January 1, 2026
I made a quarterly post and then a daily to do list and there’s a little bit of a discordance between the two so will work on reviewing them both daily.
Phone Distance and Limits
The book Stolen Focus has helped me think about how important progress in this area is.
Here’s a post I made of a pull quote of a part that really resonated with me.
The Jomo app has been really helpful to make me more mindful of the time I’m spending on my phone and with social media. I have limits on Instagram and Twitter. I also want to continue keeping my phone away from me during the work day and not keep it on me in the house. This feeds everything else and allows me to be more intentionality.
I’m going to do some version of a dopamine fast mentioned above.
- Recap: Good but always room for improvement. I think I need to keep my phone physically away from me during the work day so will carry that into next quarter.
AI and Presentational Speaking
Over the summer before I started my work day I would spend a little time learning and I want to bring that back in two lanes:
- AI: Everything is AI but also nothing is AI. I have been wanting to play with Replit, Cursor, Comet, DIA, and a voice dictation tool like Wispr or Monologue. Given I’m buying a home I want to try vibe coding a tool that outlines all the home maintenance stuff we should do in a given year.
- Recap: Haven’t built anything yet but Perplexity is now my default search engine which is a big step up. Next comes building.
- Speaking: I tend to talk fast and think sometimes my message gets lost. I have Don’t Say Um by Michael Chad Hoeppner on my kindle as well as a bunch of videos from Vinh Giang in my YouTube Queue. Also paid for a annual Speeko membership and a session with a speaker coach.
- Recap: Got into a bunch of podcasts but need to do more here.
More Books and Less News
In 2025 I read a third of the books and pages I read in 2024 and my phone and social media absolutely is the driver of that. I’d like to hit at least a book a month and above 5000 pages by end of 2026. I think swapping out Instagram and Twitter for kindle should make a huge impact on that.
Check out my Goodreads stats below:
I also doom scroll a bit with the news more than I should and want to be mindful of being over-informed. Over the last month or so I’ve pruned my YouTube algorithm so it’s less political and find myself in a better headspace.
- Recap: Only read about 1000 pages across 3 books in Q1 which means I am on pace to beat last year but nowhere near prior years. Want to continue to swap kindle with social media.
Move and Getting Settled
We just closed on a home in Maplewood, NJ and are excited for this next chapter in our lives. Saying goodbye to our current area and moving to the new spot will take up a large chunk of Q1. Excited to feel permanently planted in an area and really put down roots.
- Recap: Move went really well with no major surprises. Life feels calmer in suburbia and I am loving doing home maintenance/update tasks. Ongoing thread here of what I’ve done. My wife has been great about keeping us at a manageable pace and making time for us to just chill and enjoy which I often struggle with.
New Project
I finished up an exciting project at the end of December and will be helping out with a smaller one in January. That probably means I need to rev up the networking machine to find a new thing to work on. Most likely path is staying with my current client as there is always work. Grateful that I have a phenomenal manager I work with so inclined to stay with them but will be interesting to see what my next move is. Hoping the stars align that work isn’t super hectic during moving time.
- Recap: Ended up doing a short term bandaid engagement with a small team that kept me busy for Q1 and will need to find something for Q2. As always lots of leads but hoping I can find something longer term.
Assistant progress
9 months into working with my assistant and I am proud of the work we’ve done together. I’ve absolutely flexed my delegation muscle in a way that was not very natural to me at first. She has expanded my capacity for all the “wants” on my list that I don’t have time to do on my own. I am noticing that I am absolutely the bottleneck and need to improve my turnaround time. She gets things done quite quickly and often they sit in my inbox for longer than they should. The answer here is carving out more time per week to review and action her work.
- Recap: good here but definitely lagging behind on prioritizing reviewing and actioning her work. I’m trying to move towards longer term tasks for her instead of a bunch of one offs.
Logging Food with Intermittent Fasting
I listened to this podcast and want to mix intermittent fasting into my regiment.
Watch the podcast below, or click here to watch it on YouTube.
One of the big takeaways was that our bodies need time off from processing food to really work at their best so planning on keeping eating between the 1-7pm window. Late night eating is also a challenge for me by the time i get home from work. Finally I fell off logging food and need to bring that back into rotation
- Recap: Good, will continue this into the next quarter. Logging is so helpful because otherwise i’m not fully conscious of what i eat and the nutrients. Trying to figure out the right fasting process to balance it out with needing protein post heavy workouts.
Steps, Mobility and Core work
My steps have fallen off a cliff last few months. Part of this is due to PRP injections and recovery but now that I’m clear its time to get it back up.
9k per day felt like a job and too much work to maintain. I’d like to hover around 7500 which is about 3 miles and an exercise class. The remote dates really kill my numbers so AM walks and treadmill desk time will help here. Additionally I want to bring back my habit of stretching before bed. Let’s set the target for my stealth toy at 250 for the quarter.
- Recap: Steps are down to 6,335 for the past three months. Lack of commuting is definitely harming this. I need to setup my walking pad treadmill desk which should help get those numbers up.
Enjoyed this? Click here to read more of my quarterly updates.
Highlights
- Lead a small team executing an AI week at work where we trained ~300 people.
- We had about two weeks to do a TON of work before moving in and we threaded the needle really nicely
- For my wife’s birthday I got us tickets to an uni shucking class
- Moving went pretty well and we unpacked quite quickly
- Using a snowblower and doing a bunch of smart home things
- Hosted both sides of our families for a few days to do painting and other things to our new home
- Hit my 5 years with both EY and Katherine in the same week