Let’s go over my year:

I can divide it chronologically into five parts:

  1. University (Jan-Apr)

  2. Figuring it out (Apr-May)

  3. FR8 Summer (Jun-Sep)

  4. Fun September (Sep)

  5. At Home (Sep-Dec)

And in order of how satisfied I am with each part:

  1. FR8 Summer

  2. Fun September

  3. University

  4. At Home

  5. Figuring it out

1. University (Jan-Apr)

The first stage of the year was finishing my bachelor of computer science at the University of Alberta. My classes ended at the beginning of April, but I had exams later in the month. In fact I only had one exam which was just a history written exam. The other two courses that I took in computer science were research courses, so there was no exam. And in my English course we just had a final project. For the first week of January, I was in Portugal with my family on a trip, and that was such an amazing trip.

2. Figuring it out (Apr-May)

Then in stage two, which is to say April to May, I was figuring it out, so to speak, which is to say not doing much and kind of feeling like shit because university was my entire life for the past four years up to that point; I had the option to do a full-ride masters in Darmstadt that I declined that summer. But yeah, at that time I was just really unsure of what I wanted and pretty depressed. You can see in the appendix that from March 29th to May 25th, I did not track any habits. It’s also worth mentioning that I injured myself in the knee in February (IT Band Syndrome) and was not running until May, which affected me very negatively. The godforsaken trip to Vancouver also happened in this time.

3. FR8 Summer (Jun-Sep)

Of course, FR8 was the highlight of the year because I was in an environment where everywhere you looked it was insanely talented, high ambition, and social; I am very happy when I interact with others, which is what FR8 allowed me to do. I did a mini-reflection on FR8 here, but I hope to reflect on it further in the future.

4. Fun September (Sep)

Fun September started off on September 1st with a trip to Estonia with my sister where we met Jan and that was amazing, even though I was sick at that time and drinking water like a maniac. Then I was in Ottawa for 10 days for my cousin’s wedding and reconnected with some friends there and biked a lot like I did the summer prior and then from the 15th to the 23rd I was back in Edmonton where I hanged out with some friends, did a nice 150 bike ride with my friend Dev, and prepared for my bike trip through the Rockies, which was from the 24th to the 29th. That was the highlight of the year because it was insanely difficult and brutal, but I survived. I also went to another wedding, which this time was in Edmonton with one of our family friends, and that was amazing. It was actually the day of the 150-kilometer bike ride, so I ate a horse.

5. At Home (Sep-Dec)

Then for the remainder of the year, I was at home working remotely for a startup and that was a big mistake. I literally knew that working remotely would not be ideal, but I still accepted the job even though I had other options. The good news is that come January, I’ll be leaving (I’m editing this in SF). On the bright side, during this period of time I spent time with family and we went to many different gatherings for Thanksgiving, Christmas, etc. I also spent a lot of time with my uncle since we went on daily walks for the better part of September to November.

Here are my goals for 2025 that I wrote in apple notes. For goals that are habits, I track them in a Google sheet. So if that goal has a corresponding entry in my habit tracker, then I won’t comment on it. You can check the appendix to see it.

  • Meditation
  • Move your neck and head while seated and stretch your lower back

    Didn’t ever really do this consciously. Sometimes when it came to my mind that I was sitting at my desk for too long, I started stretching my neck, but otherwise it wasn’t really consistent. And the most intentional way that I could do this is by planning my day a priori so that I have to take a break between deep work sessions.

  • Morning and evening schedules

    This was a fail: I did it only when I was motivated to, not with discipline.

  • Deep work

    Ditto schedules.

  • Express gratitude
  • Maintain good posture with a straight gaze

    Ditto move neck.

  • Stop drinking water before sleep

    The intent was to prevent myself from waking up to go pee in the middle of the night. And I did this with varying like levels of success. Sometimes in the evening I’d be thirsty and I’d say, well, screw it, I’m gonna go drink water because I’m thirsty, but on the whole having this in mind definitely improved my sleep.

  • Sleep from 9:00 p.m. to 5:00 a.m.

