productivity workflow 2026

so at the top level I'm currently working on a software company with my friend I graduated two years ago in Computer Engineering and I have moved out to California about 4 months ago to work on this company with him fulltime so I have to have a system that makes me productive consistently and performing at a high level I'm also taking the Japanese language proficiency exam in July of 2025 which sounds like a far ways away for a language like that it's coming up kind of quick both Eric and I have a marathon coming up he's

racing in December while I'm racing in January I'm currently living out of a van for reasons that I'll explain on my J SKS Channel coming up I've been working on my acting skills a lot if you guys didn't know I was in a movie so yeah I want to act a lot more once that comes out so I'm saving up to buy a farm in Wyoming or South Dakota and yeah I just want a humble modest life but until then I kind of have to live this high octane constant performance lifestyle so so I need

a productivity system that's flexible and reliable and works in all these areas that mean a lot to me so yeah so that's the day today or whatever and I think macroscopically what I'm really trying to do is be fulfilled in like pretty much every area of my life like I want to be spiritually fulfilled like mentally fulfilled physically fulfilled and I need a system that promotes like my ability to thrive in each of those areas and of course every everyone's different so just use me as an example and not as an instruction manual if you

have anything to add for sure let me know Grandma is trying to improve and like take criticism um so yeah that sounds cool to you let's get right into the video I'm really glad to announce that Zen Planner 2025 is now out I've collected so much feedback from the 2024 group thank you guys so much for helping me out 2025 one is way way way way better and yeah I'm like way happier with it and it feels like a finished product um and yeah so now we have hyperlinking and we have better questions a better

layout it looks better and I also included a cheat sheet at the end with notes from every single relevant book that might want to hear about so yeah it's currently on sale for Black Friday the Link's in the description thanks so I wanted to show you guys what I do every day because I don't really do that much and it should be fairly quick and I think it'll help you have a better understanding of how everything works together so my van has been unexpectedly in the shop for the past week so I've just been sleeping

at the office I'm kind of weird in that I either wake up extremely early or extremely like I'm completely nocturnal for some reason I've never had like a normal sleep schedule but yeah so I've been doing this thing called 750 words it's like a journal that you start in the morning and you just fill out 750 words where it's a brain dump and it's flow of conscience like I said I've been living in a van and being able to do this in my van on like my laptop without having to write is really clutch cuz

I don't have a desk I'm pretty sure it's technically supposed to do it in a journal but yeah this is called 750 words so once Eric gets here we're going to go ahead and start our first work session of the day this is the most focused time for us so this is when the highest leverage things get done I get a lot of questions about what I listen to while I work and the answer is usually nothing I just listen to static and I have headphones in for pavoni reasons either that or I'm using noise

cancelling earbuds and just having them on but without anything playing so we both have marathons coming up like I said and after work we go ahead and go train for that we just are following a schedule from Runner's World and yeah things have been going really well for that actually I don't really listen to music or anything uh while I run I used to like 2 years a go but nowadays I haven't listened to anything and uh it makes it Go by way faster actually like once you get used to that and I feel like

it's really good in order to listen to your breath so yeah so afterwards we usually just come back and chill for a little bit it's usually draining like working a lot and running really hard so yeah it's like not complete work throughout the day so right now for my Japanese I already learned 3,000 kanji so I'm just working on building my vocabulary and my grammar and how I'm doing that is just through sentence mining plus ankey so sneak in dinner during this time and then it's just time for bed before bed I always read but

yeah that's literally like all I do most of the days so this is how I've come to think about it pretty much I have 100 soldiers that I can delegate to different things and personally I can probably only fight three battles realistically so I have these ones are all like hunkered in and they've dug trenches so I'm just on maintenance mode for this stuff um and these are the most important things that I'm working on right now this one will be done on January and once this one is done I can focus on other stuff

like I'll probably be doing lifting so this will switch out with this and I'll be on maintenance mode for running and I'll probably do more like jump ring and stuff like that until I get my lifting goals again because I it's just too much to do everything right now most of my energy is going to my startup of course uh doco and um that will probably take a good amount more time uh while we're growing it right now this is like the most important stage of the company and then I do have this Japanese this

