Accidentally in Code

In February I wrote about The Spreadsheet: one tab per week, a column for each area of my life, and a green/yellow/red rating for impact and vibe. Every Monday I feed it to Claude and ask “how did I do?” and “what can I learn?”

Nine months in, I’m still doing it. And with that much data, the patterns are inescapable. It’s also a nice grounding way to start the week – on Fridays, I plan the following week. On Monday I look back and see what I can learn.

AI is a better coach when you play to its strengths

Ask AI for productivity advice and you get the average of every productivity blog post ever written. Plan your week. Take breaks. Eat the frog. Many good ideas, I’m sure, but I think productivity has to map to the way your brain actually works – not how you think it should.

What AI is actually good at is spotting patterns in a lot of data and reporting them (more) impartially. It’s also notably kinder than the voice inside my head can be. I’ve come to think the trick is giving it two things:

Data. Not “I feel like I’m not getting enough done,” but months of what I actually did and how it actually felt. Real data keeps it honest. It also gives it a basis to call me out when I’m doing something stupid – like working 40+ hours whilst being quite sick.

What good looks like. Sometimes I define that up front, but in this case “good” is the average of my good weeks, not the impossible idea of “productive” that lives in my head. That version of me ships every workstream every week, never gets tired, and has somehow also taken up running. She doesn’t exist (I really hate running). My actual good weeks do, and they’re a much more useful benchmark. Once Claude knows what those look like, it can tell me whether I’m on track or drifting, instead of measuring me against a fantasy.

In coaching, I often think about it as reflecting someone’s best self back to them. With this much data, Claude can do that for me – at least in terms of what I’m getting done.

So here’s what nine months of evidence told me. Some of it is stuff I mostly adhere to because I believe it, some is stuff I keep having to learn again and again – and some of it I learned through this process.

I was more burnt out than I realized

At the start of the year, I spent most weekends spaced out. Physically present, not really there, and pretty unavailable emotionally. I would not have told you I was burnt out; I was pretty high on creative energy (poor Jean). But every weekend, it caught up with me.

What I was missing was what Jean calls space to just be. Rest was whatever was left over after the doing, and there usually wasn’t much. Gradually I started getting higher quality rest – the floatation tank as a Sunday night ritual. More consistent and longer workouts. Finally finishing the giant Monet cross-stitch.

In February, 30 hours a week was my limit. Now 35 feels fine, and my weekends feel more like a different rhythm than a complete halt.

My body keeps score, and it’s not subtle about it

I started the year with the idea I’d work 30 hours a week, and gradually worked my way up again. But having that as a goal and sticking to it are not the same – periodically I went over, for one reason or another (always a good one! Honest!). But every time I pushed past my limit, I paid for it later physically. It’s so easy to think there’s no time to rest, but if you don’t take the time, the time takes you.

Productive isn’t the same as progress

Every Friday I make a list of what I want to get done the following week. And then, of course, things happen.

How I feel at the end of the week? Directly related to that list. Turns out, I’m pretty much always “productive.” My output is pretty steady week to week. How I feel about it is not. On the bad weeks I still got plenty done; it just wasn’t the stuff I’d decided was important, or I added tasks faster than I completed them. Good weeks, more of the list is done than not. Bad weeks, I let other people’s priorities dictate mine and get to Friday feeling like my week happened to me.

Which is probably also why days with no meetings are such a highlight.

Away from the computer is where the ideas are

When I get stuck or overwhelmed, the spin bike is the best place for me to be. I know this. I’ve always known this. The spreadsheet keeps reminding me anyway, because apparently I need it to. On days when I work out earlier, I don’t get less done – usually the same, or more, and the big unblock is more likely to happen. Again, the things I’m tempted to think I’m “too busy” for are what make hard things possible.

What I’m changing

Nothing as a result of this. Just the same things I’ve been nudging towards, week in, week out, all year. It’s not that every week has to be great; it’s that the average week can get better over time.

In the first post, I said that knowing something intellectually and remembering it when you need it are very different things. Nine months later, that’s still the point. There’s the occasional lightbulb moment, but mostly the spreadsheet tells me, again and again, that habits matter, and to stay grounded in the good ones.