The problem of life tracking

I started consciously working on my life by losing 25kg in 6 months. It's the first time I felt success that came entirely from my intention and consistent actions.

Then the work expanded to all life areas during Covid time, when the self-help trend picked up everywhere. Reading more books, learning to play the piano, investing, eating healthier.

I needed a tracking system for each of them, to see clearly my status, to build my habits, and to keep myself accountable.

I was never fully satisfied with the tools out there for a few reasons:

• It was troublesome to find (and sometimes pay for) the best app for each tracking need.
• It was inconvenient to track many things manually.
• There was always something that was not customizable enough.

In addition, I want to learn about myself from my own data, a holistic view of myself, and how different areas of my life interact.

It's beyond just knowledge about individual data that you can find out easily nowadays, such as my body fat, or how much I have in the bank.

So I built Cyos to solve these. A personal dashboard where you can track anything. With AI and automation to reduce the input friction, and give you insights from your data.

The problem of coaching

As a certified life coach and an engineer, I believe in the idea that asking the right question can solve 50% of any problem you face.

I also believe in principles and thinking frameworks. They make the vague idea of asking the right question become concrete.

For example, at a very high level, every problem can be described as:

• What: The actors and the systems involved.
• Why: The ones with unmet needs.
• How: The constraints, the bottleneck and the strategies.

If the problem is oneself's growth, we can translate them into familiar questions:

• What: Who do you want to be? Which life do you want to live? Where are you right now?
• Why: Which of your needs are being met? Are you really addressing your own needs?
• How: Are your environment and people supportive? How much time do you have? What can you control?

If I don't ask these questions to myself often, it's very easy to spend another day just showing up to my responsibilities, and numbing myself with those quick dopamine shots.

When I do think about these questions, then sometimes there is the need of talking it out to someone. To feel the support, to learn from the feedback, and to gain the clarity.
But it's hard to ask anyone to always be mentally available for you to go deep.

Chat GPT (or any other LLMs) helps. But they are designed to give you answers, not to ask you important questions, like a coach.

So I built Cyos to solve these. An intelligence that uses coaching principles and thinking frameworks to think with you, about your life questions.

The mission statement

Cyos's mission is to help you turn your thoughts into actions your future-self will appreciate.

I didn't start building Cyos with this statement clearly in mind.

In fact, I struggled with the mission statement for a while, because I was simply building for the fragmented problems I faced while working on myself.
And I kept wondering: will people really use it, with so many distractions and attention-grabbing things everywhere.

Then I asked myself: what could compete with the instant gratification of consumerism, of social-media, of entertainment, or even addiction.
The only answer I could think of was a deeper dopamine dose from visualizing your desired future.

I realized it's always been how I try to operate.
To take one uncomfortable action now, hoping it will lead to a better future.