The app that uses your life expectancy to help you make the most of your time

Perhaps one of most compelling ways to quantify oneself is in time, or more precisely, time left to live. Life Clock is a potential watch face for the new Apple Watch that counts down the seconds until you die. The app estimates how much time you have left, adding minutes for healthy pursuits and subtracting them when you indulge in bad habits.

Consider it a mortality forecaster that could help us make healthier decisions by reminding us of the future. For 30 minutes of exercise, you will gain 36 minutes on the Life Clock. The clock will deduct 26 minutes for only sleeping five (not eight) hours one night, or add 40 minutes for eating your 5-a-day.  

While the clock’s precision is undoubtedly dubious (Rehabstudio created the scoring system using life expectancy data from a handful of source over the course of a week), actually seeing time come off your life expectancy with every cigarette or full English breakfast is as good a reason as any to kick these bad habits.

For those who lack the necessary will power, there are now a whole range of technological solutions to motivate us to get our acts together. Many of these are wearables, incorporating features that go beyond tracking, actually encouraging the wearer to act. In our Motivation Stations Observation we looked at products that charge you money, electrocute you and embarrass you on Facebook for not meeting goals. If none of these techniques work, perhaps a visual reminder that you're killing yourself could be more persuasive.