    My sleep was overall great 2025; it wasn’t perfect. Furthermore, in Finland near the summer solstice, there’s no chance of falling asleep at 9 p.m. because of the sun. So it’s more of a seasonal variation where in the winter I can easily sleep at 8 pm, but in the summer I can’t. So I don’t think there should be a specific time frame to sleep. It should just be sleep early and sleep for eight hours. And for most of the year I got that done.

  • Keep your smartphone always stored far from the desk

    Success: while at FR8 I rarely brought my phone to my desk and at home I leave it in the mudroom.

  • Enter monk mode every time you put your phone away

    Yeah, this was unrealistic.

  • No YouTube (only for educational purposes while taking notes like Hugo) or social media

    This never happened.

  • Be very selfish with your time

    Hard to quantify.

  • Bet on yourself

    Ditto selfish.

  • Connect with deep learning researchers and engineers via X

    Yes at the beginning of the year, then I lost interest in X.

  • Run marathons, even ultra-marathons

    I did both. I ran the Helsinki Marathon officially and also did a 50km ultra marathon.

  • Integrate GPT into language maintenance and flashcards

    Yes to GPT, flashcards no.

  • Record your learnings every day on RemNote

    I succeeded in saving them daily but not in practicing them.

  • Be more honest with myself and with others

    Hard to quantify, need to re-frame these goals for next year to be quantifiable.

  • Summer goals:
    • Get accepted to residency/FR8

      Yes.

    • Get accepted to the MATS program

      No (thankfully).

  • Ultimate goals:
    • Move to SF with a job in AI at SSI Inc or YC

      Was not realized.

    • Appear on the Dwarkesh podcast

      This was naive, but I will still remain as unrealistically ambitious.

Hits

  • Started this blog with weekly victories, which are a compelling way to track progress and also focus on the wins
  • Visited 6 countries
    • Portugal
    • Iceland
    • Canada
    • Finland
    • Estonia
    • US

Misses

  • I wasn’t consistent
  • Health wasn’t always my priority (three all-nighters I think)
  • My language isn’t confident/affirmative enough

Side Quests

  • Made a maximum low-effort schedule for the last sem of university which let me focus on outside projects
  • Fun software projects e.g. twtr cli

Thoughts

  • I want to do some pretty insane trips over 2026, I saw this guy on Strava do the entire northwest of France, 80 kilometers a day, and that seems pretty compelling to me
  • I want to do more programs like FR8 and found
  • Social media/internet is responsible for my lowest moments of the year
  • I will languish in the absence of people to engage with
  • On the topic of consistency, I’ve gone through many cycles of having incredible conviction in an idea which may have been born from ChatGPT or my own reflection, but then slowly losing conviction and realizing it’s not the right fit/giving, I think getting a co-founder is a possible solution

Picturing myself one year from now

  • Ironman/ultramarathoner
  • In a startup or having travelled a lot of the world
  • Made positive impact through a medium people know me for

At the end of 2026, what would disappoint you to still be true about your life?

  • Being in a meandering state where I’m not committed to anything, and I am still in exploring mode. Even though I am searching right now, doing that the entire year will not be good

If one area of your life stayed stagnant all year, which would be most dangerous?

  • Not doing everything in my power to find something which I can obsess over

Do you want 2026 to optimize more for optionality or commitment?

  • If I find something to obsess over, then I optimize for commitment, if not, I optimize for optionality by travelling the world

Next year will be the biggest so far!

Appendix

Habit Tracking Summary

Habit Count (Days) Percentage (%)
Gratitude 206 56.44%
Separate meal 199 54.52%
🚫📱🚽 195 53.42%
Pushups 193 52.88%
Auto-motivation 192 52.6%
🥶🚿 187 51.23%
👟 Exercise 185 50.68%
No social media 181 49.59%
No YouTube 180 49.32%
Review Monthly and Weekly Goals 168 46.03%
🧘 Meditation 125 34.25%
Creatine 121 33.15%
HandStand 111 30.41%
Audio Journal 63 17.26%
Spaced Repitition 52 14.25%
30 Minutes German 63 12.88%
Video 36 9.86%
Dancing 28 7.67%
📕 24 6.58%
Sauna 18 4.93%
🎹 2 0.55%

