Perfection is a strange word to me.
When I think of “perfect,” the only thing that comes to mind is Jesus. Nothing else on this planet qualifies—and honestly, that’s where a lot of the beauty of life comes from. Imperfection leaves room to learn, to grow, to keep working on something instead of freezing it in place and calling it finished.
I’ve always had a systems-oriented mind. I like data, and I love systems that make sense of that data.
About two years ago, I started logging everything. Not digitally—just a notebook. Thoughts. Ideas. Emotions. Budgets. Anything I thought I might need short-term or long-term went into that notebook. It worked… until it didn’t. The system had limits, and those limits became a new problem to solve.
So I did what I always do: I stepped back and wrote things down again.
I listed everything I hated about the system.
Then I listed everything I loved about it.
Now I had two new sets of data—feedback. That’s when I landed on Obsidian. I set it up to match how my brain actually works, not how someone else thinks notes should work. Fast access to short-term thoughts, but also the ability to query long-term memories, journals, and ideas. At the end of the day, Obsidian was just an interface on top of a Markdown database I had already been building for months.
And yet… it still wasn’t enough.
I wasn’t chasing perfection—well, maybe sometimes—but mostly I just wanted something that worked without thirty hoops to jump through. At that point, Obsidian was still the best option available.
Then something obvious hit me.
I can code.
So I asked myself: what’s actually stopping me from building these tools? Not for everyone—just for me.
The best blacksmiths didn’t start by forging legendary swords. They spent hours making tools. Useless ones. Broken ones. Then better ones. I had already spent years building pointless, unrealistic apps and systems. That time wasn’t wasted—it was practice.
That’s when it clicked.
If I want something, I can build it. Or at least modify an open-source version until it fits my needs. I can take what I already know and bend systems to work the way I work.
Now, I know not everyone can spin up a journaling app, a mood tracker, or a Twitch clipping bot. But this isn’t for everyone. This is for me.
And along the way, I realized I’ve met a lot of people like me—people weighed down by bloated software, endless features, and tools that try to be everything for everyone. So I started making my own tools. It feels a lot like internet homesteading—quietly surviving out here with my own little stack of tools that I actually understand.
That doesn’t mean I’ve abandoned the big platforms. I still use Obsidian. I still use Google. I still use plenty of the “big players.” I just use them differently now.
I don’t even look at apps the same way anymore. I immediately check whether a service has an API or developer docs. My brain now asks, Can this work with my system instead of replacing it?
For the first time in my life, even when a system doesn’t stick, I’m faster at recognizing where I need structure—and faster at finding or building the right tool for the job. That might sound like a lot, but I already spent plenty of time wasting hours on my PC. The ROI on building my own tools is infinitely better than scrolling Facebook.
I don’t build my life on perfection.
I build it on systems that grow with me.
And I’ve learned to let my data work for me—
instead of me working for it.