Hi! I am Irtiza.

An Engineering Manager by day, and a Blogger and YouTuber by night.

Irtiza Hafiz's avatar

MANAGEMENT(2)

PHILOSOPHY(7)

PRODUCTIVITY(9)

TRAVEL(7)

MONEY(9)

BOOKS(2)

PROGRAMMING(14)

October 21, 2025

Measure Business Value, Not Number of Tickets Closed

Measuring developer productivity.

September 15, 2024

5 Engineering Management Philosophies I Have Found Helpful

A challenging, but rewarding start to management.

September 15, 2024

A Curation Process for Mindful Content Consumption

You become what you consume.

September 13, 2024

Thoughts on Living a Less Stimulated Life

Boredom + Silence can be truly transformative.

August 27, 2024

The App That Helped Me Cut Down Screen Time and Stay Productive

Saving 10 years worth of screen time using one iOS app.

August 13, 2024

Making a Childhood Dream Come True with Credit Card Points

Staying in South Carolina and watching Manchester United — Liverpool for FREE!

August 10, 2024

The Only Bank Account You Need to Hit Your Financial Goals

Do not save what is left after spending, but spend what is left after saving.

August 6, 2024

How I Stopped Overspending on Credit Cards

Earn rewards without paying interest and late fee.

August 4, 2024

Half Year Spending Check-in 2024

A deep dive into where I spent my money so far this year.

July 30, 2024

My Automated Payday Routine 2024

I have hit every financial goal since transitioning to this automated system.

July 23, 2024

Embracing Parental Advice for a Better Routine

Going back to basics for a better routine.

July 19, 2024

5 Best Productivity Tools of 2024

Strategizing for another productive year.

July 15, 2024

5 Books I Will Read in Q3’2024

Switching gears and moving back to reading non-fictions exclusively.

July 11, 2024

What’s in My Wallet For Q3 2024

Getting $3,000 of value in Sign-Up Bonuses!

July 5, 2024

4 Books I Read in Q2’2024

Disappointing fictions, okay-ish non-fictions.

July 2, 2024

$3,712 of Free Travel in 2024 Using Credit Card Points

5 Cities. Business Class Flights. Free Hotel Nights.

June 19, 2024

I Turned My Blog Into an RSS Feed

Instead of relying on algorithms to push your content, use old-school RSS feeds to notify your followers whenever you post.

June 15, 2024

Creating an Audio Blog Using OpenAI and PyDub

Grow your audience by appealing to people who enjoy audiobooks and podcasts.

June 11, 2024

I Created A Comprehensive Self-Hosted Digital Identity for $12/month

Smart search, blog, newsletter, analytics, affiliate marketing, RSS feed — everything self-hosted and FREE!

June 4, 2024

I Built a Realtime Smart Search Pipeline

Making all my blog posts and YouTube videos searchable in real-time.

June 1, 2024

Building an AI Search Feature With OpenAI Embeddings & Postgres Vectors

Helping visitors search across all my blogs and YouTube videos with some OpenAI magic.

May 27, 2024

Protecting Against Bot Attacks Using Nginx Rate Limits

Implement custom rate limits per API endpoint.

May 19, 2024

Investing $30 Daily vs $150 Weekly

Experimenting with growth vs value investment strategies in 2024.

May 12, 2024

The 2-Hour Plan to Achieve Goals in 2024

Lowering the bar and increasing the frequency. A new plan for better results in 2024.

May 4, 2024

A Powerful Private Open Source Alternative to Google Analytics

Custom events, reports, and conversion funnels - all with more privacy baked in.

April 28, 2024

Self-Hosting a Free Private Google Analytics Alternative

All the web analytics you need, without the surveillance-like tracking.

April 21, 2024

Finally Making Sense of Responsive Screens

How I made my NextJS website responsive without learning about HTML and CSS.

April 14, 2024

I Pay $0 for a 10,000 Subscriber Self-Hosted Email Newsletter System

I saved >$100/month by migrating to a self-hosted newsletter and mailing list manager to run my small business.

April 7, 2024

Hosting Multiple Web Apps and APIs with Nginx Reverse Proxies

Deploy all your frontend apps, backend APIs, and other services using one server and one domain.

April 2, 2024

How I Set Up My Private Cloud Server for Development

Replicating my perfect local development workflow in a cloud server to code and deploy from anywhere in the world.

March 10, 2024

I Finally Figured out Nginx Reverse Proxy

How I exposed my NextJS and FastAPI powered website to the public internet using Nginx web server on a Linux server.

March 5, 2024

I Bought a Cloud Server for $12/month

How I saved more than $100 by self-hosting instead of using cloud-based SASS products.

January 5, 2024

5 Best Books I Read in 2023

A year of reading books from a wide range of domains and perspectives.

January 4, 2024

My 2024 Credit Card Strategy

Core setup, new cards, travel redemptions, and hotel, flight, and car rental elite statuses.

January 2, 2024

How Much Money I Made From Credit Cards in 2023

I earned 630,000 credit card points which equates to around $8,500 USD.

December 28, 2023

Flying 10,000 Miles in Turkish Airlines Business Class

First international business class experience with FREE upgrade using credit card points!

December 10, 2023

Travel Hacking San Francisco

How I paid $0 instead of $2,543 with credit card points.

October 20, 2023

I Spent $0 Instead of $4,000 on Travel in 2023

How I funded all my 2023 travel using credit card points, such as Membership Reward points and Capital One miles.

July 21, 2023

15 Stress-free Travel Hacks

Preparation is the key to any good travel experience.

June 12, 2023

How I Travel the World for Free Using Credit Card Points

A simple 3-step process that earned me trips to Chicago, Boston, Atlanta, Dallas, San Francisco, and Toronto for free!

January 18, 2023

How I Rewired My Dopamine System

Transitioning from a reactive to proactive life.

January 4, 2023

5 Purchases to Boost Your Productivity in 2023

Kick off the new year with these purchases to have your most productive year so

November 30, 2022

What's on my iPhone (iOS 16 Edition)

A redesigned setup maximizing the latest iOS widgets for at-a-glance information.

November 26, 2022

How I Am Becoming A Responsible Consumer

You vote with your wallet everyday.

November 26, 2022

The Best FREE Productivity System

A reasonable setup for beginners.

November 13, 2022

10 Sustainable Lifestyle Changes You Can Make

For starters, switch to reusable water bottles and grocery bags.

November 5, 2022

10 Things You Should Do When You Get Paid

Prioritize your future self before budgeting and spending.

October 31, 2022

5 Cheap Purchases to Make You More Productive

Being productive does not have to be expensive.

October 21, 2022

What I Learned Being Vegan for 1 Year

Looking at your food differently can have a profound impact on all parts of your life.

October 19, 2022

How I Use Data to Improve My Life

Taking a data-driven approach to life.

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