A record of work
Riley Alvarez
Cabinet maker by day. Building a one-product board business on Saturdays.
I spent two years reading about starting something. This is the record of the year I stopped reading.
- 37
- actions taken
- 3
- journeys finished
- 22h 5m
- of focused work
- 2
- returns after a break
Where they’re going
A workshop business that pays for itself, run on weekend mornings, without touching the day job I actually like.
Already reached
- Sell one board to a stranger2026-07-30Sold two, at the market. One buyer haggled and I held the price — which was harder than making the board.
Finished
02Start Something✓ 2026-07-132026-06-19 →
- Name it out loudCreate2026-06-19
Called it “The Saturday Board” — a cutting board business, one product, weekends only.
- Define the smallest real versionUnderstand2026-06-22
- Gather what you need — and only thatPractice2026-06-25
- Make the first ugly versionCreate2026-06-28
Made the ugliest cutting board in Iowa in one sitting. It exists, which is more than last year's four business ideas managed.
- Put it somewhere realCreate2026-07-01
- Show one personPractice2026-07-04
Showed my neighbour Dana. She asked how much — I didn't have an answer, which told me exactly what to fix next.
- Write down what you learnedUnderstand2026-07-07
- Improve exactly one thingPractice2026-07-10
- Ship it and date itEvidence2026-07-13
Posted it with a price. Shipped is shipped.
Take this journey yourself — it’s free.
25What Your Paycheck Actually Says✓ 2026-07-312026-07-13 →
- Work out what you thought you'd earnUnderstand2026-07-13
- Find your actual take-homePractice2026-07-15
Take-home is $2,847/mo, not the $52k ÷ 12 I'd been budgeting with. That explains a lot of month-ends.
- Name the gap out loudEvidence2026-07-17
- Find FICA and understand what it isUnderstand2026-07-19
- Separate federal, state and local taxUnderstand2026-07-21
- Find what you're paying for insuranceUnderstand2026-07-23
- Find the retirement line and the matchUnderstand2026-07-25
Found out the match is 100% up to 4% and I was contributing 2%. Fixed it the same afternoon — that's $860/yr I was declining.
↳ This one goes deeper: 2 sub-steps
- Understand what your W-4 is doingUnderstand2026-07-27
↳ This one goes deeper: 2 sub-steps
- Decode your whole stub, top to bottomCreate2026-07-29
↳ This one goes deeper: 2 sub-steps
- Rebuild your budget on the real numberCreate2026-07-31
First budget I've ever built on the real number. It balances. Barely, but it balances.
Take this journey yourself — it’s free.
08Get My Life Together✓ 2026-08-172026-07-21 →
- Score the nine areas honestlyUnderstand2026-07-21
Money and digital life scored worst, 2/5 each. Health scored fine — but that's because I've been ignoring it, not fixing it.
- Empty every open loop onto one pageUnderstand2026-07-24
- Pick the one area that's leaking into the othersUnderstand2026-07-27
- Close every loop under 10 minutesPractice2026-07-30
↳ This one goes deeper: 3 sub-steps
- Fix the money picture enough to stop the noisePractice2026-08-02
The $85 filing fee cleared the paperwork, but the real find was the $12/mo card I forgot I was still paying. Six months of that, gone before I noticed.
↳ This one goes deeper: 3 sub-steps
- Protect sleep and one daily walk for a weekPractice2026-08-05
↳ This one goes deeper: 3 sub-steps
- Reset one physical space completelyCreate2026-08-08
↳ This one goes deeper: 3 sub-steps
- Set one weekly reset appointmentPractice2026-08-11
Same time every Sunday now. The first one took 45 minutes and felt like admin. By week three it's closer to 15.
↳ This one goes deeper: 3 sub-steps
- Say one honest noPractice2026-08-14
- Note what's quieter nowEvidence2026-08-17
Take this journey yourself — it’s free.
Underway
15Build Your Top Three Offers5 of 112026-08-06 →
- List your last twenty jobs and what each really paidUnderstand2026-08-06
Turns out the small custom boards I hate making are my worst hourly by half. The batch runs I enjoy are the best. Been pricing them backwards for a year.
- Work out the rate you actually needUnderstand2026-08-08
- Find your break-even job countUnderstand2026-08-10
- Pick the three, and name the one you're droppingCreate2026-08-12
- Write each offer on one pageCreate2026-08-14
Three offers on one page each. Saying “that's not something I offer” out loud for the first time felt illegal. Nobody died.
Take this journey yourself — it’s free.
55Design the Habit, Not the Willpower3 of 132026-08-08 →
- Autopsy the last time this habit diedUnderstand2026-08-08
Third time this exact habit has died the same way — I never dreaded it, I just ran out of the ten minutes I'd budgeted. Size problem, not motivation.
- Write the identity, not the targetCreate2026-08-11
- Give it a time, a place, and an existing habit to hang onCreate2026-08-14
Right after I unlock the shop, before the first customer, before coffee. Not "in the morning" — 6:52am, at the workbench.
↳ This one goes deeper: 3 sub-steps
Take this journey yourself — it’s free.
If someone sent you this link
You’re not taking Riley’s word for it — not for the dates.
Deciding whether to hire, coach, fund, or just trust Riley with something? Every tick above carries a real server timestamp from the moment it was marked done — not a date typed into a form. 37 actions across 3 finished journeys, each a real task with a real time cost, inside a catalogue anyone can check for themselves: 67 journeys, 684 concrete actions.
The one thing on this page that is self-reported: the indented sentences under each action. Those are Riley’s own words, not ours — and we’d rather say that plainly than let it blur together with everything above it that isn’t.
www.actiontoolkit.com/proof/demo
Notice what the written answers do.
A page of ticks is a list of claims. The indented sentences — “she asked how much, and I didn’t have an answer” — are what make this evidence a human wrote on the day. Writing your answers is free on every plan, in every journey you hold. Publishing them at your own URL is the paid part.