i tracked every second of my life for 30 days

there’s an old saying,

show me your friends & i’ll tell you who you are.

& it’s true, but i’ve got a better one:

show me your calendar, & i’ll tell you who you are.

after tracking every second of my life in a calendar this past month, i was reminded of how true that idea is.

so this is just a quick recap of how i did it (without hating my life), what i found out, & what i’m certain your calendar would say about you right now.

how i did it

this wasn’t my first rodeo.

for the past few years, i’ve tracked my life in a calendar pretty religiously.

i usually don’t track every second, but whenever it feels like i need it (ex. this past month) it looks something like this:

there are only 3 rules to follow if you want to do the same:

1. your calendar must be on you at all times.
   there are so many little things that happen each day, & you’ll forget most if you don’t log them within an hour or so. digital calendars work best for this.
   

2. be brutally honest with yourself.
   it sounds dumb, but your ego is gonna pull you towards sugar-coating things.
   
   for example, if you sat down to work for 2 hours but spent 1.5 hours scrolling, you can’t log it as 2 hours of work. it was 1.5 hours of scrolling, 30 minutes of work.
   
   this is non-negotiable.
   

3. if you forget to log your time in the moment, it’s still worth logging after.
   it’s better to have 80% accurate data than no data for any given day.
   
   the only caveat here is that you have to be extra conservative to account for your ego. deep down, you want to feel productive/successful. don’t let that skew your results.
   
   that means if you were logging the above example in hindsight, it would be better to assume you did more scrolling than you think. trust me on this one.
   

if you follow those steps, what you’re left with is a beautiful visualization of how you spend your time, & no more excuses.

what i learned

yesterday, i took all my data from March & looked through it myself.

then, i took some screenshots & uploaded them to AI (i use Claude) with the following prompt:

here is a full month of my time tracking data. analyze it & tell me:

1. any patterns i likely wouldn’t notice myself

2. what my calendar says about my priorities

3. any high-leverage areas of improvement

be direct. don’t soften it. treat this like a performance review from someone who has no reason to protect my ego.

the results were genuinely shocking.

Claude pointed out a few correlations that matched my gut feeling, & it also hit me with some big ones that i had missed.

things like:

• the leading indicator of how much work i do each week is how much time i spend on my weekly review/preview each Sunday

• the most important hour of my day is the first one after waking up

• i get way more done when i do work from a cafe & not from home

• Tuesdays were my least productive days by far

that last point was actually the most helpful one, because i was able to follow the causal chain all the way down to the root of the problem, like this:

i wasn’t productive on Tuesdays — why?

because i worked from home — why?

because i slept in — why?

because i stayed up late on Monday — why?

because i was doing work — why?

because i didn’t do the work i needed to do during the day — why?

because i wasn’t specific about what i had to get done — why?

because i didn’t write it down — why?

because my notebook wasn’t next to my bed like usual — why?

because i left it in my bag after my Sunday review/preview — why?

because WHO THINKS ABOUT THIS STUFF?!?

answer: i do, now that i’ve seen how much it helps.

& maybe you should, too.

here’s what your calendar would say about you

your calendar would say your actions don’t align with your desires.

& the reason for that is simple:

you aren’t paying attention to the little things.

to use my example from above, i know it seems crazy to blame a bad Tuesday on something like not taking my notebook out of my bag 2 days prior.

but i’m telling you, those little things matter a lot.

& the only way you’ll notice them is if you start paying attention to the gaps in between what you want to do, & what you actually do.

so let me ask you this:

if a stranger could see how you spent every second of your life this past month, would they think you’re serious about your goals?

if the answer is no, start paying close attention to the reason why.

show me your calendar & i’ll tell you who you are.

oh btw,

i was planning on doing a HUGE launch for my program tomorrow, but my waitlist already filled up with way more people than i expected.

so just to be fair to anyone who missed my last emails, i’ll do a _tiny one here:

the basic pitch is this:

i’ll help you cut your screen time by at least 1h/day or you pay nothing.

if that sounds like something you want, you can still grab a spot on the list!

i’ll reach out to you directly (:

some things i learned

1. what game are you playing?

   

2. the 3-2-1 rule to sleep better every night
   - stop eating 3 hours before bed
   - stop working 2 hours before bed
   - turn off screens 1 hour before bed

3. a Chinese proverb i love
   ‘a crooked tree lives its own life. a straight tree is turned into wood.’

cool stuff i found

1. i made a free life calculator that might change your life
   i used something like this a while ago, & it genuinely changed my life. so i made an updated version for you that’s way more customizable.

   

   check it out

2. an old Jeff Bezos interview you need to see
   one problem with taking advice from successful people is that the things that keep them successful are usually different from the things that made them successful.
   
   that’s why i love seeing how they thought before they reached the top.
   
   this 2.5 minute video delivers on that — it’s an absolute gem that anyone can get value from.

3. a cool building

that’s all for this week!

i’m so happy i get to work with a few of you this month — this is my dream job, & it’s an honour to help people build their lives every day.

my next YouTube video is coming out in a few days, & i already have so many more ideas of future videos to make!

as always, thank you from the heart of my bottom (or something like that) for reading these newsletters every week.

it means the world to me.

go make yourself proud this week!

~ liam (:

PS - if you have 10 seconds to help, please reply to this email with ‘hi liam!’
some of you mentioned that last week’s newsletter was sent to your promotion tab, & the best way to stop that from happening is to reply (since it shows trust).
every reply goes a long way!