THE FOURTH RULE

Help Them Thrive

NICHOLAS FELTON SAVES THE DETAILS OF HIS LIFE.

He records when he sleeps, where he does his work, which songs he listens to, which rooms in his house he spends the most time in, with whom he spends his time, where and when he takes photos, where and how he travels, which books he has read, and dozens of other trivia.

Since 2005, he has compiled those data, analyzed them, and summarized and graphed them into the “Feltron Annual Report.”1 The personal yearbook is a demonstration of his design abilities (he was instrumental in a redesign of Facebook) and his obsession with making sense of minutiae.

His 2012 report shows that he spent time with 488 people that year, 226 of them only once. During his waking hours, ...

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