How I work
This isn't a rulebook. It's my current setup, and I keep experimenting with it: what works stays, and what doesn't you'll find further down among the experiments. The one thing I've learned for certain in recent years is that when my energy is right, the work goes more easily. It has never worked the other way round.
Now
Autumn 2026
This season I'm refining my own agent system. It started as a web app, and a native iOS version is now in the works, so that it becomes part of my day rather than one more browser tab. Alongside that I work with partners on larger programmes, build my own products, and since the end of summer I've been more deliberate about how I show up. This page is part of that.
The day
My energy isn't even through the day, so my day isn't either. I'm sharpest in the morning, so that's where the work that needs the most attention goes. What needs less goes to the afternoon.
System start, before 6:00
The first hour is mine: meditation, breathing, quiet. Everything else builds on it.
Movement and family
A walk or a morning stretch, breakfast together, then we take my daughter to nursery.
Focused work, 9:00 to 12:30
This is when I build, whether it's my own product or partner work. No email, no social media.
Lunch, then a short rest
A warm, cooked meal. The rest is the plan, at least: it still gets skipped a lot.
Operations block
Meetings, admin, email, and steering what the machines did in the meantime. Whatever no longer needs much brainpower.
Growth
Learning, training and finances, rotating through the week.
The airlock
A second meditation in the afternoon. The most important point of the day: this is where I put work down, so I don't carry it home in my head.
Evening with family
Playground, a walk, dinner together, bath and a story. Then stretching, reading, talking, no screens. In bed between 22:00 and 23:00.
And a bad day?
If I go to bed at midnight, I don't get up before 6:00, or only with real effort. The meditation goes, breakfast gets quicker, and the whole family feels the rush. If meetings creep into the morning, I try to make up the creative work in the afternoon, and from there everything slips: the second meditation, the workout, the walk. A single late night takes a whole day with it. That's why I protect my evening first, not my working hours.
The year
The Vedic tradition divides the year into six seasons, and I line up my attention with them. Not as a religion, as a plain observation: my energy in January isn't my energy in July, and it would be silly to pretend otherwise.
| Period | At work | In life |
|---|---|---|
| Mid-January to mid-March | Audit and yearly strategy | Turning inward, reading, family planning |
| Mid-March to mid-May | Launch: new products, campaigns, sales | Renewal, a digital spring clean, moving outdoors |
| Mid-May to mid-July | Overseeing the automations, scaling | Family holiday, water, digital detox days |
| Mid-July to mid-September | Structure: documenting processes, stabilising | Strengthening routines, stability at home |
| Mid-September to mid-November | Quality and making: content, in-depth client work | Clarity, the arts, time with friends |
| Mid-November to mid-January | Building: new systems, code | Gathering strength, sport, long evenings with family |
Mid-January to mid-March
At work: Audit and yearly strategy
In life: Turning inward, reading, family planning
Mid-March to mid-May
At work: Launch: new products, campaigns, sales
In life: Renewal, a digital spring clean, moving outdoors
Mid-May to mid-July
At work: Overseeing the automations, scaling
In life: Family holiday, water, digital detox days
Mid-July to mid-September
At work: Structure: documenting processes, stabilising
In life: Strengthening routines, stability at home
Mid-September to mid-November
At work: Quality and making: content, in-depth client work
In life: Clarity, the arts, time with friends
Mid-November to mid-January
At work: Building: new systems, code
In life: Gathering strength, sport, long evenings with family
I match my eating to this too: lighter food that suits the season and the time of day. Honestly, this is the hardest part, and where I have the most to learn.
Movement
I like to move. My favourite way to start the day is a 30 to 40 minute walk, and I go out during the day too when I can. I run, I cycle, and I do bodyweight training (calisthenics) at home or outdoors. We live in the Alps, so an e-bike for the mountains is on the list. When it arrives, I'll write about that too.
The machine layer
I automate whatever I can, but only where I trust it.
What I hand to the machine
Everything that takes a lot of human energy and costs the machine nothing:
- researching topics and gathering information
- comparisons, and mapping the arguments for and against
- analysing feedback and scientific papers
- pulling the essence out of long pages
- first drafts of text, in my own voice
What I don't hand over
My finances, my banking, or handling my email in outside software, even software I built myself. Whatever is about me and could do damage if it goes wrong stays with me. I'm experimenting, carefully, with the AI built into my mail system.
And never the judgment: what to build, what to leave out, and what goes out under my name.
My own agent system works alongside me. It researches, drafts and prepares. It can't publish: everything that goes out passes through me first. I'm not embarrassed that AI helps with my writing. The topic, the experience and the decision are mine. The grunt work is the machine's. Exactly how is written up on the page about how I use AI.
While the machine works, I don't take the next task off the shelf. That's harder than it sounds.
Have I taken anything back from it?
Not so far. Not because everything worked, but because I open up slowly: I hand over one area at a time, and the next one only follows once the previous one is reliable.
Where would these lines fall in your own work? A few minutes, no email needed: What should you automate, and what should you keep?
Experiments
What I'm testing on myself right now, and what I closed recently. Including the ones I abandoned.
Does an Agent System Need an Interface?
An agent system doesn't need an interface. It's enough for it to run in the background and do what I hand it.
When I Go to Bed, When I Get Up
If I get up later, I can stay up later in the evening and keep the same energy.
One Meditation a Day Instead of Two
If I only meditate in the morning, I gain twenty minutes a day without losing any energy.
What I work with
As a designer I lived in Figma and Sketch for years. Today I barely open them. Not because they're bad, but because my work changed: I went from using tools to conducting them.
- AI
- Claude and Claude Code come first. Next to them OpenAI Codex, ChatGPT and Gemini, often side by side so I can see which is better at what. I started coding with AI in Cursor and still watch where it's heading; I'm also trying xAI's Grok there. The Chinese models are still on my list.
- Building
- Next.js, Sanity, Vercel and Supabase on the web, Xcode for iOS.
- Organising
- Notion ran everything for a long time. More and more of it is now being taken over by my own system.
My stack follows the problem, not the other way round.
Following along
Every two weeks I write up one decision from this practice, along with what it cost.
One email every two weeks. Unsubscribe in one click.
And if you'd rather work with me on your own product or team, here are the packages.