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At the end of 2024, I did something I had not done in 25 years: I started blogging again. The last time I wrote consistently online was around the turn of the millennium. Back then it was pure experimentation (and mostly teen angst, honestly). A personal site, some thoughts, some code, and a lot of curiosity. Then life and career took over.

Fast forward to late 2024 and I was working at a web hosting company. We were building tools for people who publish on the web, and it felt wrong not to be using the product myself—if you build for creators, you should create. So I spun up this WordPress site you’re reading now.

My goal was more pragmatic than passionate: reacquaint myself with WordPress, understand user experience, and live in the product. WordPress has changed little at its core over the years. Posts, pages, and themes still work much the same way they did when I was building client sites in the mid-aughts. The muscle memory came back quickly.

Within a weekend I had the basics in place, and I even had an old design ready to go. The HTML and CSS had been sitting in a folder on my NAS since 2005! I was surprised at how well it held up. A layout I had coded years ago and never shipped worked in modern browsers with minimal adjustment. The site was essentially done, so I wired it up, tweaked a few things, and published my first post.

From there I set a simple target: one post per month. It felt sustainable and frequent enough to create a signal, yet infrequent enough to fit into my life. I did not want noise. I wanted intention.

Over the course of the year something interesting happened: my writing began to converge around a theme. The posts that felt most natural were about design, product management, and leadership. They were grounded in experience, not theory. I found myself clarifying what I believe about craft, systems, teams, and decision making.

I also wrote personal pieces. A few pet peeves. Observations that had nothing to do with design. They were fun, but they diluted the signal.

That tension led to a decision.

Today I am launching a new blog: Craft & Systems. It is where I will publish more regularly about design and software leadership. Focused and opinionated, but grounded in practice. I have migrated my design and product leadership posts there so they can live together as a coherent body of work. If that is the kind of writing you come here for, take a look and consider subscribing to my newsletter.

Publishing here will likely be more sporadic as I put more energy into Craft & Systems, but it will not disappear. This space will remain my personal outlet for the desk gadget posts, the occasional rant, all the things that do not quite fit into a professional throughline, but I still want to write about.

In some ways, this feels like a return to 1999. A personal corner of the web that is mine. Just more intentional about where different ideas belong.

Thanks for reading then, and now.

I’m not a people person. Crowds, small talk, the chaos of society—it’s not my thing. If I could vanish into the woods without worrying about wild animals or my own questionable decisions, I would. But even as someone who prefers solitude, I know that showing up on time is a fundamental part of being a functional adult.

If there’s one rule I live by, it’s this: show up. Commitment isn’t just agreeing to something—it’s following through and being there, on time. Pulling into the parking lot five minutes before? That’s late. Someone’s already watching the clock, wondering where you are.

Legitimate excuses for being late are rare—perhaps a road accident or a serious family emergency. Beyond that, being late usually just means you didn’t plan well. Traffic? Oversleeping? Your kids did something? That’s all on you. Life happens, sure. But most of the time, lateness comes down to poor preparation or a disregard for other people’s time.

The solution is simple: do less, but do it well. If you’re stretched thin, cut back. Prioritize what truly matters. And when you commit to something, commit fully—that means leaving early so you can actually be on time.

Being on time shows accountability and respect. It tells others, Your time matters, and I respect that. If someone consistently shows up late, they’re effectively saying, My time is more important than yours. That’s not just annoying; it’s insulting.

Look, I get it. Life’s hectic. Things don’t always go as planned. But if you make it a rule to buffer in time for the unexpected, you’ll be on time more often than not. And when you show up with time to spare, you’ll feel more prepared, less rushed, and ready to tackle whatever’s in front of you.

Here’s a quick example: I once arrived for a job interview at a large company. Fifteen minutes before my interview, I walked up to the entrance—locked. Turns out, I was on the wrong side of the building. I had to take an elevator down, sprint across a city block, take another elevator up, and finally find the right door. I made it with five minutes to spare, just enough time to catch my breath. If I hadn’t been early, I’d have been late and flustered—not the impression you want to make.

The irony? In my personal life, I’m great at this. When it comes to social events, doctor’s appointments, or travel, I build in extra time and feel good about it. But at work? In person and remotely? I’m not the best. I’m often a few minutes late for every meeting.

Like most people, my workdays are packed with back-to-back meetings. And no matter how hard I try, that schedule makes it nearly impossible to be on time for everything. Ever tried 25-minute meetings? They don’t work. One of my teams set up “speedy meetings” in Google Calendar, but nobody stuck to them. Unless I start declining half my meetings or blocking 30-minute buffers (which isn’t realistic), being perfectly on time is nearly impossible.

Still, I believe teams can achieve punctuality through collaboration and discipline. Instead of relying on “speedy meetings,” collectively monitor time and hold each other accountable to finish as scheduled. If you need more time, tough—schedule another meeting. I know that sounds counterintuitive—another meeting? Really?—but unless it’s a real emergency, running over just makes everyone late for their next commitment.