Periods Without Habit Tracking

Start Date End Date Days
2025-01-01 2025-01-10 10
2025-02-06 2025-02-09 4
2025-02-21 2025-02-26 6
2025-03-12 2025-03-12 1
2025-03-16 2025-03-17 2
2025-03-21 2025-03-26 6
2025-03-29 2025-05-25 58
2025-06-04 2025-06-04 1
2025-07-12 2025-07-15 4
2025-07-18 2025-07-20 3
2025-08-02 2025-08-02 1
2025-08-15 2025-08-16 2
2025-08-28 2025-10-06 40
2025-10-12 2025-10-14 3
2025-10-31 2025-10-31 1
2025-11-28 2025-12-01 4
2025-12-13 2025-12-13 1
2025-12-18 2025-12-22 5

Projection

Behavioral Analysis

The Engines (Drivers of Progress)

  • High-Agency Bias: You operate on a “just do things” philosophy. Your most successful periods (FR8, finding your phone) occur when you abandon permission-seeking and apply relentless, “fucking dog” persistence.
  • The Tribe Effect: You are hyper-sensitive to your environment. When surrounded by “cracked” individuals (Hugo, Nils, Elliot, Nantte), your productivity becomes exponential. You treat talent density as a life-hack.
  • Radical Self-Quantification: You use time-tracking (10-minute intervals), pre-mortems, and behavioral frameworks (CBT, Matthew Walker’s sleep science) to debug your own brain.
  • Physical-Cognitive Feedback Loop: You view physical suffering (marathons, cold exposure, 4 AM runs) as a “natural cocaine” that fuels your ability to code and learn.

The Anchors (Recurring Sabotage)

  • The “Demon-to-Dud” Cycle: You oscillate between “demon-level productivity” and “troughs of despair” characterized by 6-hour YouTube/Reddit death spirals and food-related self-punishment (fasting vs. overeating).
  • Scarcity Mindset: Despite your high potential, you often revert to being “cheap,” trading high-value time for low-value savings (e.g., the Vancouver storage blunder or agonizing over minimum-wage remote work).
  • The Comparison Trap: You view life as a “global game” but often suffer from FOMO, feeling that others (18-year-old geniuses, YC founders) are racing past you while you are “stuck in the past.”
  • Isolation Vulnerability: You claim to be asocial to work harder, but your logs admit “isolation kills me.” You often confuse “distraction extermination” with “social starvation.”

The Gold Timeline (The Best-Case Movie)

Theme: “The Uncorrelated Level of Success”

Plot Point 1: The SF Extraction

  • Month: Month 1
  • Description: You honor the Dec 23rd commitment. You quit the minimum-wage startup, delete the “latent tabs” for good, and land in San Francisco. You immediately move into a founder house where the baseline energy matches the FR8 cohort.
  • Happiness Score: 8/10

Plot Point 2: The Viral Technical Pivot

  • Month: Month 3
  • Description: Leveraging your love for education and “vibe coding,” you ship a series of DeepSeek/Transformer tutorials on FreeCodeCamp. They go viral on X, catching the attention of Andrej Karpathy or Sholto Douglas.
  • Happiness Score: 9/10

Plot Point 3: The Tufa/SSI Residency

  • Month: Month 5
  • Description: You stop “hoping and praying” and use your high agency to secure a research residency. You are no longer a “code monkey”; you are working on spatial reasoning and long-horizon planning in embodied AI.
  • Happiness Score: 9/10

Plot Point 4: The Generational Company Formation

  • Month: Month 8
  • Description: You find your “Philip Borgandov”—a co-founder who balances your volatility. You start an AI-education-travel venture that combines your three loves. You secure funding by being “the engineer they throw at the most difficult problems.”
  • Happiness Score: 10/10

Plot Point 5: The Mountain Peak Mastery

  • Month: Month 10
  • Description: To reset your nervous system, you complete a 100km mountain bike trek through the Alps. You realize your “reward function” is now fully optimized for regret minimization.
  • Happiness Score: 9/10

Plot Point 6: The “Ilya” Realization

  • Month: Month 12
  • Description: One year later, you look at your “time pie” tattoo. You have achieved “uncorrelated success” and have effectively “renamed” yourself as a major player in the AI frontier. You are no longer chasing the moving goalpost; you are setting it.
  • Happiness Score: 10/10