is not as important as this this is more for my personal fulfillment and I've been studying it for enough time where I just want to get it done with so I can move on and use this 10% which for me this is a lot like um on on other stuff as well so uh yeah that's kind of like how I've thought about it I think eventually that this once this is done I'll end up doing this and once this is done I'll end up doing this and then um yeah I think that this like it's

just a Bas time habit for me so I don't know if it really counts as one of the 100 soldiers but it is uh I do have a reading goal every year so yeah so with all this I just use Google Calendar it's nothing fancy um I just when I have to do stuff and then I personally prefer it because I can use it on pretty much every platform and yeah it just works so how I prefer to do this is to have a virtual to-do list and then have a physical do list so the

the virtual to-do list is stuff that I'll decide that I have to do or whatever like this right and then I'll add that to the do list for that day so in the morning I just approach the Todo list and then I figure out what I have to do for that day and then I add it to the do list I prefer this hybrid approach because humans tend to do stuff that'll make them feel good so I think having a du list that makes you feel as good as possible when you cross something off physically

is quite important and then having a virtual one is really useful because you can just use it anywhere so yeah this is kind of my current implementation and uh it's been very good for me so so similar to my to-do and doist system I found that I really prefer a hybrid system for like getting my stuff done so that's like a nice combination of analog and digital so what's important for me is having a system that's like really low friction and is easily indexable and searchable and yeah ideally like we're able to create connections and

reflect and just have a way to think back on stuff and remind ourselves of stuff that has happened in the past so for different things I prefer taking a different approach I operate in several different domains like I said at the start so with like Japanese or acting for example I tend to use like my e in or like my content consumption devices a lot more whereas something like coding or like any more like abstract skills like it's mainly digital so when I was in university I did a lot more like PDF markups and like

reading and annotating slides so I still do PDFs on here but like nowadays that's not really something that I do as much um like when I was doing geny like the geny series this is what I did it on and it's like a really nice system where it's like you can mark it up right here and I have it set up so that this will just automatically sync to this and if you want to see how that whole interaction Works uh I you should just check out my 20202 video I also do like having this

to like fill out documents and stuff like being able to write on something is quite useful actually for me it makes sense to do an analog habit system so for right here I just have like what I did that day like a highlight of that day and for here it's like the The Habit tracking and for me it makes sense for a few reasons so for one humans do stuff that they think will make them feel good and for me at least Crossing stuff off physically makes me feel good so that's one reason two it's

really easy to go overboard with the number of things that you're tracking when it's a digital system so this physically limits the number of crap you have to do in a month I also prefer to have something that I can look back on and it kind of gives me more momentum when I'm physically Crossing stuff off and I can see the progress over time and also I lost my 700 day ankey streak and I think the the count where it's like 700 was quite um bad cuz it makes sense to just have a heat map

like I didn't study Japanese for a year after I lost that streak and it was super depressing so yeah that's like something that I'm trying to avoid now this is sort of the meat and potatoes of the whole system this is doom emac doom emac is a variation of regular emac and has dim bines and it also has a bunch of add-ons so I mainly use this thing called org mode in Doom emac org mode is like another aspect of emac and then I also use this thing called orome which is like an extension of

or mode so it's like two layers up and uh yeah it's very similar to obsidian if you guys know what that is where it's like a second brain type of system so if we go ahead and just load up um like for example this is a book that I'm taking notes on um this is like the main Hub right so this is like kind of like an index and then I can like go ahead and click on any one of these nodes and uh they're all linked together and actually you can visually see like this

in a table or like visually so these are my notes from a while back actually but like for example if you like click on this for example right you can kind of see how everything is connected so like for example these two are connected and yeah so this is a really powerful system because not only can you move around which is super useful you can also kind of see how everything visually connects and uh yeah this is all free um it's not like the most straightforward thing to set up but once you do set it

up or you just use obsidian it's been a an extremely rewarding experience note taking wise so how you create a node is this like this so say that I'm in like the main one and then I can go ahead and split it actually and then in order to find one I just or in order to create one I just go to theine and I say create the node um just say it's that and then I can just go control see you see and then it goes over here and then this is like the top heading

