Weeks 1499 & 1500

Wow. If I realized it was a milestone week, I would have done something to celebrate! 

Not actually. Well, maybe for the 2,000 week mark. Afterall, that is meant to mark the halfway point in this race. 

Anyway, I got side-tracked last week and was supposed to write the reflection on the Mel Robbins episode and didn’t do that until today so we are pulling overtime here to make sure that I am following through on my commitments! 

Last week wasn’t noteworthy for the most part but one thing worth highlighting is that I haven’t felt like a good boss lately. 

I thought I had no idea why until I started typing this out. 

I guess I am hitting a bit of the valley of despair right now and am realizing that I don’t know as much as I think I know. 

This is more than likely a good thing, I just like feeling like I am doing a good job and I haven’t felt that way as of late. I’m past the intro period where I can pass my ignorance off as being the new guy so I need to know my stuff. 

Ultimately, this just means I am going to be diving into the weeds of my job a bit more but I wanted to highlight the weird anxiety, considering I do a good job relative to my peers. I just expect a lot out of myself and don’t think I am in the top spot yet. 

Outside of that, my consistency with my projects has gone up (irony of me typing this late aside). 

I have targets that I am working towards with both work and my personal life and this is motivating.

Now, I need to lock in habits to help me take advantage of that. 

Worth noting: Syd got an Interior Design client in week 1499 from persistent emailing over the span of 8 months and has started partnering with a contractor. It’s early days but his vision for his clients is having a team of people for their projects and Syd is on the team. I’m excited for her to see what this becomes. This could also significantly reduce our overhead needs for staging after a stage that was a massive pain in the ass. 

Previous paragraph aside, I created the perfect segue into this past week! 

I have recognized that systems are my limitation right now as I am getting in my own way. What I mean by that sentence is I was lacking systems to help ensure that I was setting myself up to progress towards achieving my goals which meant I was letting a lot of my time be spent idly messing around instead of prioritizing my goals. 

Silly boy. 

This week, and today especially, I have been working with AI to create check-in and accountability systems to help ensure that I am working towards and documenting my progress towards my goals. 

The progress isn’t always going to be tangible (at least, I doubt it will be), but I am hoping that this helps me with tracking and sharing my progress. 

Ultimately, the intention behind this is to share what I am doing and hopefully help you generate ideas as to how you can help set yourself up for success. 

What I started with was sharing my periodized approach to achieving my goals and filtered that down to the current priority, Japanese. With that in mind, I shared what I was working on and the areas that I wanted to improve upon, creating a bit of a road map for what I am going to be doing through the end of May. 

My logic was that I check my Outlook calendar daily but largely ignore my Google calendar and that I could happily incorporate Claude into my process knowing that all I have to do is ask it what I need to do today (long term vision, add more to the list and get help organizing my day but baby steps for the big guy). 

Here is my first Japanese check-in with Claude: 

週1 (Week 1) — March 1–8, 2026

Monday: WaniKani reviews, YUYUnonihongo podcast during walks/driving.

Tuesday (Grammar): Grammar session — pleasantly surprised by engagement level. Two grammar resources now in rotation.

Wednesday: WaniKani reviews. Podcast during walks.

Thursday (Immersion): Anime immersion, continuing Black Clover.

Friday: WaniKani — missed session, compensated with extra immersion. Knocked out 30 reviews during work.

Saturday (Reading): Level 0 tadoku graded readers. Slow but manageable. Identified gap between word recognition and fluid comprehension.

Sunday (Immersion): Finished Black Clover. Restarting with full Japanese subtitles (refold method). WaniKani reviews down to 399 from 518 on the week.

Reflection

• Solid first week. Consistent daily effort across all activity types.

• WaniKani backlog trending down (600+ → 399). Apprentice pile (~270) is the main watch point for Week 2.

• Grammar was a highlight — more engaging than expected.

• Reading comprehension gap identified early — right time to catch it.

• Podcast working well outside gym; gym audio needs a different solution.

• Restarting Black Clover with JP subs is the best strategic move of the week.

I am going to incorporate a similar format for my other goals as well. We will see how that goes. 

I currently have them as two separate projects and worry about this causing a bit of a headache for me. 

That’s all for this week but I hope to bring even more clarity to what I am working on with next week’s check in.