Life Hacking

There is nothing noble in being superior to your fellow man; true nobility is being superior
to your former self.
Ernest Hemingway

IN T ROD UC T IO N

Start Here Some Important Heuristics

This is a fairly comprehensive The following are general principles I
snapshot of how I run my life and use at all times, and heavily influence
what I’m doing to improve it. (For most of what’s on this page.
everything else I work on, see Impact
Projects.)  Incremental progress – Focus on
I’m a very different person than the what you can do next to
Alex of ten years ago. I’m more improve, not on how far you are
organized, healthy, productive, and from some ideal.
active than I’ve ever been. I continue  Protect attention – Attention is a
to crank the wratchet of growth, ridiculously valuable resource
though, of course, it has much further and should be treated as such.
to turn. Reduce cognitive load, reduce
distractions, reduce mental
There is a lot of compressed material clutter, etc.
here; I could write multiple blog posts  Keep it simple – Directly related
on many of these topics.1 In the spirit to attention, simplicity is
of ‚perfection is the enemy of done‛, I extremely important.
created this page.  Use habits – Habits are ‚free‛
I hope you find this page useful. I try behavior. As in, a solid habit is
to only include items that I’m executed effortlessly. People
regularly using. Though, the exact who have a deep exercise
tools and systems I use at any given habit don’t need willpower to
time are in a state of flux. exercise, it just happens.
 Busyness is a lack of priorities –
Last updated September 2017. Busyness is a choice. Usually,
busyness is completely
unnecessary and is simply a
failure to prioritize.
 O V E RV IE W
Priorities – Where to start? At the
beginning! Here I lay the groundwork
for everything else that follows.
Sleep, Fuel, and Exercise – Covering
health basics, setting the stage,
increasing energy levels, etc.
Basically, squeezing out any obvious
life-improving stuff.
P RIO RIT IE S
Overview
I periodically step back and think
about why I do what I do, and what I
want to do, from the high-level, big-
picture stuff, and all the way down to
the mundane like what I eat for
breakfast, what I do on my ‘breaks’,
and how much time I spend reading.
You need to know what you want to
do in life and why you want to do it.
A word of caution: I think people are
quite bad at setting goals, for a variety
of reasons. If you’re going to
explicitly set goals and work to
achieve them, make sure they’re
things you actually want. Consider all
of the consequences of pursuing and
achieving your goals.
Well-Being – Taking care of mental
health and emotions.
Money – Money can be a huge source
of stress in life. Being on top of your
finances feels great.
Productivity and Organization –
Tools for being more productive and
organized.
Tools
Reviews – Every year I perform a
thorough review of my life and make
plans for the upcoming year. See
my 8,760 Hours guide for more
details. Every quarter I do a shorter,
less formal review.
Descriptive, Normative, and
Prescriptive Questions– My
preferred method of setting general
life goals is to explicitly ask three
important questions in all areas of my
life:
 Descriptive – Where do you stand
right now?
 Normative – What do you want?
What does your ideal life look
like?
 Prescriptive – What do you need
to do to move from the present
reality toward where you want
to be?
This is basically what my 8,760
Hours guide attempts to do.
Set CSI Approach Goals2 – When
getting a bit more granular and
defining specific projects, good goals
are:
 Challenging – Not too easy, and
not impossible.
 Specific – You know exactly what
you have to do, and what
‚done‛ looks like.
 Immediate – You can take action
on them right now.
 Approach – They’re things you’re
drawn to do, as opposed to
avoidance goals, which are
things you don’t want to do.3
SL E EP
Overview
Sleep is by far one of my most
important things to get under control,
given how much energy levels affect
quality of life, and given how much
time is spent asleep.
Shaving an hour off your sleep
requirements gains you 365 hours a
year to do stuff. Improving the
quality of existing sleep can turn a
thousand tired, unproductive hours
into fun, energetic, productive hours.
Tracking Priorities
I use several tools for tracking my
goals and life in general.
WorkFlowy – WorkFlowy is my
general-purpose note taker, project
tracker, and priorities organizer.
Current Life Status spreadsheet – I
use a Google Spreadsheet to track
around 150 life metrics.4 I use as
many concrete metrics as possible,
though these are still many subjective
ratings like ‚My workspace is
uncluttered (rating: 6/7)‛. These
metrics, sorted by life area, give me
an overall ‚life score‛, as well as
scores by area, which is especially
useful for identifying areas that need
the most attention.5
I generally consider this a top
priority.
Sleep Goals
1. Do all the obvious things to
improve sleep quality.
2. Eliminate the obvious things that
disrupt/reduce sleep quality.
3. In all things, experiement/track.
Ensuring Good Sleep
Avoid the Obvious Sleep
Disruptors – Don’t drink a lot of
alcohol, don’t eat large meals right
before bed, don’t have caffeine past
mid-afternoon, don’t watch super-
intense movies right before bed, etc.
Melatonin – I take less than one
milligram roughly a half-hour before
bed. Really helps me fall asleep
quickly and maintain a 24-hour sleep
cycle. Unclear whether it helps me
sleep better.6
Darkness – My room at night is quite
dark. I unplug as many light sources
as possible, and I cover up the ones I
can’t avoid.7
Unwind Time – Roughly between
when I take my melatonin and when I
want to fall asleep, I try to unwind
and relax as much as possible, usually
by reading fiction on my Kindle, often
in bed.
Consistent Length – I always aim for
7.5 hours of sleep, though
occasionally alow longer sleep if it
seems necessary.8 While I do strive for