and this is like all the subheadings or whatever right and then I rate it over here and then I just have to add it over here so say that I want to add it just go inserts and yeah know right and then this reloads and then uh cool so the the great thing about the system is that everything is just connected via git so like I can even find the notes on my phone cuz most stuff nowadays has the ability to use git so yeah like it's a my preferred system I like it more than

notion because I have like complete control over the files and yeah it's like they recently pulled notion support out of like a country and like that's not going to happen to me me so I get a lot of questions about my Mac um this is my work computer we're currently building an app and of course to build an IOS app you have to use Mac OS so that's why I'm using a Macbook um if you're wondering I have all my DOT files Linked In the description down below so if you want like the wallpaper or

the icons or anything um you got them all in here for free looking at your panels um so I guess just going in order we'll start off with Firefox I'll have to shout out Eric for showing me this thing called side Berry that's like the main upgrade for my Firebox my Firefox it basically puts all the tabs into the side so it's no longer a cluttered mess and I have categorize them so these are my coding related tab locations and here are my personal tabs and my Japanese tabs and it's very easy to jump back

and forth and uh yeah such a sick setup up and this is a custom theme that I put so pretty much everything I do like 90% of the crap I do nowadays is all in VI um I'm one of those annoying Vim guys so there's like vim and then there's neovim and Neo is like the cool version of Vim with a bunch of add-ons um so like for example right I is right there that's that's neim one of my neim add-ons um and I have all these add-ons right here guys if you want them all

set up I've done that for you just have to copy and paste them in and it's awesome so you can like show the files you can GP the files you can rip GP the files so I'm like ooh what file had test in it oh right here it says test and test the great thing about Vim guys is that you do not have to use your mouse like ever and it's like way more fast to be honest for me it's super hard to watch a programmer not use Vim because I'm like super elitist so when

I see them like using their Mouse I kind of throw a little uh yeah so I highly recommend it so I'm currently using Grove box as my theme I think it's the best on the eyes it looks so nice very cozy for me very nostalgic I like it quite a bit um in Vim or in Kitty I mainly use that with turmo so if you use turmux you can split the terminals very easily on my personal laptop I'm more of a window manager type of guy so I don't really use t-o on that but on

my macintoshes where it's not a window manager um I've tried your buy I didn't not like it that pretty much allows you to jump in forth between terminals without having to use a mouse very easily um yeah t-o plus MVM is so sick you guys it is hard to go back I have an LSP setup right now so it's like if I want to call a function or something it's like that's a variable use app right that is a function and it'll tell you like the stuff and stuff and they'll gives you the warnings and

whatnot awesome Discord I have my own private server with like a bunch of random crap just like inspo like if I find something cool it's like wow so cool and I post it right here like wow wow here's my super secret YouTube channel do not click on that and yeah like recipes wow best thumbnails these are like my favorite thumbnails I feel like I don't know probably a better piece of software for this for like colle random info but it's a cross platform which is super important to me so this thing is called hidden bar

um let's you hide stuff yeah it's really useful cuz I don't want any of this crap up here bam awesome so I think this is kind of my current understanding of how this stuff interacts mental health and physical health they are are interlined of course and what you eat or whatever affects your mental and your mental affects your physical so if you're like in a bad head space you're physically going to feel tired and if you physically eat like crap your mental is going to be like crap I think overall this is good but they

serve this thing called spirituality and to me spirituality is like what everything points towards so this is like the sun right this is the garden whatever all right one one of them is the soil one of this is the tree this is all working towards this this is what gives it meaning and orientation this is why this stuff exists in the first place and this is a pretty big question I'm not going to answer for it to you but for me like figuring this out like gave meaning in times where there was not anything to

look forward to so when I say spirituality I don't necessarily mean religion I mean like being connected to a greater purpose and when you do so I think it makes it way way easier to derive meaning from suffering which is like the most important thing I would say in like existing is like being able to figure out how you respond to that and if you're able to like make that a positive thing for you um like that's like what will enable like you to persevere through everything you're trying to do pretty much um I got

this like leather cover thing from this Turkish company I'm not over the moon with it like I don't know if you can see the buttons but this one is definitely not in alignment with this one and it's really upsetting for me I don't know how you can charge like $100 for a piece of leather and mess that up so I'm currently using a madori like notebook um I really like the paper in this thing actually it's quite nice don't look at that um yeah this is my notebook for 2025 I've just been experimenting with all

