How El Portal works.
A method, not a vibe. Five mechanics, layered. The system reads, organizes, and surfaces signal, leaving you to stay focused on the work that earns it.
Version, Cycle, Day.
Version
~90 days · defaultThe arc, representing who you're becoming.
- Sets the direction.
- Contains its cycles.
- Months long, forming a multi-month identity arc.
Cycle
~15 days · defaultThe sprint, defining what to work on now.
- Inside a Version.
- Focused execution toward the arc.
- Weeks long, short enough to actually finish.
Day
1 dayThe reps, the only scale you actually live in.
- Inside a Cycle.
- Atomic, with one set of habits and one score.
- Where everything compounds from.
One number, honestly weighted.
Every habit carries a weight. Your day rolls up into a single number, not a streak count or a vibe, representing the share of the weight you actually moved.
Frictionless. Cheap to maintain, easy to lose.
5-minute stretch · 1-glass of water
Repeatable. The middle of the habit stack.
20-minute read · 30-minute walk
Costly. The work that actually moves the cycle.
90-minute deep work · long training session
Twice a day.
Morning frames intent. Evening logs reality. The gap between the two is where the signal lives.
Two short check-ins build the dataset the rest of the system reads from.
Morning check-in
Four short steps. Each one calibrates the day before the day begins.
- MoodWhere you are right now, on a calm scale.
- SleepQuality of the night that just ended.
- FeelingsWhat's actually present, selected from a bank of named emotions.
- FocusThe one thing you want today to be about.
Evening check-in
Eight short steps. The evening pass is denser because the evening has the data.
- MoodWhere you landed after the day's work.
- ProductivityHow much of the day actually compounded.
- StressLoad you carried, not the load you planned.
- MotivationPull toward the work, or against it.
- EnergyBiological state at sundown.
- ConnectednessTime spent in the people who matter.
- FeelingsNamed emotions from the same bank as morning.
- ActivitiesWhat you actually did — for the trend layer to read.
Two primitives. Different time scales.
Habits are the daily atoms. Goals are the cycle-scoped outcomes. Together they cover both ends of the practice.
Habits
DailyWeighted recurring actions. They feed the daily score and the consistency layer beneath it.
- Three weight tiers: LOW (1), MEDIUM (2), and HIGH (4).
- Recurrence configured per habit, not assumed.
- Don't auto-carry between cycles, remaining deliberate by design.
Goals
CycleOutcomes you commit to inside a 15-day window. Two kinds, each with its own definition of done.
- task_project, with bounded scope, finished or not.
- consistency_metric, representing a rate you hold across the cycle.
- Carry across cycles via lineage, keeping the same goal across multiple cycles.
Goals can travel across cycles via a lineage link, keeping the same journey across multiple sprints. Habits start fresh each cycle, by choice.
The system reads the data you generate.
A correlation engine and a set of pattern detectors look for repeating signals across your habits, vitals, and feelings, writing them up plainly.
Sleep quality → next-day mood
↑ 24%Nights you sleep above your median predict a higher mood the morning after. Strong, repeated across the last two cycles.
Burnout
Energy drops sharply over three days against a two-week baseline.
Regression
A habit you held for a week or more has dropped to zero for three days running.
Weekday Blind Spot
A habit you nail most days collapses on a single day of the week.
Sleep Lag
A night of low sleep predicts a measurable drop in next-day performance.