since I wrote that article :-)