I have too much time, so I built a productivity app with the help of AI

 

As I begin to clock in certifications from Anthropic on the Claude system, it dawned upon me that the value of knowledge is next to worthless these days, so to stay relevant, or at least to be able to relate to my Gen Z students, I have to go through what they will eventually go through when they hit the work force, which I think is 10x worse than looking for a job during my time. In the early 2000s, most engineers secured a job by their final year of schooling and could enjoy working on their final-year project, with a secure job waiting for them after graduation.

For this current batch of graduates, they need to contend with the uselessness of knowledge and possibly the deteriorating power of signalling conveyed by degree certificates. To remain relevant, they need skills, but to prove that these skills matter, they will need a portfolio of products that need to display to a potential employer. 

So I've decided to join in the fun.

My first practical product using Claude Code in VS Code is a simple To Do List, just to get some initial momentum and make me more efficient on a daily basis, but I want it to be more powerful than the usual To Do lists out there, so I decided to make the application a Bullet Journal. 

But there are three complications :

• I no longer know how to code Windows applications in Python. The last time I did that seriously was in C++ using Microsoft Foundation Classes.
• I don't even understand the Bullet Journaling approach, as the book is quite thick and I've not read it yet. I know it's popular, and some hipster executives love it. But I prefer to pick up new AI programming skills.
• I don't even have the technical skills to write software specifications because I was more of an IT Governance professional.

So here's my strategy: 

I explained the context to Claude and got Claude to create a first draft of a specification, mentioning bullet journal, Python as the only language I know, and the final product as a Windows executable.

It was able to generate a specification which I can read and amend slightly to my taste.

I got Claude Code to generate my program before I took my son to school, and when I came back, my application was ready to be compiled and run.

And it ran, so I suddenly have a private electronic bullet journaling app that tracks daily tasks and lets me strike them off as they get done. My application is actually chock-full of functionality, and I have no idea what it can do in totality, given how little I know about Bullet Journaling.

I've been using the application for a couple of days, and it has really supercharged my productivity. I can list my priorities early in the morning and slowly strike off each task as I go through the day, freeing up my evenings to contemplate how to improve the application. 

On day 2,  I suddenly felt that the program was kinda boring and monotonous, and I wanted every completed task to provide a dopamine rush, so I incorporated nice sounds and confetti into the app, and it made me even more productive as completing a task gave a satisfying "ping". Making this modification was a painless task.

Then I had a crazy idea. 

Why not make the application comply with the "Getting Things Done" philosophy as well, a kind of productivity system that is over 20 years old, which I tried to understand but never had the willpower to turn into a habit?

Fortunately, AI was able to summarise the GTD philosophy, allowing me to consciously get Claude to modify my software to delegate tasks or KIV them. 

And so my Frankenstein application now combines two systems: a Bullet Journal and the GTD philosophy.

You should now be able to see where I am going here. 

For every productivity philosophy or system I learn, I can use it to add features to my program. Over time, the more I use my program, the more bugs I encounter, and the more bugs I can get Claude to fix. 

I think this might be an entirely new way of consuming software. We just dream of what kind of software we want, and an AI builds it for us on the spot. They won't get it right 100% of the time, but you can recode and recompile the software. Over time, the application becomes seasoned and customised for the individual user.

Because I'm focused on personal efficiency, every new system can inspire slight improvements in my application.

My next objective is to incorporate an Eisenhower matrix into each task, labelling it as urgent or important. 

Trade like a Gen-Z ?

 

A powerful read for me in recent months is Generation Desperation by Alexander Hurt, who writes in detail about how he traded his way to over a million dollars and then lost it all within a few weeks. This is a very important book that gives us a glimpse of what Gen Z and younger millennials go through in the era of crypto, r/wallstreetbets and Gamestop.

To be fair, I'm not very sympathetic to the author. He did start out badly, given that his parents are extreme left-wing Americans who are vehemently against paying taxes, so he probably did not get the right kind of relationship with money right from the start. Secondly, he's still quite privileged, having graduated from a top liberal arts college in the US and working as a freelance journalist in France. 

If you have also read I deliver parcels in Beijing by Hu Anyan, you can clearly see that some people have first-world problems.

