约翰?里科是位“自我量化主义者”，用他的话就是做一个让自己生活更美好的人。

 

　　Every one of us wants to live a better life, but what is a self-quantifier, exactly?

 

　　我们每个人都想过得更好，但究竟什么才是“自我量化主义者”？

 

　　Well, if you have a smartphone with apps tracking your daily activities like spending, exercise, or keeping a calorie diary to help manage your weight, then you might well be on your way to become a self-quantifier.

 

　　好吧，如果你的智能手机安装了一些这样的应用程序—追踪你包括消费、锻炼在内的日常活动，或者记录卡路里日记来帮你保持体形的话，那你可能就离“自我量化主义者”不远了。

 

　　Self-quantification is, at its most basic, maintaining performance statistics or data about oneself.

 

　　自我量化，最基本的便是记录自身性能统计与数据。

 

　　Rico, a US writer, takes self-quantification to another level that it almost has become an obsession.

 

　　里科是位美国作家，对于自我量化，他已经到了痴迷的程度了。

 

　　In a recent article he wrote for Salon magazine, Rico admits that he not only tracks both exercise and spending, but on his iPhone, he also has specific apps that track the water he drinks, sleeping cycles, moods, the last time he communicated with friends, and how much time he spends watching television. “Twenty-four hours a day, seven days a week, my iPhone is pushing, fetching and recording data about myself,” he says.

 

　　里科在Salon杂志的一篇最新文章中承认他不只记录锻炼和支出状况，就连喝水、睡眠、心情、哪天和朋友聊了天、看多长时间电视他都记在iPhone上。他说：“一天24小时，一周七天，我的手机无时无刻不在记录着自己一举一动的每项数据。”

 

　　“Indeed, I even go so far as to have a constantly running timer app that I have to click every time I change activities, with the app providing me with up-to-the-minute reports on how I’ve spent my time.”

 

　　“实际上，我甚至还有一个永不停歇的计时应用程序，每次我该做其他事情时，我都必须要点开它，这样它就能随时报告我把时间都花在哪里了。”

 

　　Sounds crazy? And what a waste of time tapping away on a phone to record trivial details while the important parts of one’s life pass by.

 

　　这听起来很疯狂吧？在手机上点来点去记录鸡毛蒜皮的琐事，而错过生活的重头戏，简直是浪费时间。

 

　　But Rico offers his defense. He points out that self-quantification is about trying to exercise a certain amount of self-awareness through data to become a better person. Data allows us to measure performance, to observe trends, and to inculcate new habits into our lives.

 

　　但是里科也有自己的说法。他指出自我量化是为了通过数据形式，来锻炼自我意识，从而完善自我。这些数据有助于我们评量绩效、观察趋势、培养新习惯。

 

　　Rico says that our perceptions of ourselves are far different from what actual data about ourselves might show.

 

　　里科表示，我们的自我观念与真实数据所显示出的大不相同。

 

　　His mood app is a good example in point. A while back, the writer considered himself to be somewhat depressed. But when he used an app to record his mood, day by day, it was almost always happy.

 

　　他的心情应用程序就是个例子。前阵子，里科总感到莫名的抑郁。自从使用应用程序记录心情以来，一天天下来，他几乎每天都是好心情。

 

　　It turns out that he was simply focusing more on the bad days, and ignoring the good days. The mood app helped him see and value the brighter side of life.

 

　　原来里科是因为太在意坏心情了，好心情都被忽略了。应用程序只是帮他发现并珍惜生活中美好的一面。

 

　　Self-quantification also helped increased Rico’s productivity as a writer. He believed he was hard working enough on his new book, but then he started tracking how often he wrote, and realized he was only thinking about writing. Further self-quantification of those periods when he did do writing allowed him to recognize what time of the day he was the most productive, which in turn allowed him to make adjustments that improved his productivity.

 

　　自我量化还帮他提高写作效率。原来里科认为写新书已经够努力了，直到他开始记录写作频率，才发现自己只是在构思写作而不是付诸笔端。后来他将自己确实用于写作的时段记录在案，找到自己一天中什么时间效率最高，这使他可以依效率来做调整。

 

　　His activity timer helped his life become more fulfilling. Rico says it revealed that no matter how busy he thought he was – work, writing, and friends, and the activities of taking care his family — he still had large unproductive pockets of time. Realizing that better management of this time meant he could take on a new hobby, he started applying to PhD programs.

 

　　行为计时器令里科的生活更有成就感。无论他觉得自己有多忙——忙工作、写作、忙交际、忙家庭，计时器都告诉他还有大把可以利用的零碎时间。里科发觉对时间的有效管理可以使自己多发展一项爱好，于是就申请了博士课程。

 

　　The main criticism of self-quantifiers is that it’s a decadent indulgence of the self, Rico says.

 

　　里科说对自我量化者批评的焦点主要集中在担心这是一种自我沉迷。

 

　　Perhaps in a world of social networks which pay so much attention to one’s self, the last thing we need is to also record data about ourselves.

 

　　或许在社交网络世界中，我们太过于关注自我了，而我们最不想做的也是记录下关于我们自身的数据了。

 

　　But self-quantifying is anything but indulgent, Rico points out. Rather, “it is about deflating the self, breaching the fantasy assumptions about ourselves by introducing disruptive cold hard facts, facts that often demonstrate we’re actually not what we thought.”

 

　　里科指出，自我量化决不是放纵自己。“相反是要通过呈现一些严厉的事实来挫一挫自己的锐气，打消自我幻象，而这些事实往往说明这我们并非自己所想的那样。”