Working in an office? Get more clocks. Remember when every classroom had one? At some point, offices just stopped caring about clocks. How dumb is that? Having a visible reminder of time helps us respect it. Also, consider using the clock app on your phone to set a timer a few minutes before the meeting ends. If you’re remote, set a timer for yourself. In person, it’s a great signal for everyone to wrap up.

So let’s agree on this: there’s almost never a good excuse for being late. Respect the people you’ve committed to. Respect their time. And most importantly, respect yourself enough to honour your commitments.

Showing up on time isn’t just polite—it makes you dependable. And dependability is everything.

If there’s one lesson I’ve learned over the years, it’s this: most of the decisions, arguments, and daily inconveniences we fret about don’t matter nearly as much as we think they do. Life has a way of teaching us what truly matters—and what doesn’t.

I used to be very opinionated about everything (I still am really). Be it music, politics, parenting styles, or just the right way to load the dishwasher, I’d jump at any chance to dive headfirst into a debate. And if someone disagreed with me? That was my cue to double down, defend my stance, and prove my point. Keeping my cool has never been my strong suit, so too often, those debates ended with me resorting to insults. The same drama would play out every time: I’d end up angry, stressed, and wondering why I even cared—not to mention that others weren’t thrilled with the outcome either.

I still catch myself thinking most people are idiots. But the truth is, we all have idiotic moments—myself included. I’ve come to realize that everyone’s just trying their best, even if we stumble more often than not (and I stumble a lot).

Looking back, I realize that most of those debates didn’t matter. Winning the argument didn’t make my life better; more often than not, it left me feeling drained, disconnected, and on someone’s bad side. Over time, I’ve gotten better at keeping my cool and understanding how insignificant most of life’s decisions and disagreements really are.

I still get annoyed when someone dangerously cuts me off in traffic, for example (seriously, fuck that guy), but I’m getting better at reminding myself that most of the time it doesn’t matter. In the grand scheme of things, giving up a car length during my commute has absolutely no impact on my life. So why waste energy stressing over it?

The same applies when something “bad” happens. A broken appliance, a day that doesn’t go as planned, a cranky kid, a mistake at work—sure, it’s frustrating in the moment. Things break. Most days are just days. Kids are kids. And work is hard. Hell, life is hard. But when I look back days, weeks, or months later, I often realize it, whatever it was, didn’t matter at all. That’s life, man.

Parenting, in particular, has taught me the value of letting go. When you’ve got kids, life is full of spills, scrapes, fights, and all kinds of chaos. I used to get angry—really angry. Not all the time, but often enough that I felt guilty about it. I’d be a great dad 99% of the time, but I know that 1%—the shit-for-brains dad who yelled, lost his patience, and made them cry over things that didn’t matter—left its mark on my kids. A spilled glass of milk or a kid who won’t just go to sleep isn’t the end of the world, but in those moments, I acted like it was.

Now, I try to remind myself: It doesn’t matter. Instead of reacting with frustration, I focus on what I can teach them. If they spill something, I’ll help them clean it up. If they make a mistake, I’ll show them how to fix it. The energy I used to spend on anger is now spent on guidance—and it’s made all the difference in my relationship with my kids (and my wife).

Of course, some things do matter. Teaching my kids the difference between right and wrong matters. Making decisions that align with my values and long-term goals matters. Dealing with a gaslighting boss? That matters too. Supporting my team at work through big mistakes and existential threats to our livelihoods matters a lot. But when those things happen, I try not to dwell on the problem itself.

Here’s the key: I focus my energy on the correction instead of the cause. If my kids mess up, I don’t dwell on the mistake—I help them learn from it. When faced with a big decision, I weigh my options carefully and move forward without second-guessing myself. And if a mistake happens at work, whether it’s mine or a colleague’s, I focus on finding a solution. By channeling my energy toward what truly matters, I’ve discovered more clarity and peace in my everyday life.

That said, this approach comes with a downside that needs to be managed. My newfound ability to better control my reactions—or lack of them—often comes across as apathy. When others see me staying calm (or not reacting) in the face of something they think is a big deal, they assume I don’t care. And honestly? They’re not entirely wrong. I don’t care—because, in most cases, it really doesn’t matter. But pretending to care? That’s tough for me to do, so I to my best to at least acknowledge the situation with some thoughtfulness. Sometimes, just a simple “Yeah, that’s frustrating,” is enough to let someone know I’m not dismissing them. I’m not perfect at it, but I’m trying.

Life is too short to sweat the small stuff. So take a step back and ask yourself, Does this really matter? If the answer is no, let it go. If the answer is yes, focus your energy on what you can do about it. Most of the things we worry about won’t matter in a week, a month, or even a year—so why waste your time and energy? Save it for the things that truly matter—and let the rest go.