It's time for the year-end review again. Unlike previous years, this year's review is completely generated by ChatGPT o1 Pro. What amazed me was that AI understands how I spent my time better than I do, offering many surprising observations and suggestions.
I record how I spend my time every day, accurate to 15 minutes. For example: 0815-0900 taking care of kids; 0900-1300 work, etc. I've accumulated such data for four years (it's actually quite simple, with details at the end of this article). Last year, I tried feeding a year's worth of time records to ChatGPT 4 to see if it could generate anything interesting for my year-end review. But the result was disappointing - it only provided shallow, trivial accounts. However, this year, I tried o1 Pro and was blown away. It felt like a professional Life Coach, offering profound observations and advice. Every word was like a gem. I even read its article many times.
Let's first look at the AI-generated year-end review, and then I'll share my thoughts about it. The following article is written by AI, so "you" refers to me.
1. 2024 Year-End Review: A Sustained High-Frequency "Multi-threaded" Life
Overall, 2024 can be summarized as "multi-threaded." Your life spans multiple domains, including taking care of Baby/TangTang/TunTun, video editing, 3D printing, automation programming (such as LLM, astrophoto, drone, visionOS, AR/VR, etc.), and various household repairs. Looking back at the year, almost every day involved two or three or even more different themed tasks simultaneously, with frequent role-switching between work, courses, family, DIY research, and online discussions. While this "multi-threaded" mode brings vitality and creativity, it also means divided attention and energy.
Taking care of kids is a crucial part throughout the year, often interspersed hourly between various activities, which poses a challenge for sustained thinking and creative work that requires large blocks of time. However, you've shown remarkable flexibility in utilizing fragmented time to complete small tasks, such as repairing items, doing 3D printing, or replying to messages during breaks from childcare.
Additionally, travel was quite frequent in 2024, including trips to the zoo, Bellevue, Seattle, Leavenworth, Vancouver, and New York. Having a relatively long trip every month or two was very beneficial in breaking the monotony of daily life. Meanwhile, you also periodically invested in key projects, such as focusing on developing LLM courses, doing astrophotography, or video editing. Particularly in the second half of the year, LLM projects and course development occupied increasingly continuous time blocks. This indicates that you engage in intensive focus when inspiration strikes or project deadlines approach.
2. Time Allocation Depth Analysis
2.1 Fine Details and Hidden Patterns
You've invested a lot of time in repairing and hands-on skills. Throughout the year, you've repaired various items, from Wifi, soap machines, dishwashers, fences, keyboards, and cars, and you've also frequently assembled furniture and 3D printed parts. These hands-on experiences bring satisfaction but also take up time. If you're already proficient in these skills, consider systematizing them, such as creating a DIY repair knowledge base or making related vlogs.
Making coffee has become a habitual ritual. You drink coffee almost every day and often roast your own coffee beans, sometimes roasting several times a week. You've also studied the roasting curve and taste of coffee beans, not only as a lifestyle enhancement but also as something that could be further systematized, such as recording coffee roasting and tasting logs.
You've maintained a consistent enthusiasm for recording and editing videos and photos. Besides daily vlogs and family videos, you've also explored VR/360 aerial photography, astrophotography, subtitles, editing, and music. Unlike those who only shoot without editing, you've been actively editing and producing works, which indicates that you enjoy the process of completing works. Perhaps consider better organizing these materials, or even showcasing them.
This year, your investment in AI and LLM projects has shown a significant surge, especially after May, with keywords like GPT, Claude, LLM, course, finetune, and RAG appearing frequently in your logs. Compared to the household chores and personal hobbies at the beginning of the year, your professional interest trajectory has significantly shifted, gradually focusing on deep research of large models, which has become your daily focus.
However, fragmented thinking and deep development time are often intertwined. You often need to complete blog writing or course outlines, debug LLM code, and reply to WeChat messages within 1-2 hours, sometimes interrupted by childcare. This work mode can stimulate creativity but also consumes a lot of brainpower. You can pay attention to your need for deep focus and consider trying "block time" methods, scheduling 2-3 hours of uninterrupted deep focus periods to improve the efficiency of key tasks.
2.2 "Pressure/Stimulus" Curve and "Life Rhythm" and "Energy State"
The Yerkes-Dodson law in psychology suggests that moderate pressure brings the best performance, while too low or too high pressure is detrimental. From your logs, you've been in a high-frequency multi-threaded state almost constantly, which may indicate that your pressure levels are often too high, but they also allow you to maintain productivity and creativity. However, it's important to note whether this high-pressure, high-productivity mode is sustainable. You often work late into the night, perhaps finding that a slight sense of pressure can stimulate inspiration. However, if not careful, it may exceed the optimal range, affecting health or causing fatigue. It's recommended to regularly assess your emotional or stress indicators to ensure they're within acceptable and sustainable ranges. You may find that you've become accustomed to moderate to high pressure, but this may not be the healthiest or happiest way to live.
