Flexible and Mindful Self-Tracking: Design Implications from Paper Bullet Journals

Amid Ayobi; Tobias Sonne; Paul Marshall; Anna L. Cox

doi:10.1145/3173574.3173602

Flexible and Mindful Self-Tracking: Design Implications from Paper Bullet Journals

Amid Ayobi
, Tobias Sonne
, Paul Marshall
, Anna L. Cox

Research output: Chapter in Book/Report/Conference proceeding › Conference Contribution (Conference Proceeding)

136 Citations (Scopus)

2227 Downloads (Pure)

Abstract

Digital self-tracking technologies offer many potential benefits over self-tracking with paper notebooks. However, they are often too rigid to support people's practical and emotional needs in everyday settings. To inform the design of more flexible self-tracking tools, we examine bullet journaling: an analogue and customisable approach for logging and reflecting on everyday life. Analysing a corpus of paper bullet journal photos and related conversations on Instagram, we found that individuals extended and adapted bullet journaling systems to their changing practical and emotional needs through: (1) creating and combining personally meaningful visualisations of different types of trackers, such as habit, mood, and symptom trackers; (2) engaging in mindful reflective thinking through design practices and self-reflective strategies; and (3) posting photos of paper journals online to become part of a self-tracking culture of sharing and learning. We outline two interrelated design directions for flexible and mindful self-tracking: digitally extending analogue self-tracking and supporting digital self-tracking as a mindful design practice.

Original language	English
Title of host publication	CHI 2018 - Proceedings of the 2018 CHI Conference on Human Factors in Computing Systems
Publisher	Association for Computing Machinery
Pages	1-14
Number of pages	14
ISBN (Electronic)	9781450356213
ISBN (Print)	9781450356206
DOIs	https://doi.org/10.1145/3173574.3173602
Publication status	Published - 21 Apr 2018
Event	2018 CHI Conference on Human Factors in Computing Systems, CHI EA 2018 - Montreal, Canada Duration: 21 Apr 2018 → 26 Apr 2018 https://chi2018.acm.org

Conference

Conference	2018 CHI Conference on Human Factors in Computing Systems, CHI EA 2018
Country/Territory	Canada
City	Montreal
Period	21/04/18 → 26/04/18
Internet address	https://chi2018.acm.org

Research Groups and Themes

Bristol Interaction Group

Keywords

Bullet journaling
Habit tracking
Instagram
Mood tracking
Personal informatics
Self-care technologies
Self-tracking
Selfmonitoring
Symptom tracking

Access to Document

10.1145/3173574.3173602

Full-text PDF (accepted author manuscript)
This is the author accepted manuscript (AAM). The final published version (version of record) is available online via ACM at https://dl.acm.org/citation.cfm?doid=3173574.3173602 . Please refer to any applicable terms of use of the publisher.
Accepted author manuscript, 16.6 MB

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Cite this

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title = "Flexible and Mindful Self-Tracking: Design Implications from Paper Bullet Journals",

abstract = "Digital self-tracking technologies offer many potential benefits over self-tracking with paper notebooks. However, they are often too rigid to support people's practical and emotional needs in everyday settings. To inform the design of more flexible self-tracking tools, we examine bullet journaling: an analogue and customisable approach for logging and reflecting on everyday life. Analysing a corpus of paper bullet journal photos and related conversations on Instagram, we found that individuals extended and adapted bullet journaling systems to their changing practical and emotional needs through: (1) creating and combining personally meaningful visualisations of different types of trackers, such as habit, mood, and symptom trackers; (2) engaging in mindful reflective thinking through design practices and self-reflective strategies; and (3) posting photos of paper journals online to become part of a self-tracking culture of sharing and learning. We outline two interrelated design directions for flexible and mindful self-tracking: digitally extending analogue self-tracking and supporting digital self-tracking as a mindful design practice.",

keywords = "Bullet journaling, Habit tracking, Instagram, Mood tracking, Personal informatics, Self-care technologies, Self-tracking, Selfmonitoring, Symptom tracking",

author = "Amid Ayobi and Tobias Sonne and Paul Marshall and Cox, \{Anna L.\}",

year = "2018",

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publisher = "Association for Computing Machinery",