The books have a fairly useful way to look at Desperation Capitalism, which I will try to summarise on this blog.

Rule #1 - Make people hungry for more

In Singapore, many financial influencers do this. Flexing successful trades that are multi-baggers while keeping mum about trades that fail. The problem with Gen Z and younger millennials is that the moment they open social media, they are inundated with nothing but financial porn, which raises their risk appetite.  

Rule #2 - Open the gates and remove the guardrails

There are many ways to take on extraordinary amounts of risk in the financial markets. I actually teach one of them - financial leverage. But I teach my students how to moderate their leverage using mathematical skills. The actual amount of leverage allowed is many times the maximum I teach my students. Above and beyond leverage, there are financial options, which can multiply the amounts paid to take up a position if the stock moves in your favour.

Brokers like Robinhood are the gateway to this form of risk-taking. 

Rule #3 - Draw them in with dopamine hits

Apparently, brokers like Robinhood are designed to be more like Facebook and Instagram, which throw out encouraging emojis when a trade is made. Fortunately, or unfortunately, for my constituents, IBKR is intimidating, throwing all sorts of warning messages before a trade can be made. Even worse, it's not easy to generate reminders when dividends are incoming, so thankfully, I have Stocks Cafe to generate the dopamine hits instead.

The rest of the book is unputdownable. The author describes his feelings and inner thoughts as his account reached $1,000,000, and then turned negative once his capital gains taxes were accounted for.

Is the book a cautionary tale about trading for a new generation of investors? 

Should I start a campaign to promote dividends-maxxing, given that younger folks are starting to show up at the DBS AGM?

Here's what effect the book had on me. 

I actually got myself started on options trading after reading this.

With a steady stream of dividends and my homebrew Python code that easily identifies the strongest trends among S&P 500 stocks, I decided to enable options trading on my account to buy 3 out-of-the-money call options expiring in May on the most ferociously trending S&P 500 stocks. My capital was about $1,000.

Within days, I was losing money, currently down about $250 USD.

When learning a new technique, there's always a price to pay for tuition. 

This is definitely not an investment strategy to try first for young people.

Ok, short KL holiday has ended. Back to work!

 

After conducting my last course, I took a spontaneous trip to KL by hitching a ride with my cousin. We spent some time at a slow suburban town of Seremban, where I had wonderful seafood, and then I spent just two days eating like a king and shopping for stuff for my family.

It's been a long while since I was able to travel alone, so I made this a shopping trip for books, stationery, and art supplies. What was surprising was that I was able to spend a decent amount of money, which was kinda rare, so much so that I had to buy a suitcase to get everything back home.

Travelling alone can be a humbling experience. There were moments when I realised that we can't take Singapore for granted. In a thunderstorm two days ago, I had to take the monorail for a short distance between Bukit Bintan and Imbi stations, and the crowds and slow trains made it take me nearly 45 minutes to reach my destination. The top shopping district of Bukit Bintang was not adequately sheltered, and there's a small cottage industry of umbrella vendors selling $10 MYR umbrellas when it rained. 

But what is amazing is the humanity of the crowds. When people are stressed, and public services are down, it's interesting to observe the crowds. And Malaysians are unfazed by delays in their services. Many smiled and retained their sense of humour. I was telling my relatives that if this happened here, a Minister might be hanged by an angry mob. 

Another aspect of this trip was that my cousin had some mobility, and I was able to visit the PJ area, where I chilled at a place that was eerily reminiscent of some Swimming Club in SG, minus the exclusivity and snottiness. I was in a pub eating steak, and they were playing 80s-90s music.

Of course, any trip would not just involve fun and games. I was looking for a partner to take on some small gigs in KL, so that in the future I might be able to work a bit and conduct training, but revenue would be quite low, so this would have to be a hobby for me. 

Anyway, once I get back, work will start to ramp up. 

I have some media work with the TFC gang tomorrow, and I also have a FIRE seminar under SIAS in about 3 weeks. My AI work continues as I need to see whether I can get Claude's code to move my code to the cloud.  

With high gasoline prices, most of my trips will look more like this quick escape into KL.