of crap in this one I actually bought it by accident like a little bit ago so yeah yeah this is the kind of the the setup for right now these are the riding utensils I usually bring with me um rring 600 this has an upgraded cartridge this has a Easy Flow 9000 um this thing is definitely like running out of ink soon I don't know why that why that is rode so well just now actually and yeah like um the spring in here fell out like several years ago so it doesn't really work like as

it's supposed to anymore but uh at least it's still wres maybe I'll try to look into like a replacement spring at some point so usually in this notebook I'll actually like leave a fountain pen right here but I kind of have this cool dream or Vision where like I want to give this to people that I meet in new places and have them WR in it and then I feel like I cannot give a fountain pen to someone off the street so hence hence like a normal pen and a pencil pretty much I checked I've

had this pencil since February 2015 so it's almost 10 years old now which is crazy this pencil has been uh literally everywhere with me so yeah go to pit mechanical pencil that's for sure so I'm currently dailying the RO trink 600 fountain pen this is a vintage fountain pen this one specifically is like the third or fourth generation one with these little buttons that prevent the cap from becoming loose over time this one has a um a medium tip yes medium tip it rides like a nail say that here's an IG instruments the 9 um

it's a really great mechanical pencil it's basically a remake of the Pentel p25 and I have a05 millimeter one um yeah this is stainless steel and with the nuring this also has like a nice cheap tip so if I ever bend it it's like a $2 replacement versus on like a roaching 600 where it's like this whole ordeal it's got these Journal has like scratched notebooks this is a hobonichi graph one and this is a Muji Muji one uh I've been meaning to talk about this watch on my channel for a while now it's a

Garmin Instinct 2s um I'm pretty into watches like I had a G-Shock when I was a kid and I would say this meets my needs pretty well it kind of reminds me of my old Pebble um it came out in 2022 actually but it's supposed to have a version three coming up pretty soon here the mainly bad things about it is that it's using a single band G PS like if you have Asian notifications you have to have the Asian model or else it won't show up but then if you hit the Asian model it

gets updates slower the band is kind of coming apart right here other than that though I mean it's a pretty good watch and I like how it's not super colorful and I always have it connected to my phone on do not disturb mode and then basically I really like the Garmin app well I don't really like it but it's really useful so I like check being able to check my like statistics and I feel like the easier you make to I feel like the easier you make stuff to track the more likely you are to

care about it so everything is done automatically I usually track my VO2 max and then I also personally like how there's like this health stat that tells you like your Fitness age um so yeah and then I also have like a widget on my home screen that tells me it so it's really easy easy just to go back and forth like so the widget is called Peak um it's a little buggy sometimes but it's all right and then I've been running with these Nova blast fivs um they're like once I broke them in they were

good but it took a little while to break them in but once I yeah they're okay now I'm not super Blown Away by them or anything but um yeah you know I use it in Junction with this wise smart scale the this one has definitely worked better than every other smart scale that I've had like the app is actually quite good and it automatically connects to Apple health so you it just automatically will show up in the widget that is right here um so yeah that's kind of like my running setup I guess I remember

something extremely important this watchh does not have a badmington tracking mode so I have to use the pickle ball tracking mode how is it possible that a international company like Garmin does not have a renowned sport such as badminton hello hello furthermore Garin I'm not really fully convinced that the way that you track strength training on this is the way that it should be done as in it's not very good so like I said I am pretty into watches um I brought these along with me but I pretty much always use this one for like

Lally 90% of the days um this is like my vintage one from the USSR like the Soviet Union I think it's from bellarus it took me like two and a half months to get it I'm a really big fan of like date moon or moon face watches and yeah I think it's rather classy I like wearing it with like blue buttonup shirts um this one's a quartz watch cuz I don't know if I want like a 50 or 60y old automatic watch this is my Omega speed master automatic um I got to celebrate turning 21

and also hitting 400k subs and also running my first marathon um it's like considered for me it's kind of like a family heirloom I'm normally not into like super expensive stuff like this um but like like I said I've always been into watches and this is like the watch that got me into watches like for real um so yeah I figured if I can like go on like dates and stuff with like my future wife while wearing this watch then at least it'll be there for like all the good moments and I can pass it

on