Your life is filled with new tasks or events almost every day, creating a closed loop of being constantly stimulated and constantly producing feedback. This mode makes it difficult to feel bored, keeping your spirit excited. However, it's important to note that the brain sometimes needs a low-stimulus period to integrate experiences, otherwise it may become overloaded. Your schedule seems rarely empty or idle. If you want to make greater progress and breakthroughs, perhaps consider taking a few days every month to completely disconnect from external stimuli, such as not using electronic devices, doing household chores, or socializing, giving your brain a period of pure integration. This brief retreat, which is similar to meditation, may help you better grasp inspiration when you return to the high-stimulus daily life.
2.3 "Experimenter" Personality
Reading your logs, you can feel your strong interest in new technologies, new devices, and new methods. This is a typical "experimenter" or "explorer" trait. You not only research the fine-tuning of LLM but also repair fences and soap machines, combining AI and hardware DIY. You often take care of kids while debugging computers, possibly roasting coffee beans, and even taking short naps. This scattered operation may not always be the most efficient, but it allows you to quickly try various ideas, ensuring the quantity of experiments. Over time, this often cultivates your ability to generalize. However, overly scattered focus may prevent you from conducting thorough summaries and retrospectives, and may also lead to insufficient documentation and knowledge reusability after project completion. It's recommended to regularly archive your experiments, even if it's just creating a project page in Notion, GitHub Wiki, or a blog, recording key steps, core experiences, and failure lessons, which is very valuable for future reference.
2.4 Comparison with 2023
In 2023, you spent a lot of time tinkering with audio equipment, such as speakers, amplifiers, and audio circuits. You often recorded "0900-1000 adjusting amplifier circuits, 1000-1030 comforting the baby, 1030-1200 continuing audio testing" in your logs, with technology intertwined with daily life, quite interesting. But in 2024, the frequency of such keywords has significantly decreased, which may indicate that you've achieved阶段性目标或暂时告一段落。Looking back at this period, summarizing these DIY processes into an audio troubleshooting note might be valuable.
Sleep patterns have changed. In 2023, you often took naps during the day, with a nap duration of up to two hours. But in 2024, with increased childcare and work, the nap duration during the day shortened, and nighttime sleep became more frequent. This means that your sleep time has become more fragmented due to children, work, and important projects. Comparing 2023 and 2024 sleep records, you can see that in 2023, you sometimes slept for two hours or more during the day, while in 2024, most naps were short, and nighttime sleep became more frequent.
3. Future Improvement Suggestions
To better manage this multi-threaded life, you can try to systematize block management. Schedule clear "no-distraction deep periods" in your schedule for projects requiring high brainpower and creativity, such as fine-tuning LLM, course writing, or software development. Other fragmented time can be used for handling errands, replying to messages, doing maintenance work, taking care of children, and handling household chores.
It's crucial to maintain a balance between life and work. You've invested a lot of time in taking care of kids and handling household chores, while also learning and researching. From your logs, you rarely have true relaxation time. Perhaps consider scheduling some "self-care" moments, such as weekly fixed-hour meditation or outdoor walks, or periodic "offline days" to let your brain rest.
Recording and accumulating various interest projects is very helpful. You have many hands-on projects and research interests, such as coffee roasting, DIY repairs, 3D printing, and astrophotography. You can try to systematically document projects and review experiences, which not only makes it convenient for future reference but also allows for sharing with others, potentially leading to personal branding or side business opportunities.
Additionally, you can re-evaluate the time for naps and nighttime. Although naps and nighttime are often used, you can try to slightly adjust them to get a more complete high-quality sleep. Or consider scheduling deep brain tasks in the morning, as your schedule rarely shows deep work from 5 to 7 AM, perhaps morning distractions would be less.
Finally, it's important to pay attention to physical health and mental load. From your logs, you're constantly running almost every day, often working or researching late into the night. Sometimes you may feel discomfort and need to visit a hospital. Over time, this consumes a lot of energy, so it's recommended to regularly check your health and actively reduce unnecessary projects, focusing on the most important things.
In summary, your time utilization this year has shown high intensity and multi-themed parallel activities with fragmentation. While taking care of kids, you also need to balance work and creative pursuits, frequently doing repairs, roasting coffee, traveling, and maintaining various equipment. For most people, this multi-threaded, multi-project mode itself means huge mental consumption, but you seem to operate quite smoothly. The core suggestion is to schedule more continuous time blocks for high-value or deep-focus projects and reduce interruptions; meanwhile, regularly set aside time for rest, relaxation, or true mental breaks to allow both body and mind to recover.
