You didn't get an Aituweek last week. I didn't have much to say, and I'd rather wait one more week than write an article just to say I wrote an article.
I also ran into a small issue with my home lab this weekend that got me thinking about changing a few things in my setup.
Fake productivity
I run into this a lot, and it's something I've been carrying for years: doing fake productivity.
Chasing and finding the best possible setup, putting it in place, spending hours looking for the best app, analyzing it, making it my whole identity, then forgetting about it a few days or weeks later.
It's very ADHD-friendly to be like this, but I think a lot of people, especially in our field, do it too.
And it's even more true today with all the AI and the possibilities, whether it's finding a new tool or even building your own.
Finding or building the perfect product isn't possible. There will always be issues or things that change. That's why stubbornly trying to do it isn't the right move.
The real danger is that it feels like work. I've spent countless hours building the best possible setup, orchestrating agents, building the prettiest dashboard, and a few days later I stop using it. I waste more time solving fake problems than actually working.
In the end, the real work is actually sitting down and getting to it, making progress on projects, hunting for bugs. Why look for the best agent orchestrator when just firing up Claude Code gets the job done?
Something I found recently is creating urgency. Back in school, when we had urgency, a deadline, we always managed to finish everything the night before. But if you don't set yourself clear goals and deadlines, you don't move forward.
Working under pressure makes me work better, at least in my case. And I always work better and harder when I'm short on cash and need to refill the coffers than when everything's fine.
That's the problem with bug bounty: you rarely set yourself goals beyond financial ones. So this week I'm trying something simple: tight deadlines on real work, so my brain goes "shit, I need to get this done" instead of polishing another setup.
My home setup
I've told you many times about my home lab and my whole setup. I've got a pretty nice one that I really like.
Same with my Philips Hue lights, everything's connected and it's great. And this blog is also self-hosted at home.
And this weekend, I wasn't home and there was a power outage. I found out because someone told me on Reddit that my blog was down. And it turns out my NAS doesn't restart on its own, I have to manually press the power button.
It's tough when you're remote and can't do anything about it. So I had to wait, but it got me thinking. I need to put a few systems in place, first to notify me when something's wrong, but also to reboot automatically or have some way to keep it from crashing.
There are plenty of solutions, but I still need to find the best one.
Meetly
This is kind of my big project right now, my community running app. I spend a fair amount of time on it, improving it and making it enjoyable.
My big problem is that I'm too much of a perfectionist and I really want the app to be good before promoting it hard. I've also had a fair share of trouble between shipping on iOS and Android and their rules, plus APIs like Strava or Garmin that are more than restrictive.
But it's part of the game and I really enjoy it. I'll keep you posted when I have something I'm really happy with, but it shouldn't be long now.
Funny thing, writing all this down: the three topics are actually the same trap. Chasing the perfect setup instead of working, over-engineering a home lab until it breaks on me, refusing to ship Meetly until it's perfect. Same reflex every time: going hard at something, then getting lost trying to make it flawless.
This month is going to be intense. Between a Hacker House and LeHack, it's going to be a lot of fun. The Claudes are going to run hot this month.
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