Reflecting on the evolution of my workflows and starting again, in 2026.
Three years is a long time between posts. Like an old friend you keep meaning to call, this blog has been sitting patiently in the background of my life – not forgotten, but somehow always just out of reach. I had quite a streak in 2022, posting seven whole times, but then I hit a wall. I remember working on a longer piece about the organizational structure of government, even sketching out visuals on my iPad, but somewhere along the way, I lost steam and never came back to it.
Starting again feels right, though, especially with one of my main goals for 2026 being to focus on dedication and discipline. I want to be consistent in the things I aim to do, and this blog is a proving ground for that commitment.
The tools we use shape how we think and create. When my development environment shifts, so does my relationship with writing and building. Each iteration – from local servers in 2016, to CodeSpaces on an iPad in 2022, to phone-based workflows with AI agents today – hasn’t just changed how I work. It’s changed what feels possible.
This matters because the barrier to entry keeps dropping. Writing and creating have become lighter, more accessible. But there’s a tension here: does making things easier also make them less intentional? I want to explore that question, both in how I work and what I choose to share.
Tools that once required dedicated time and space now fit in my pocket. And more than that, they’ve become collaborative – not just with other people, but with AI agents that can draft, experiment, and even anticipate what I’m trying to say.
This isn’t just about convenience. It’s about reconsidering what “doing the work” means. When an agent can write a draft or document my thoughts, my role shifts from creator to curator, from writer to editor of my own thinking.
My workflow in 2016 centered around maintaining local servers, using gulp and sass to build sites. By 2022, I’d moved to an iPad with GitHub Copilot and CodeSpaces – no personal computer, no local environment, just cloud-based tools and determination.
Now? I’m writing from my phone. I open GitHub Issues, describe what I want to explore, and coding agents help me draft posts or experiment with ideas. The friction has nearly disappeared. Sometimes I wonder if the agent knows what I’m trying to say better than I do – it picks up on patterns in my thinking, suggests connections I hadn’t made explicit.
This extends beyond blogging. I’ve started using an agent to help with diary-keeping too. It captures thoughts I might have lost, drafts reflections when I’m too tired to articulate them myself. It’s an odd hybrid of automation and creativity, but it works.
Here’s the tension, though: does removing friction also remove the discipline that makes writing valuable?
At work, I spend my days reading and synthesizing information. It’s fulfilling, but not something I’d naturally do in my free time. Even so, I feel the pull to share takeaways with a broader audience – or at least to create a personal record. I have so many fragmented notes floating around in Tana, scattered thoughts that deserve to be pieced together and given purpose.
Writing this blog again is an experiment. Can I be disciplined about thinking more intentionally while using tools that make it almost too easy? Can I leave a breadcrumb trail for my ideas without losing the intentionality that makes those ideas worth following?
In my last “hello again” post from 2022, I wrote about applying endurance training principles to consistency. I wanted to work on this website regularly, sustainably, without burning out. That worked for a while, but life happened, and the consistency faded.
This time, I’m trying something different. Instead of fighting against the ease of new tools, I’m leaning into them – but with boundaries. The agent can help me draft, but I’m the one who decides what’s worth saying. The tools can lower the barrier, but I still need to show up.
It’s like having a very patient writing partner who never gets tired, never judges, and is always ready to help me think through an idea. The trick is remembering that I’m still the one doing the thinking.
So here we are again. A new year, a new workflow, and a renewed commitment to writing. I’m curious to see where this experiment leads – whether AI-assisted creation will make me more prolific or just more aware of how I think. Whether removing friction reveals new possibilities or just new distractions.
Let’s see how disciplined I can stay. And whether, three years from now, I’ll be writing “hello once more” again, or actually maintaining the conversation I keep promising myself I’ll have.