consistency in when I go to bed and
wake up, I find locking in
the duration of sleep better than
forcing a consistent schedule.
White Noise – I have a white-noise
generator that fills my room with
background noise (sounds a lot like a
fan) while I sleep.
Alarm Clock Placement – Related to
the above, I always put my alarm
clock (usually the same old iPhone
that’s playing background noise) on
the other side of the room, so that I
have to get out of bed to turn it off.
Absolutely No Snoozing – When I do
use one, I avoid snoozing my alarm
clock as much as humanly possible.
Getting out of bed immediately when
you wake up (or are woken up by an
alarm clock) feelsshitty at first, but
always makes me feel better in the
long-run.
F.lux – A free Mac app that takes out
blue light from your display at night.
I also generally try to avoid using my
computer or other devices for at least
the hour before I go to bed.
Good Equipment – You use it every
night, so spend the time to find the
mattress, pillow, and sheets that work
for you! I use a memory-foam pillow
well-suited to the fact that I’m a side-
sleeper.
Exercise – Exercise also has a big
impact on sleep. See
the Exercise section for details on that.
Tracking Sleep
Spreadsheet – I use a simple
spreadsheet to track the basics of my
sleep schedule: when I fall asleep,
when I wake up, and how long I
slept.
Apple Watch – I’m currently
experimenting with the AutoSleep
app that combines movement data
and heart-rate data from my Apple
Watch to quantify the quality of my
sleep.9
 F UEL
Overview
Much like sleep, I consider what I eat
to be one of the most important things
to get under wraps, given how much
it affects the rest of my life, in terms
of time investment, financial
investment, and energy levels.
In general, I try to eat as healthy as
possible. I enjoy cooking when I want
to invest the time, but for most meals
I’m fine with quick and easy. I’m also
vegetarian.
Supplements10
Creatine – Good for my climbing and
apparently this is especially good for
vegetarian brains. More
info here and here.
BCAAs – Shortly before, during, and
after intensive exercise (usually
climbing), I add some BCAAs to my
water bottle. I find it very effective at
reducing muscle soreness post-
exercise.
Enzymes – I take two of these before
eating certain meals, to reduce upset
to my digestive system.
L-Theanine – I add L-Theanine to my
morning coffee. It’s a tea leaf extract
that may help reduce stress and
anxiety, and reduce ‚caffeine jitters.‛
Liquids
Soylent – A liquid meal replacement.
I usually drink Soylent for one meal a
day (often breakfast). Quick, easy,
and dirt cheap.
Power Smoothies – As the website
says, ‚A simple, cheap, convenient,
ethical, healthy, tasty meal.‛ Doesn’t
get much better than that! I use
a Magic Bullet with a large blender
attachment (though really, any
blender will do) and stockpile all the
non-fresh ingredients, buying fresh
ingredients on demand.
Coffee – My beverage of choice.
Though, I usually limit myself to one
a day. Beans sourced via a Blue
Bottle subscription (previously Tonx).
Ground using a Hario Skerton, made
using an Aeropress.
Water – And that’s pretty much it…
Solids
“Classic Alex” recipes – I have a few
staple classic recipes, mostly for
breakfast and dinner, that are quick,
easy, healthy, tasty, and easy to create
variety.11
Other than that there’s the occasional
eating out, more inspired cooking, or
dinner at a friend’s place.
Specific Diets
Vegetarian – I’ve been vegetarian for
over ten years. Despite being a fairly
active person, and thus needing to eat
more protein, I’ve never found it
difficult to get enough protein.
Ketogenic Diet – I periodically do
multi-week ketogenic diet sessions,
which is essentially an ultra-low carb
diet. While often used for weight loss
or for specific medical reasons like
epilepsy, I do it for the physical
energy and cognitive boosts it gives
me.
E XE RC ISE
Overview
Exercise, like sleep and food, is
extremely important. I want my
exercise to be easy to do, fun, and
time-efficient if at all possible.
Exercise is high-priority, given how
much it affect energy levels and
general well-being.
What I Do
Climbing – I climb because climbing
is fricken amazing and all humans
should be required to try it. I love it. I
revel in the fact that it also tones my
body in pleasant ways, and
I enjoy doing it. Feels like cheating. I
aim for three indoor bouldering
sessions a week.
Tracking Fuel
In general, I don’t track what I eat. I
have systems and habits in place that
ensure I eat mostly healthy food most
of the time.
Occasionally I do short bursts of more
detailed tracking to identify any
problems. For example, I recently
tracked all of my caloric intake in
detail over a two-week period. Useful
insight: I wasn’t eating enough given
my height/weight/exercise levels.
Running – I enjoy a solid 5km run. I
generally prefer going for distance
rather than speed. My favorite is trail
running, though that’s not as easy to
make happen. Furthest I’ve run to-
date is a half-marathon.
Hiking – I love a good nature hike.
As with running, I enjoy trying to
get far.
Walking – My target is 8,000+ steps a
day, tracked using my watch. This is
accomplished mostly by walking
to/from work and to/from the
climbing gym.
Sprints – Two minute light jog, thirty
second full-on sprint, repeat until
dead. Makes me feel completely
awful for half an hour, but amazing
after that. Repeat two or three times a
week. Super fast and easy. Bonus
points if you take a post-sprint cold Tracking Exercise
shower.
High-Intensity Circuit Training I aim to exercise three times a week,
(HICT), i.e., 7 Minute Workouts – minimum, though more (if not too
Occasionally—in particular when intense) is preferred. My goals at the
climbing or sprints aren’t moment are more about actually
happening—I squeeze in one or two getting out and doing the exercise, so I
seven minute high-intensity circuits. only track my exercise frequency
Details here. using Beeminder.

