Last week I got back from a two-week holiday in Japan. It was fantastic, but it also reminded me how important it is to take a break. Not only to rest and recover, but also to gain perspective for making changes to my day-to-day.
It is no secret that it’s good to take a break. Of course I’d recommend it to anyone, but it’s hard to do it yourself when you are in the middle of something.
Fast-paced days
After a few months of AI token-maxing (and Fable-maxing), filled with very productive and sometimes very frustrating days, I knew I should switch gears and focus on tasks that are not coding-heavy. Slowing down the development pace and changing focus are hard. The faster the pace, the harder it is to step back, so I knew my break should be more deliberate. This is even more relevant now. I noticed that AI creates an illusion that people operate on machine time, no longer on human time.
I had a trip planned, and it was the perfect time to disconnect in a way my daily environment wouldn’t allow. I decided to leave my laptop at home, but I was still tempted to squeeze in some work. For a brief moment, I considered doing things from my phone and even checked how easy it would be to use Claude Design from a mobile browser. I knew I could run Claude Code from my phone, but I didn’t want a pile of AI pull requests to review, test, and correct when I got back. I also knew it’s a bad idea to mix rest and work. I wanted to disconnect after all.
The disconnect between knowing and doing
I knew things wouldn’t fall apart while I was away, and most things are rarely as urgent as they seem. But knowing that and acting on it are different things. This is hard when you’re working on your tasks and responsibilities in an organisation, but also when you’re working on personal projects. You feel like you’re letting people down or giving up on progress you could make. For me, a deliberate disconnect helps bridge the gap between what you know is the right step and how you feel about it.
In the end, I didn’t work while I was away, and I wasn’t anxious about missing anything, despite the initial hesitation. The two most important insights I got from my time away were how the daily pace pushes me towards more reactive work and how to change the structure of my day.
A fast pace pushes towards reactive work
Ineffective attention management leads to reactive work, and a fast pace accelerates it. I used my trip to reduce the demand on my attention by cleaning up my inbox subscriptions and phone notifications.
I also used the time away to take another look at my relationship with AI for software development. AI signals productivity gains and fewer limits on what you can start, but I see AI for development pulling on my attention and focus the way social media does. The battle for attention is relentless. The experience I recently gained marketing my projects made me more observant about what we’re exposed to daily and how much marketing is tied to attention and feelings. Attention, reactive approaches, a fast pace, and AI are all connected.
Schedule change
My time away, without so much pulling on my attention, also allowed me to reflect on my daily habits and on how to bring some of that distance into my weekly and even daily routine.
It’s better for me to plan the next day’s immediate tasks than to work much longer today, not because of the risk of rework, but because it allows strategic planning. When what I do doesn’t spill outside the defined schedule, my time is more deliberate and my effort is focused where I want it.
I always thought holidays were mainly for resting and recovering. In a fast-paced environment, the more you can disconnect and step outside your usual flow, the more space you create. That space is where you see what serves you and what pushes you into a reactive mindset. My daily schedule changes carry forward the space I got from stopping and catching my breath.