---
title: "Pillars, Pipelines, and Vaults System by August Bradley"
date: 2025-09-23T21:22:45-04:00
tags: ["life optimization", "productivity", "self-reflection"]

---

{{< callout >}}
First version of this post was generated with LLMs before manual revision. See [this link](/posts/ai_confession/) for more details.
{{< /callout >}}

## What motivated me to try it

I somehow recently accidentally stumbled across the Pillars, Pipelines, and Vaults (PPV) system by August Bradley.
In a nutshell, this system is a way to align your daily efforts to the pursuit of goals that contribute to core areas of your life (the pillars). 
As a husband and the father of a toddler and an infant, the free time that I previously had in excess has been scarce.
My routines and schedules were extremely disrupted as I transitioned from my life as a PhD student to working a 9-5 and raising a family (my first child was born exactly one week after my dissertation defense).
These routines never truly recovered.
As a result, when I do come across some free time I find that I often don't know what to do with it.
I also am guilty of jumping from project to project without focus, leaving things half finished or skills incompletely developed.

## I've tried a few different methods for improving focus and alignment, but nothing ever really stuck.

I've been learning about the PPV system and have noticed some positive effects already.
Primarily around self-reflection, ensuring daily tasks are aligned to what is important, and ensuring that my effort towards things important to me is getting tracked.
I'm halfway through the [PPV playlist](https://www.youtube.com/playlist?list=PLAl0gPKnL3V8s7dPXoo07mYnuErhWVk8b) and have started building out my personal PPV system. 
So far I recommend it. 
I definitely think that it needs per-user customization as I am not August Bradley, and his priorities won't directly translate to me.
But some of the overarching concepts I find extremely useful: 

- You should define a small set of "pillars" that hold up your life (e.g. career, family, learning, personal projects, etc...)
- Ensure that your daily actions and goals are aligned to those pillars
- The action zone concept is fairly genius and has certainly led to improved focus for me. 


## I, of course, am not actually implementing these systems in Notion directly

Instead, I found a FOSS alternative called [anytype](https://anytype.io/).
I tried some other FOSS options like AppFlowy and AFFiNE.
AFFiNE struggled from:

- UI that was cramming in their AI service everywhere, and it couldn't be disabled.
- Some concerns about how their telemetry works, [see this github issue](https://github.com/toeverything/AFFiNE/issues/6920)

AppFlowy was pretty clean but I wasn't able to get the self-hosted AppFlowy-Cloud setup.
I've yet to self-host a node for anytype. 
It uses a P2P protocol to synchronize spaces between devices which seems to make the self-hosting more complex.
I plan to upload an additional guide if I find it difficult to set-up.

## Conclusion 

If you haven't heard about PPV, definitely check it out [here](https://www.youtube.com/playlist?list=PLAl0gPKnL3V8s7dPXoo07mYnuErhWVk8b)! 
It isn't for everyone, but I've seen the benefits already in my limited time using it.
I may do a dive into my personal flavor of PPV and how I deviated from the original once it is fully completed.
Hopefully this is helpful to someone!

