Self-Observation Self-Improvement

Yesterday, I did my work from home on an Internet-connected computer.

Before I began my work yesterday, I enabled the “Screen Record” function of the computer’s Quicktime app.

I took the resulting 1-hour-and-9-minute screen recording and sped it up, resulting in a 30 second video.

So, that was a fun experiment in recording myself as I do various visual-computing tasks.

Today, I began more work of a similar nature.

Almost immediately, I was distracted by trying to find the right YouTube video to play in the background while I work.

I decided on Spotify and then did some more photoshop work.

I then got the idea to record my screen again, because I realized I was being kept honest by the idea of observation via screen recording.

I was being kept honest and on-task because I knew I’d eventually have to review my own actions when I reviewed the screen-recording video.

If I dawdled while I worked, that would mean a longer screen-recording video would be recorded, and that would mean more future work for me, to have to edit the footage later.

The point is:

Start recording yourself while working.

See what happens. 🙂

P.S. Immediately before posting this, I had turned on Quicktime’s “Screen Recording” feature.

I intended to post the screen-recording video of my writing this post, at the end of this post.

Turns out I hadn’t turned on the screen-recording feature after all.

I was kept honest and on-task, for no reason.

Recording Record Revolutions

This is a video experiment involving a vinyl record album.

The Question: what does it look like when an overhead camera rotates at the same rate as a vinyl record, playing at 33 1/3 revolutions per minute?

The Answer: it looks delightfully disorienting.

The smartphone camera recorded an overhead video clip of the record player from a fixed, non-moving perspective.

Later, in video-editing software, I set the video clip to rotate at the same rate, and in the same direction, as the record spun.

The Docking Scene from Interstellar features a similar visual, where a camera mounted in a fixed position is rotated to match a rotating subject.