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note = "2018 CHI Conference on Human Factors in Computing Systems, CHI EA 2018 ; Conference date: 21-04-2018 Through 26-04-2018",

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}

Ayobi, A, Sonne, T, Marshall, P & Cox, AL 2018, Flexible and Mindful Self-Tracking: Design Implications from Paper Bullet Journals. in CHI 2018 - Proceedings of the 2018 CHI Conference on Human Factors in Computing Systems., 28, Association for Computing Machinery, pp. 1-14, 2018 CHI Conference on Human Factors in Computing Systems, CHI EA 2018, Montreal, Canada, 21/04/18. https://doi.org/10.1145/3173574.3173602

Flexible and Mindful Self-Tracking: Design Implications from Paper Bullet Journals. / Ayobi, Amid; Sonne, Tobias; Marshall, Paul et al.
CHI 2018 - Proceedings of the 2018 CHI Conference on Human Factors in Computing Systems. Association for Computing Machinery, 2018. p. 1-14 28.

Research output: Chapter in Book/Report/Conference proceeding › Conference Contribution (Conference Proceeding)

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AU - Sonne, Tobias

AU - Marshall, Paul

AU - Cox, Anna L.

PY - 2018/4/21

Y1 - 2018/4/21

N2 - Digital self-tracking technologies offer many potential benefits over self-tracking with paper notebooks. However, they are often too rigid to support people's practical and emotional needs in everyday settings. To inform the design of more flexible self-tracking tools, we examine bullet journaling: an analogue and customisable approach for logging and reflecting on everyday life. Analysing a corpus of paper bullet journal photos and related conversations on Instagram, we found that individuals extended and adapted bullet journaling systems to their changing practical and emotional needs through: (1) creating and combining personally meaningful visualisations of different types of trackers, such as habit, mood, and symptom trackers; (2) engaging in mindful reflective thinking through design practices and self-reflective strategies; and (3) posting photos of paper journals online to become part of a self-tracking culture of sharing and learning. We outline two interrelated design directions for flexible and mindful self-tracking: digitally extending analogue self-tracking and supporting digital self-tracking as a mindful design practice.

AB - Digital self-tracking technologies offer many potential benefits over self-tracking with paper notebooks. However, they are often too rigid to support people's practical and emotional needs in everyday settings. To inform the design of more flexible self-tracking tools, we examine bullet journaling: an analogue and customisable approach for logging and reflecting on everyday life. Analysing a corpus of paper bullet journal photos and related conversations on Instagram, we found that individuals extended and adapted bullet journaling systems to their changing practical and emotional needs through: (1) creating and combining personally meaningful visualisations of different types of trackers, such as habit, mood, and symptom trackers; (2) engaging in mindful reflective thinking through design practices and self-reflective strategies; and (3) posting photos of paper journals online to become part of a self-tracking culture of sharing and learning. We outline two interrelated design directions for flexible and mindful self-tracking: digitally extending analogue self-tracking and supporting digital self-tracking as a mindful design practice.

KW - Bullet journaling

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KW - Instagram

KW - Mood tracking

KW - Personal informatics

KW - Self-care technologies

KW - Self-tracking

KW - Selfmonitoring

KW - Symptom tracking

UR - https://www.scopus.com/pages/publications/85046964584

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PB - Association for Computing Machinery

Y2 - 21 April 2018 through 26 April 2018

ER -

Flexible and Mindful Self-Tracking: Design Implications from Paper Bullet Journals

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Dr Paul Marshall

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Flexible and Mindful Self-Tracking: Design Implications from Paper Bullet Journals

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Conference

Research Groups and Themes

Keywords

Access to Document

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Other files and links

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Dr Paul Marshall

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