Auditing My Life for Friction

Right now I'm running a YouTube channel, a second channel for coding, a software engineering degree, an agency, and a language I started from zero. Each is manageable alone, but together they leave almost no slack, and small problems start to matter. A shoot starts late, or Japanese reviews pile up after one skipped night.

My instinct is to push harder, which rarely helps. This time I'm running a lifestyle audit, in public.

Where the idea comes from

I'm borrowing this exercise from Nick Saraev, who ran one on his own life, published the results, and teaches the method inside Maker School. He credits a LessWrong article on "bughunting" as his starting point. I've rewritten the steps in my own words and run them on my own life.

Friction, defined

Friction is whatever stands between me and a thing I've already decided to do. Some examples:

• If my tripod, mic, and light live in three different places, every shoot starts with a search.
• If I only study vocabulary at my desk, every free ten minutes elsewhere goes unused.
• If I decide dinner from scratch every night, I eat whatever is closest rather than what fits my targets.

These are problems with my surroundings, and willpower does not fix them. Behavioral economists call the broader idea choice architecture: the layout of your surroundings shapes which options feel natural. Companies design offices and menus with it in mind, but few people apply it to their own day.

The fix is to rearrange things so the behavior I want takes the least effort.

How the audit works

1. List the friction. Walk through every area of life and write down every point, unfiltered.
2. Attach a possible fix to each one.
3. Score the difficulty from 1 to 10. A 1 means I could fix it in the next five minutes. A 10 means it needs a real decision or serious money.
4. Work from easiest to hardest. Quick wins build momentum, and clearing small items makes the big ones less crowded.

Steps 1 to 3 take about an hour. Step 4 stretches over weeks and works better spread out, a few items a day instead of everything in one weekend.

While listing, don't try to solve anything, and remember that writing a problem down is not a promise to fix it. People often skip listing problems because they assume naming one obligates them to act, but it doesn't.

The six prompts

Set a five-minute timer for each one and write until it rings.

• Walkthrough: replay a normal day in your head, from waking up to sleeping. Where do you stall, rush, or decide the same thing again?
• Habits and skills: what do you want to do more, less, or differently? Which skills are stuck, and why?
• Space: look at your desk, your room, your bag, your devices. What annoys you every day that you've stopped noticing?
• Time and attention: what drains your energy, eats your hours, or keeps pulling you away from the work?
• Blind spots: imagine a blunt friend reviewing your life. What would they say you're avoiding or overestimating?
• Fear: what are you putting off because thinking about it is uncomfortable?

My friction list

Each item ends with where it stands. I'll keep updating the list as things move.

Walkthrough

1. My shoots had no fixed day. Filming when I felt ready meant filming less. Solved: shooting now happens Monday morning (starting at 7:30) and Friday at 4 PM, and videos go out Monday and Thursday at 7 PM.

2. Dinner is a decision every night. Hitting a daily protein target with local food is easy when I know what to eat and tiring when I don't. In progress: I'm building a short rotation of Bangladeshi meals that already fit my numbers, so deciding becomes picking from a list.

3. I have no protected block for deep work. A degree, two channels, an agency, and Japanese compete for the same hours. Open: each week, name one priority and give it two protected blocks before scheduling anything else.

Habits and skills

4. Japanese reviews pile up when I skip a day. In progress: I'm capping new cards at about ten a day and attaching the session to something I already do daily, so it stops depending on motivation.

5. Six training days a week leaves no slack. A missed session either disappears or pushes me to double up. Open: treat the split as a queue (push, pull, legs) instead of fixed weekdays, so a missed day shifts the schedule instead of breaking it.

6. Two channels, one person. The coding channel competes with Carfinity for the same editing hours. In progress: I'm consolidating the coding content into a single channel with a lighter release schedule than Carfinity.

Space

7. Setup before every shoot. Gathering the phone, Canon, mic, and light panel costs time and some motivation each time. Open: pack one shoot bag, keep a short checklist, and charge everything the night before.

8. Starting every edit from scratch. Solved: I built a reusable DaVinci Resolve project with my audio chain and standard settings, so each edit starts at the cut instead of at the setup.

Time and attention

9. Marketplace freelancing drained hours and returned nothing. Solved: I stopped Upwork and Fiverr and narrowed my focus to YouTube and the agency.

10. A blank page every week for LinkedIn. In progress: a fixed post structure, plus an ideas list next to the camera so I capture notes while I'm already working.

Blind spots

11. I track output instead of outcomes. Shipping on schedule only counts if it moves the real goal: 5,000 subscribers in six months. Open: check that one number weekly, before planning the next week's content.

Fear

12. The long-term plan lives in my head. Finishing the degree, moving abroad for part of it, and a master's afterward all carry costs and deadlines, and I haven't put them in one place. Open: a single spreadsheet with costs, dates, and deadlines, reviewed monthly.

What happens next

That's the list as it stands today. I'll update each item's status as it moves and add a short note on what worked and what didn't. Several will probably change shape once I try them.

If you run your own audit, I'd like to hear what surfaced. Start with the smallest item on your list.