W E LL -B E ING

current thoughts, sources of friction,

Overview sources of resistance, etc. in my mind,
and then dealing with each one, one
Subjective well-being (SWB) is a fancy
at a time, for at least five minutes. I do
way of saying ‚How much are you
this in my Thoughts log, mentioned
enjoying life?‛ I’m using it here to
above.
also generally mean things like ‚how
Cognitive Behavior Therapy – I think
is your mental clarity‛ or ‚are there
CBT is great and has several useful
always things weighing on your
insights/ideas, such as:
mind‛ or ‚are you feeling cognitive
 The way you interpret events
friction in your life.‛ This seems
has a huge impact on your mood
important. :)
and happiness.
 It is very easy and very common
Tools to interpret events in incorrect,
negative-slanted ways.
Meditation – I do 20 minutes
 There are quite simple
of mindfulness meditation a day
techniques for addressing these
using Headspace, which I highly
common misinterpretations.
recommend (the practice and the
app).12
Focusing – This refers to the specific Tracking Well-Being
concept/technique from Eugene
I find it hard to get concrete, useful
Gendlin. I basically think of it as very
assessments of well-being.
intentional, structured introspection.13
Nonetheless, here are a few things
Regular Brain-Dumping – I have a
that I’m currently measuring:
technique for dumping all of the
Beeminder – This isn’t for directly
tracking well-being, but tracking
things that I’m pretty sure improve
M ON EY
Overview
Money troubles are a huge source of
stress for many people. I try keep my
finances as absolutely painless and
effortless to manage as possible.
Being on top of one’s finances
feels amazing.
I keep it simple. A few heuristics are
good enough for most situations:
 Get rid of debt as quickly as
possible; only take on debt if
absolutely necessary.
 Don’t spend more than you earn.
 Live within your means.
 Build savings – long-term
investments, emergency funds,
buffer funds.
 Know how much a dollar is
actually worth to you, and frame
purchases/expenses in terms of
what you could get instead with
that money.14
my well-being. For example, I use
Beeminder to track my meditation
minutes and exercise.
Tools
You Need A Budget (YNAB) – A
budgeting app. It’s only semi-
automatic, so it does require some
effort every month to categorize
transactions. That said, I really love
the budgeting implementation.
Betterment – Super-simple investing.
Credit Karma – Free weekly credit
reports.
Automatic deposits – I also have
automatic investing/savings set up so
that every month, after my paycheck
comes in, it’s immediately withdrawn
from my account, so I hardly notice it.
Tracking Money
YNAB is where I do most of this. I
review my expenses every month and
make sure I’m okay with where my
money is going.
 P ROD UC T IV ITY

