Self-tracking and personal science has always fascinated me, from trying one of the early heart rate monitors 20 years ago to separately plotting lean and fat body weight changes (my team developed the LeanScale app), to measuring my brainwaves at night with Zeo.

I’m blown away and humbled by the collective intelligence and spirit of adventure and curiosity in every single participant and presenter at the first Quantified Self Conference today. In the afternoon I’ll be co-presenting a short talk entitled Agile Self Development, on borrowing ideas from Lean Startup and Agile Software Development for optimizing personal development, experimentation and productivity.

Seth Roberts suggested in his opening plenary that professional science is stagnating, while personal science is about to revolutionize the advancement of knowledge and human health, productivity and happiness. Hooray for progress!