I’m someone who’s obsessed with organization. Who fixates on productivity and life goals. I love the feeling of having everything in place, optimizing my life in each and every way. Because of this, I thought I’d share some tips and tricks I’ve used to hold my life together. How I juggle different plates.
1. Goals
Goals: the stuff that dreams are made of. We all have aspirations in life that serve as our North Star. What do you want to do with our lives? Who do we want to be?
While I don’t think I can give advice on how to choose your goals, I can tell you how I focus on what I want to achieve. I try to think of the five most important things, or domains, in life that I currently want to work on. Then, I try to pencil time in my calendar to fulfill these tasks (shocker). Currently I am focusing on:
Writing
Spanish
Communication 😉
Salsa + Bachata
Used to be work + job interviews. Now it’s chillin
None of this is too unreal. I think the only genuine life-changing advice I can give is that you have to accept your limitations. You will have to sacrifice some of your desires. Certain priorities will be given more importance than others. However, this trade-off makes your passions in life all the more special.
Instead of using a list of goals to run through or quantitative metrics, I used a bingo card to keep track of goals. Not only does it make things more interesting, but it also allows me to tackle a large number of goals at different times during the year.
2. Organizing it all
I love Notion. I try to divide my life into different areas, and represent those in pages and subpages. The best way to do this is in a way that feels natural to you. After all, you will be the one using this.
In Notion, I pretty much have everything: ideas for creative ventures, work notes, job interviews, personal finances, and reflections upon reflections.
In no particular order, for other stuff:
Photos: Google Photos
Calendar + To-do list + reminders: Google Calendar
Notes: Google Keep
Drive is miscellaneous stuff + Document/File storage
For movies + ebooks: Pirates Bay & Anna’s Archive
I use Express VPN, and Bitlord for torrenting
The most important thing above is Google Calendar. I used to use a to-do list, but I’ve found Google Calendar infinitely better. Things that have to be done later, or are of less importance, can be thrown where they would be appropriate. Based on the number of times you delay something, you’ll understand whether or not it is a real priority.
It’s also incredibly useful for structuring your day. Eventually you get an idea of what your bandwidth for a given period of time is, and you can organize your week + goals accordingly.
3. Finance
I use a couple of credit cards. For all my lines of credit, I try to keep things around 25%. I specifically use BMO and Scotiabank but that isn’t because of a particular preference.
For any American transactions, I use Wise. I use Google Sheets to keep track of my stock portfolio (this could probably be better done) and Interactive Brokers for an online broker. I use Monarch Money to keep track of my expenses.
4. Misc
For the little life hacks here and there:
Meditation is great, but it isn’t sustainable for me. Inculcating mindfulness is probably the most important thing.
I usually use the Pomodoro technique to space out dull work, but it also serves to set an expectation for when I’ll get tired.
If I find myself opening distractions like social media I’ll take a break.
Anki is really useful for spaced repetition. That is, memorizing things.
I use Chat GPT for EVERYTHING. Basic questions, medical concerns, summary of topics, exercise routine, documentation, what to tourist, language learning, writing (brainstorming + synonyms or similar phrases). It’s
For coding, Cursor. For fashion, Tim Dessaint.
All of these are fun. It’s nice to feel like you have everything together. Like all of the nooks and crannies of your psyche are splattered out into some software management tool. But as I use these things, I try not to let them govern my life. The point of these is to enrich things, so you can better understand yourself. Through an outline, it will become clearer what you should prioritize. How you should spend your life.
But don’t become lost in productivity. Optimization is redundant without having anything to optimize for. Remember not to get bogged down in the moment. Let your life hacks live for you, and not you for your life hacks.