Throughout the week(s), gather data about your daily life to visualize. You can collect any kind of data: moods, sleeping habits, coffee intake, music listened to, text messages, phone conversations, commute times, etc etc. You may want to gather two categories of data to compare and explore relationships. Some data may be available to you on a device you use already (iTunes, for example or your smartphone records). Some data you may have to collect in other ways. Try to be as diligent and precise as possible, and get  as much data as you possibly can (at least 30-40 data points, so you have something to work with). Get this data into some kind of manageable format– a spreadsheet or table. We won’t visualize it yet, just collect if for now. But start thinking about the questions you might want to answer with this data now.

For inspiration, see Nicolas Felton’s Annual Reports (NYT article for background). Also, look at Daytum, though don’t use it for collection, since it’s functionality is limited and you may not be able to extract your data from the software.