How much of your tracking is manual (or intentional, like I heard @accarmichael describe it once) vs. automatic and how do you think that affects what you choose to do with the data?

I'm defining manual tracking as updating a Google Spreadsheet, taking a photo, or writing yourself a note, and automatic tracking as wearing a Fitbit, using a Withings scale, or using RescueTime.

Personally I find that it's much easier to ignore things that I'm tracking automatically because I'm disconnected from the end result--I put on my Zeo every night but I'm not forced to see my long-term data like I would be if I was updating a Google Spreadsheet every day.

I've tracked a lot, both manual or automatic, over the years. Over time I've found that by focusing on what's meaningful to me (what am I actually trying to learn?), and working backwards to the thing that should be measured, 99% of the time it is something that can't be measured automatically.

This comes up in all kinds of analytics. How many people use Google Analytics but never actually learn anything interesting about their sites? Similarly with personal analytics... how many people track steps without actually learning anything meaningful about the quality of your own life?

And I agree with you about the attention to a thing actually often being the best byproduct of tracking (at least, for a while). Paying attention to something is a great way to learn about something, and learning is a great way to find meaning. Striving for mindless tracking often means that you never actually pay enough attention to the thing to learn from it.

The cycle of learning about yourself through quantified self practices looks like this for me:

Step 1) learn basic correlations by paying attention
Step 2) experiment with different things and learn by seeing what works for you and what doesn't
Step 3) experiment with making it sustainable if there is a long-term benefit to whatever you're tracking

I'd say 20% for manual vs 80% for passive data. However, there needs to be some sort of central touchpoint or dashboard that pulls in that data that engages you with your data and allows your to manipulate it in such a way that gives you further insight into what "story" the data is telling you.

It seems counter-intuitive, but I seem to stay tracking a lot longer when the tracking is more intentional - likely because I'm more engaged with both the tracking and the data. It'd be interesting to get a poll going of how long QSers last with each thing they quantify, and why they stop (e.g. goals met, basic correlations learnt, boredom, etc.), to get an measure of relative stickiness.