The official blog for Numerous. Life's most important numbers available at a glance.
The Most Important Numbers in the World
Charlie Wood
09 December 2013
I have a number habit. Which is to say I regularly—some might say compulsively—track a variety of numbers in my life. I bet you do too.
Lately I’ve been checking the price of Bitcoins, even though I don’t own any. (Right now one bitcoin costs $869.184.) Every day I track my weight (181.6 lbs this morning) and macronutrient ratio (45/37/18 protein/fat/carb yesterday). My kids are bad about losing cash, so I keep track of allowance account balances for both of them. (Hudson is at $8, Sam has $16.) I check the temperature inside and outside our house in Colorado several times every day. (Currently 60F inside and 0F outside. Brr!) I also keep track of a variety of personal finance metrics, fitness data, and key performance indicators for the companies I’m involved in.
I like keeping up to date on these numbers. They represent important parts of my life. What I don’t like is logging into a bunch of different web sites—or more recently, a bunch of different apps—to track them. To get at some of them, I have to sign into a web site with my email address and a password (not fun on an iPhone), then switch to a different app to get my two-step verification code, then back to the browser to enter that code. And even the simple apps that don’t require login at all each require multiple taps, swipes, and mental context switches. Painful.
What I want is a simple, elegant view into my numbers. That’s what we’re building at Numerous.
Your numbers are sure to be different than mine. Last week John wrote about one of his wife’s most important numbers: the blood glucose level of one of her students, who is diabetic. Over the Thanksgiving holiday I talked to my father-in-law, who told me he's tracked every mile he's ever run. He's nearing the 50,000 mark. I recently traded emails with Obama for America CTO Harper Reed, who tracks a whole lot of different numbers.
Everyone has important numbers in their life. What are yours?
PS. Since I started writing this post the price of a bitcoin has risen to $882.79518. Just FYI.
