Tracking tools and dive-deep for personal growth

My most recent published article was an explanation of tracking my activities and goals on a daily basis. Though I may not have planned to publish it, I garnered much positive feedback as well as many asking me about the various tools and mechanisms I used. In this article, I will dive deep and thoroughly explain in detail about my daily routine and intend to answer the as many questions I have received throughout.

?? The number one most asked question was: how one could implement such a process into their life? The easiest place to start is to use the following OKR document as a template and adapt it for your own personal goals. To do so, simply download the file below with your Google account and then you’ll be able to edit it accordingly.

Once you have your own spreadsheet, begin identifying what you intend to learn in broad categories. Those categories will be the?Objectives?in the spreadsheet. After which,?explore and discover the best resources that can help you achieve your goals.?It could be anything such as a newsletter, video channels, a sport membership, podcasts and so on. Each of those data entries will be one of the?Keys?in the table. Finally, the?Results, which will be measured with numbers and percentages. For example, if your key is to exercise twice a week, the yearly objective should be a percentage based on X/(52*2) where X = the number of occurrence, 52 = the number of weeks and 2 = the frequency. Note, it doesn't have to be frequency-based keys, but can also be a number of books to read or a sum of cash you want to invest. Allow your imagination flow and have fun with it.

The last part of the mechanism is to make it a part of your routine. There are many methods, but what worked for me was the well-known atomic habit's stacking method. This terminology is from the book?Atomic Habits ?by James Clear, which I highly recommend. In a nutshell, to build habits that sticks, it must be obvious, attractive, easy and most of all satisfying. You make more progress reading for five minutes, than not at all. Going all-in is the best way to give up, so start small, but repeat the effort more often. That way it will become part of your daily routine and you won't feel the pain. Most feedback I received outlined people’s fear and how these habits would take up too much of their time. In my case, the tracking takes a maximum of 30 minutes per week. Every Sunday, I look at the spreadsheet and identify three objectives that I wish to focus on during the week. Three actions a week is not daunting and is easy to remember and by that you never feel overwhelmed. This is most likely not the only way, and may not be for you, however it most certainly worked for me, and I see it as a great success.

Once you have all the Objectives as percentage, simply calculate their average and compare it with the year's completion to check if you are on track with your goals.

?? The second most received question was regarding the tools used. I will keep the same categories as my previous article for clarity and referencing:

• As you are aware now, I use a Google spreadsheet for tracking. That might not be the most optimal tool compared to others, such as?Notion , however I like the flexibility, simplicity and accessibility on various devices.
• I also use Google spreadsheet for my finances where on a monthly basis I update my income, spending and portfolio updates. Daily, I use?Bankin' ?to automatically categorise my spendings. I like the simplicity to use, and it provides me the numbers that I want when I need it.
• For the health tracking system, I use?Google Fit ?and?Xiaomi MiBand ?for sports, steps and weight. This may not be entirely accurate, but I look at this as a guideline rather than scientific accuracy. I value more regularity over intensity, I am not looking for performance, but much rather my overall well-being.
• Regarding my language learnings, I have been using?Duolingo ?for several years. I know this tool is not liked by everyone, but the gamification and repetition work well with. If anyone wants to follow me on it, use?this link ?and we can challenge each other! Additionally, I utilised a few courses on Udemy and have registered for 1:1 class with?Berlitz .
• I use?GoodReads ?for tracking both the books and graphics novels. The UI is not super flashy, but it has all the functionality I need to keep track of everything I have read.
• For movies and television series, I have been using??SeriesGuide ?for many years. It tracks my views and keep me up to date with the latest releases.
• My podcast are all in?Google Podcast. it is simple but I don't like the lack of stats and only kept 100 episode in history... I will be looking for something else.
• My maps are stored in?Google Maps . Every time I receive a recommendation for a cool place, I add it to my maps and pin it with a personal colour code (cool things to do, restaurants, coffee shops etc.). This way, when I hang around in a neighbourhood, I can always find good spots to hang out. The following image is an example of my map of Central Paris with the 5-color code.

?? Next, we move onto the break-down of my financial portfolio. For personal privacy, I won't display actual figures, but will explain more in detail about my diversified strategy and the tools I used:

• ?? Cash: I hold both EUR, GBP that I store with?Revolut ,?N26 ?and?HSBC . This is my safety net, but also holding for future investment. I split my fixed expenses and daily expense in several accounts to easily budgeting.
• ?? Crypto: My allocation is ~75% Bitcoin, ~20% Ethereum and ~5% others. I use?Coinbase ?for a Buy-and-Hold strategy and both?Nexo ?/?BlockFi ?for staking. I don't trade crypto, I hold it.
• ?? REIT: I use?Wiseed ?to add a real estate dimension to my portfolio. To be more precise, it is not REIT-per-se, but real estate obligation. For simplicity in the graph, I used the well know term REIT as for Real Estate Financial Instruments.
• ?? Indices: I am a huge fan of diversification and have been investing in the?Vanguard ESG Developed World All Cap Equity Index Fund - Accumulation . This offers a diversification from large, mid, and small capped stocks of companies located in developed markets around the world. My strategy is that time in the market beats timing the market. If you are not familiar with the famous Warren Buffet's Bet, I would recommend this?episode of Planet Money
• ?? Stocks: These are my stock options from?Amazon ?and?Etoro Copy Trader . Again, I do not actively trade, I increase my position on regular period following the?DCA method.
• ?? Start-Up: These are stocks from start-up that I worked on, and now hope for the best. These are not liquid as of now, so nothing much can be done at the moment.
• ?? Commodity: I hold gold and silver on?Revolut UK . I could buy it from several places, but it’s always a safer strategy not to keep all your eggs in the same basket in case one of the companies goes bankrupt.

That should cover most of the questions I received and should give you more insights on how I am tracking everything. I built this system over the years, hence why they’re many inputs. As I am very data driven, I am positive there are more optimised ways to track your daily habits. At the end of the day, these are only tools to simplify the process.

In conclusion, I would like to share something that I learnt from reading about the lives of Bill Gates, Warren Buffet, Jeff Bezos and many others. They all agree about the compound effect in knowledge and how it is more effective to do consistent baby steps, rather than one big push. Let's say you improve something consistently by 1% every day and at the end of the year you will be 36 times better than on the first day. Big things have small beginnings.

Questions? Clarification? Improvement? Need to brainstorm an idea? Share them below in the comments — I’d love to help and hear them!

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Jeremy Labrado, Software Development Engineer at Amazon Web Services (AWS) in Berlin, Germany. Passionate about personal development, lived in France, Germany, Netherlands, NZ, UK and USA. You can find me in software development and book club meetups.