The Data

About the data that make up the LIX Index

The LIX is a combination of some important aspects of being human – health and well-being, finance and economics, social and cultural relations, environmental and ecological contexts. I don't think of myself as an individual – more of a person in a network of relations with human and non-human others. So how I choose what I collect data about, and how to combine these data is shaped by this approach.

To construct the LIX Index I combine 50 variables. They are not all things that vary or even occur weekly, whereas some of them happen many times daily, so I give them scaling factors to bring them into alignment. They are not all equally important, so I apply a weighting to put them into the kind of relationship that I think is right for the LIX. I combine them into groups with these labels: relating, well-being, practicing and sustaining.

Relating

1. Conversations with close friends or family

2. Hours of childcare

3. Tweets by @lixindex

4. Interactions on twitter for @lixindex

5. Minutes disconnected from the online world while awake

6. Personal emails of value received per week

7. SMS of value received per week

8. Meeting or connecting with someone new and inspiring

9. Interactions with local people with whom I have weak ties

10. Occasions I was aware I was being driven by the desire of others

Well-being

11. Exercise sessions over 20 minutes with heart rate up

12. Playfulness (hours)

13. Occasions of being open to serendipity, difference, diversity

14. Yoga or tai chi classes attended

15. Days exceeding 2000 calories consumed

16. Days without refined sugar or alcohol

17. Serious illness or accident (days)

18. Hours ill or weary

19. Nights of unbroken sleep over 7 hours

20. Therapy sessions

21. Meals cooked and cleared up by someone else for me

22. Evidence of peri-menopausal changes

23. Orgasms

24. Weeks without 3 sessions of exercise over 20 minutes

25. Days exceeding daily fuelband target

Practicing

26. Weekly peak level of intellectual stimulation on a scale of 0-100

27. Invitations to talk or write or make (unpaid/not prestigious)

28. Invitations to talk or write or make (paid/prestigious)

29. Acts in which I connected people with one another

30. Involvement in the creation, production or dissemination of a new artefact

31. Hours spent in exploratory open-ended inquiry

32. Events involving the experience of a well-crafted cultural artefact

33. Occasions I felt wonder

34. Hours of flanerie

Sustaining

35. Income banked this week

36. Bank balance in main account

37. Likelihood of massive depreciation of main asset (home) on a scale of 0-100

38. My perception that world events are affecting me negatively (0-100)

39. Bank of England base rate

40. Weekly high for the FTSE 100 stock exchange index

41. Active decisions to consume despite the negative carbon or landfill or resource use impact

42. Active recirculation, reuse, reintegration of existing artefacts

43. Occasions I made a serious effort not to be driven by emotion

44. Hours on my own, awake

45. Childcare-free time when not working (hours)

46. Air miles from flights taken

47. Hours outdoors

48. Occasions on which I spoke up to make a challenge

49. Weekly high for the temperature in London (Celsius)

50. Positive responses to the poll on the front page of the LIX website