Flow – While this is less a

Overview ‚technique‛ and more a ‚state of
being‛, being able to get into a state of
I can’t possibly fit all of my thoughts
flow is an extremely useful skill. A
on productivity in this small space—I
skill I have not mastered, but have
use too many small productivity
made significant improvements.
techniques and hacks to list, but here
Don’t Be Bored – Being bored is the
are some of the key ones.
worst. Sometimes you have to do
boring things. Usually if I just do the
Favorite Techniques non-boring things first, I can ride off
that success and motivate myself to
Deep Work – Set aside large chunks
do the other things as well. Try make
of time with zero distractions or
boring things less boring by turning it
interruptions to do focused, high-
into a game or into a challenge. Ex:
value work. For me, this usually
‚Finish this crap task in 15 minutes.‛
involves waking up early and Glance at my Procrastination
working from a coffee shop before Equation poster – For me, this serves
heading into the office. See Cal
primarily as a trigger of thought
Newport’s excellent book Deep
patterns like ‚oh, right,
Work for details.
procrastination is a thing that I
Dashes – Start a 5 minute timer and
can attack with a whole bunch of
work on the thing for five minutes.
techniques…‛:
Frog Eating – An idea from Eat That
Frog. I always try to keep my eye on
what my biggest ‘frogs’ are—my most Tracking Productivity
important tasks that I’m likely
It’s hard to get a concrete metric that
avoiding doing, or
accurately captures productivity. The
even thinking about—and eat them as
following methods have generally
quickly as possible. This applies to
worked for me:
both work and life stuff.
Pomodoros – I don’t use pomodoros
Percentile Feedback – I sometimes
as much as before, but still a very
use a custom percentile feedback
handy tool when used at the right
graph of my MIRI-related work.
time. Pick one thing to work on, sent
a 25 minute timer, and work on only
Tracking Pomodoros – I once tracked
that thing until the timer rings.
all my pomodoros for an entire year,
hitting just over 5,000.
 O RG AN IZ A T IO N

can answer those questions in 30

Overview seconds. If not, it means my system is
broken and something isn’t
As with productivity, I can’t possibly
sufficiently organized, requiring
fit all of my thoughts on organization
investigation and correcting.
here, so I’ll just list some of the key
ideas I find most useful.
Tracking Organization
Favorite Techniques It’s hard to find concrete metrics for
measuring organization. My general
The Three Categories – General
heuristics are things like:
principle: everythingis either in use, in
storage, or decoration.
 How quickly/effortlessly can I
Digital over Physical – Everything is
find any bit of stored
as digitized as possible, with multiple
information?
secure backup solutions. I’ve basically
 How quickly/effortlessly can I
done away with all paper in my life
find any tool/device/thing that I
(except for a paper notebook I
own?
occasionally use.) Physical documents
 How many ‚unprocessed‛ items
that I must keep (e.g. tax forms) are
do I have? (Loose papers,
stored in a GTD-style filing box.
unscanned documents, files on
The 30 Seconds Test – A good test of
my desktop.)
whether my life is organized or not is
 How many physical (stored)
whether I can find anything in 30
items do I have? Do I need
seconds. Need a red pen, an iPhone
them? Can I get rid of any of
cable, or a yearly review template? I
them?
can produce any of these in 30
 Have I been wasting any mental
seconds. Want to know the status of
cycles thinking or worrying
my current projects, where I’ll be
about where stuff is, trying to
exactly 15 days from now, or what
find stuff, or misplacing stuff?
line 23 was on last years tax return? I