We’re over a month into 2020 now, which means it’s time for my Year in Review! What follows is a mix of data that I track as well as personal data that I am able to get my hands on. Compiling this all takes a bit of time, but I enjoy being able to look back on my year and sum it up with numbers as well as put it into context with previous years. You (all 3 of you who read this) can work your way down (there’s somewhat of an order to it) or can use the table of contents to hop around to the really interesting stuff (I know you all or excited to see how many steps I took this year). Ultimately, get ready for a lot of bar charts!


Sport Teams

Unsurprisingly, we’re leading off with sportz! This is the least “personal” of the data I collect in the sense that I have zero control over it, but it’s still very much a part of how I look back on the year. Of the teams I follow closely, ASU’s football team had the best year in terms of win percentage, but I’d consider the Diamondbacks season a success as well. I’m also happy to see a nice spike for the Cardinals, and hope that continues in 2020. Question for the group: should I add the Nats to this chart? It would look so much nicer.

Sporting Events

I attend a lot of sporting events. I might not ever break my record from 2014, but 2019 definitely got close. Among the 30 games I went to in 2019, 14 were Nats home games (including two playoff games!). Baseball accounted for 22 total games as I finished my goal of making it to all 30 ballparks this year. In the “new” category, I went to a Real Madrid match and a Concacaf Nations League match between USMNT and Cuba.

Social Sports

Rounding out the sports section is my social sports trends. I was back to my old ways in 2019 after foot surgery kept me on the sidelines for a large portion of 2018. Looking back at my post-GW social sports career, basketball is clearly a year-round sport for me. Softball and flag football are annual leagues through the Capital Alumni Network, and I started playing Ultimate Frisbee for the first time in 2019 (also, shoutout to the Ping Pong league!). Looking at the season chart, Winter leads the way as I’m usually on multiple basketball teams as well as indoor volleyball. Summer lags behind other seasons, maybe because I’m gone most weekends and can’t commit to as many leagues.

Fitbit

Seguing to general fitness, I’ve been tracking my steps with Fitbit since late 2015. The 10,000 steps per day goal has been shown to be arbitrary, but I still like having that daily goal (bumped it up to 11k a few years ago, nbd). I broke that threshold in 2019 after a dip in my injury-plagued 2018. Saturday was my most active day in 2019, though it’s intersting to see my activity ramp up late in the work week. August was a big travel month for me (Spain and Portugal), so it’s no surprise to see my average above 17k.

I also like monitoring my sleep, even though I know I don’t get enough. The line going across the charts refers to 8 hours of sleep. I haven’t gotten to that mark while tracking my sleep, and unfortunately my average minutes per night dipped by 20+ in 2019. Friday night is clearly my night of rest, while Thursday and Sunday nights were under 7 hours on average. An encouraging sign - November and December were my best months in terms of sleep. Hopefully that continues in 2020.

Transportation

One potential reason for the drop in sleep in 2019 is my new job. I went from a 10 minute walk to a 1-hour commute to work, and that means an earlier alarm. My metro rides skyrocketed in 2019 while my rideshare rides stayed about the same as previous years. I took a break from bikeshare in 2018 but started using it again last year. I use bikeshare often to pop down the hill to the metro, but the charts below just show actual commute trips (e.g., into and back from DC).The monthly chart shows the seasonal reliance on bikeshare (when the weather is nice) vs when I typically opt for rideshare or metro. My metro rides also fluctuated quite a bit: I was on vacation in August, had some trips in September, and had work trips in October and December.

Reading

The long commute sucks, not gonna lie, but it has allowed me a lot of time to devote to reading. I read 32 books in 2019, by far my most ever. The chart below maps the pages I read in books vs pages I read on Pocket, where I save most of my articles for later reading. It looks like I read fewer Pocket articles in 2019 (I think it’s due to the way they track, but I won’t get into details), but overall my reading has gone up over the past few years.

Screen Time

One of my goals of 2019 was to increase my reading time while decreasing screen time. I wouldn’t say that 3:47 per day is good, but it’s hard to put it into context since 2019 was my first year of tracking. The top chart shows screen time (grey) per day vs daily pickups (blue), on a weekly basis. They are obviously highly correlated, and it’s interesting to see the dips and peaks throughout the year. Looks like I ended the year on a strong note though. The second chart shows notifications (grey) vs pickups. Here’s where you see some differences - some days I mindlessly pick up my phone, while others I pick it up only when I have notifications.

Twitter

2019 followed the recent trend of fewer tweets, despite Twitter being my most-used app. I’ve definitely changed in the way I use the platform over the years, from my grad school days of incessant tweeting to my current usage - political and sports news and sharing funny tweets via messages. The weekends have always been when I do higher-volume tweeting, probably because of sports (mainly football). I typically start out the year strong with a lot of January tweets, so it’s not surprising to see 2019 reflect that. But generally, my montly tweet totals are quite sporadic.

Song Lyrics

I tweet out a lot of song lyrics. Mostly when I’m sad, and often at night. Data-wise, it’s one of the easiest ways I have of tracking my depression - peaks in 2013 and 2016 make a lot of sense to me. But lately I’ve been trying not to tweet out so many depressing lyrics - I know it’s probably not fun to see that on my feed, and I’ve been seeking other outlets anyway. There was a minor jump in 2019 from previous years, but I could argue that as a percentage of overall tweets, that jump makes a lot of sense.

Spotify

I’ve been on Spotify since 2015, and I love that they send me data on my listening habits each year. Similar to Twitter, my listening has gone down over the past few years. I can’t really explain this one, to be honest.

Concerts

Concerts! Two things drive my concert attendance: people to go with and who comes to town. I think 2016 was the perfect storm - I had a few go-to concert buddies and it seemed like I was interested in so many artists that were swinging through DC. The subsequent years haven’t been as bountiful, but 2020 is shaping up to be another 2016! Through the years I’ve been to most of the concert venues around DC. While 930 Club is my favorite, I’m hoping to have repeat visits at many of these venues in the coming years.