Timelapse Me
For about a month, I've documented each of my days in timelapse with a Brinno GardenWatchCam and posted the videos to YouTube. You can find me doing everything from playing basketball to shooting a music video to writing this blog post.
I got the idea from artist and engineer Dan Paluska. He noted in a talk given at the EdLab that the videos can serve as a mirror which can be used for self-improvement. Watching back some of my videos generated a few useful self-criticisms. (I should slouch less, smile more, eat breakfast more often, etc.) But the most noticeable effect began right when I turned the camera on.
I became aware of time - and how I decided to spend it - in a way that I never had before. Questions consciously presented themselves at every turn: What am I doing right now? Am I doing something interesting? More importantly, is my lifestyle something I'm proud of? Forfeiting so much of my privacy forced me to start living up to my own standards. "Should I watch another episode of Law & Order? I'll work on that essay first." On the whole, I became more productive. And there was much less, if any, drifting between daily activities. [1]
After watching even just one of these videos, you may have noticed something: my daily timelapse videos are, on the whole, boring. Some are really boring. That is, they amount to something like reality television minus the flashy editing. Of course, a large part of my bordom stems from my already knowing how I've spent my day. Other people's daily timelapse videos I would find intriguing. It would be great to reconnect with a friend or family member, when unable to spend time with them in person, by watching back their day on the internet. And when deciding how to spend my own time, I'd love to see how others spend theirs.
Now if this doesn't sound like a tech start-up pitch, I don't know what does. A social network based on mass-produced timelapse cameras would fit right in with the slew of social media start-ups tapping into our desire to share our lives and pry into others'. [2] Bored? Log on and browse some of the highest rated daily timelapse videos from the most fun and interesting users! Single? Scope out potential dates based on how they spend their time! (Now isn't that a terrifying concept?)
Would something like this actually be a viable business? I couldn't say. Carrying the strange green device on me has elicited a pretty wide variety of reactions. A curious Barnes & Noble cashier seemed ready to run out and buy one for himself. But then there have been others who've expressed a terrible fear and hatred of cameras. Most reactions fall somewhere in between: Typically a polite "What's that?" followed by an indifferent "Cool." But there've also been some very interesting discussions sparked by the camera regarding self-image, privacy, social media, and related topics. So, if nothing else, it can make for a great conversation starter.
But whether or not there's a profitable business model here, I would love to watch timelapse videos from a wide cross-section of cultures. How does an old man in Tanzania spend his day? A homeless person in the Bronx? A fourth grader in Nicaragua? Kanye West? And what about famous historical figures, society's cliche role models, like Ghandi, Edison, or Mozart? Benjamin Franklin gives us something close:
via Can Do
But did he regularly follow this routine? For more details, we can read letters, journals, and autobiographies. But even still, this only gives us a biased retrospective interpretation of his life. Timelapse videos provide a sort of diary without this bias. (If I've spent half of my day watching television, it won't be omitted or downplayed; I'll be watching TV for half of the video.)
To be fair, this discussion is pretty silly considering daily timelapse videos of great historical figures don't exist. And even if they did, I'm skeptical that they'd capture what it is that led to these people's great achievements. There's plenty of nuance in people's behavior that gets lost in compressing a day down to a mute three minutes. As the biographer Plutarch wrote, "...oftentimes some slight circumstance, a word, or a jest, shows a man's character better than battles with the slaughter of tens of thousands, and the greatest arrays of armies and sieges of cities."
Despite this, there's still a feeling that I've put an (albiet, low fidelity) copy of myself on the internet. There are certainly important elements of my character which aren't captured in these videos. But don't we primarily define others by how they spend their time (and often specifically between the hours of nine and five)? Many, if not most, introductions include the introducee's career. "This is my dad. He's an architect." I am, in large part, the way I spend my time. So perhaps when considering the broad question "Who do I want to be?", it isn't wrong to focus on the more practical concern of how I'm spending my time right now.
Anders Ericsson's 10,000 Hour Rule suggests what, in retrospect, seems obvious: I should spend my time practicing. If I want to do something extraordinary, genetic predisposition isn't important after all. I just need to work at it for a long time. I'll need to generate 2,000 minutes of mostly boring, repetitive timelapsed footage of a particular task. And perhaps it's true that the non-existant timelapse videos of most of our role models would fit this description.
But even if Ericsson has it all figured out, not everyone is striving to become the next Mozart or Bobby Fischer. Some would find a perfectly fulfilling life in working an average job and supporting a family. I'm not sure for myself what to aim for. Perhaps when confronted with the question "What should I do with my life?", it isn't right to look for an end product which I would be proud of, but rather a process which I would be proud of, a life that I wouldn't be afraid to share. Needless to say, this lesson wasn't exactly what I had expected to get from a GardenWatchCam.
Follow me on twitter: @noahlitvin
Watch me write this article... in timelapse! (Inspired by James Somers' article The Simple Software That Could -- but Probably Won't -- Change the Face of Writing)
[1] Here's an easy way to one-up Jerry Seinfeld's Productivity Secret: Make a timelapse video (or normal video or even just a photo) of yourself doing your task every day and then upload them to the web. Tell a few people about it. As an added bonus, task permitting, you'll be able to watch yourself make progress.
[2] Check out Devin Friedman's excellent essay, Viral Me.