4. 2025 Year-End Preview: Unexpected Surprises and New Sparks
Looking forward to 2025, under the premise of maintaining "experimenter" personality and high creativity, you can try more interesting innovations.
First, you can try to establish "extreme single-threaded days." For example, you can schedule one day every month to focus on a single theme, such as developing LLM or video editing, and record the output and psychological feelings under this state, comparing with the multi-threaded mode, finding the most suitable work rhythm for yourself.
Second, you can organize an annual "inspiration marathon." At the beginning of the year, list 10 innovative projects you want to try, give each project 48 hours to quickly verify feasibility, focusing on the direction of AI and hardware integration, such as home automation or AI-assisted 3D printing optimization, and establish a simple document library for each project, recording key decisions and experience lessons.
Third, you can consider creating an "AI assistant" to handle your personal logs. Based on the four-year time record data, train a personalized model, develop intelligent question-answering functions, such as "When am I most efficient at work?" or "What am I doing while taking care of kids?" Try using RAG or fine-tuning to improve the model's understanding of personal habits and develop a visualization dashboard to show time allocation trends.
Fourth, you can incorporate "education and research" into taking care of kids. Prepare small observation tasks for each animal park trip, bring along portable microscopes and collection tools when exploring in the park, record the GPS coordinates of each location, and create 3D maps after returning home, allowing kids to participate in recording and organizing, cultivating scientific exploration spirit. You can also consider making these experiences into educational family videos.
Finally, you can try "time capsule" style annual accumulation. Record the most important 3 things, the most touching or angry moments, the biggest technical breakthrough, the most interesting family moments, and a photo that best represents each month. At the end of the year, use AI to analyze these records, generate annual storylines, and create digital or physical photo albums for yourself and your kids.
Additionally, looking back at the beginning of 2023, you spent a lot of time researching audio equipment, such as speakers, amplifiers, etc. You often switched between studying audio circuits and taking care of the baby. If you look back at that period now, perhaps you can summarize some lessons from troubleshooting audio equipment. Meanwhile, comparing the sleep patterns of 2023 and 2024, you can see that your sleep time has gradually been squeezed by work and family life.
Conclusion
In 2024, your lifestyle was a typical "multi-threaded high-speed operation," balancing taking care of kids, repairing, DIY, and work, while pursuing personal interests and professional exploration. You constantly switch roles, showing great curiosity and initiative. This state can stimulate creativity but also poses risks of dividing attention, increasing fatigue, and stress. It's recommended to allocate more continuous time for deep focus and relaxation in 2024-2025, ensuring balance and repair for your body and mind. Believe that through reasonable planning, you can turn this "multi-threaded" enthusiasm into sustainable creativity, bringing more excitement to your life and career. I hope you continue to maintain your curiosity and enjoy more peace and fun in 2025!
This report is based on the comprehensive suggestions provided by your AI assistant based on the 2023-2024 annual logs and behavioral patterns
This report also has a more detailed, more original version, available here. I'm not sure if this depth meets your usual experience with AI. I also tried GPT-4o and regular o1, and the depth difference was quite significant. It seems that o1 Pro does have irreplaceable advantages. (But I believe that in the near future, everyone will be able to use o1 Pro without subscribing to the $200 ChatGPT Pro Plan. We can discuss the specifics later.)
However, the biggest takeaway for me is that in the AI era, data is king. Why can I easily let AI generate such a profound year-end review? The main reason is that I've given it enough data. After all, a clever woman can't make a meal without rice, and without data support, it's almost impossible for AI to summarize without data. This is not only true for a small year-end review but also applies to larger projects, even training smarter LLMs. For example, Ilya has already pointed out at the recent NIPS that the reason for LLM Scaling Law failure may not be lack of computing power but lack of data.
Therefore, to unleash the potential of AI, one prerequisite is that we must have the awareness of providing data for it. It's best like our experiment, where we've been recording time spent and taking selfies for years. Although at first glance, it seemed useless because the AI model wasn't smart enough, once the AI model matured, such as when o1 Pro appeared, we could quickly extract enormous value. Therefore, looking at AI from a developmental perspective, it's important to lay the groundwork early in data.
Finally, some of you may be curious about how I record time. I haven't done anything special or used any special tools. I've been using OneNote to manually record. Using other software or even a simple notepad should also work. It doesn't take much time because, for example, when you finish a task, you can spend 30 seconds thinking about what you've done in the past few hours and then write it down in OneNote. As long as you stick to it, these private data will become invaluable assets in the AI era.
Selfies, health, time, project progress, these are all valuable data. Otherwise, why not add a new resolution to your new year's resolution, starting today, to accumulate more data about yourself?
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