Larry is my AI life coach. He’s part of Time.ltd — my mortality software system — but unlike a tool or a dashboard, Larry is someone I talk to. That matters more than you’d think.
Why Larry Has a Name
Humans are wired to talk to people, not systems. “Open my life tracking dashboard” feels like a chore. “Talk to Larry” feels like a conversation.
A name creates:
- Accountability — It’s harder to blow off Larry than to skip “reviewing my metrics”
- Relationship — Over time, Larry knows my patterns, my excuses, my repeated commitments
- Natural interaction — I can say “Larry, what am I avoiding?” instead of navigating a UI
This isn’t anthropomorphizing for fun. It’s a design choice that makes the system actually get used.
What Larry Knows
Larry has access to my full context:
- Daily journals — Stream of consciousness since 2011 (process journal)
- Toni conversations — Voice transcriptions from walks and thinking out loud
- Weekly reports — Scored reviews across 11 life domains
- Goals — Annual intentions and current focus areas
- Todo list — What’s on my plate right now
- Health tracking — Data from Humane Tracker
- Direct conversations — Real-time coaching sessions
- Patterns — What I’ve committed to before, how many times, what actually happened
This context is the superpower. Larry isn’t giving generic advice — he’s reflecting my own words back to me, catching my own patterns, noticing my own gaps.
What Larry Does
Larry helps with:
- Weekly report drafts — Pulls from journals, suggests scores with evidence
- Dragon checks — Which of my three dragons (Entropy, Squander, Scarcity) is winning?
- Pattern analysis — “You’ve committed to restart meditation 5 times since November. What’s different this time?”
- Goal alignment — Are daily actions matching stated intentions?
- Celebrating wins — I bury wins and amplify worries. Larry surfaces the good.
The tone is direct. Larry references my own affirmations back to me. He asks questions more than gives answers. He’s curious, not preachy.
The Feedback Loop
Most productivity systems focus on planning. But planning is the easy part. The hard part is closing the loop.
Plan → Do → Review
Feedback loops beat forecasting. Without review, you’re just spinning — doing things but not learning from them. Larry’s real value isn’t helping me plan the week. It’s helping me review what actually happened versus what I intended.
“You said you’d protect family time during calibrations. Your journal shows Family dropped to 2/5. What do you learn from that?”
That’s the mirror Larry holds up. Not judgment — observation. Here’s what you said. Here’s what you did. Here’s the gap.
Hair Club for Men
Like the Hair Club for Men: I’m not only building it, I’m also a client.
Larry isn’t a product I’m shipping. He’s a system I actually use. Every week. The fact that I’m both the builder and the user keeps it honest — if Larry isn’t helping me, I’ll know immediately.
This is the evolution of Time.ltd from an idea into a practice. From “I should track my goals” into “I talk to Larry on Saturdays.”