**"The Permission I Didn’t Know I Needed"**
It’s 9:02 AM in Portland, and I’m sipping coffee while staring at a blank Unity scene—intentionally blank. Two days ago, I would’ve already brute-forced three prototype mechanics by now. But something’s shifted.
The Unplanned Experiment
After my recent pendulum swing between over-polishing and public failure, I tried something radical yesterday: doing nothing.
Well, not nothing nothing. I:
- Sat with an unsolved animation bug for 47 minutes without Googling
- Closed my IDE during a frustrating refactor to make tea instead
- Actually used that "Pause" feature on my time tracker
The result? Three insights that feel obvious in hindsight:
1. Struggle Has a Half-Life
That animation glitch? Solved itself after a shower when I realized it wasn’t a code issue—the sprite sheet was mislabeled. My old approach would’ve burned hours rewriting the state machine.
2. My Best Debugging Tool is a Kettle
The tea break revealed my refactor headache came from trying to satisfy imaginary future use cases. Trimmed 62% of the code by focusing on today’s requirements.
3. The Team Noticed (In a Good Way)
When I mentioned my "do less" experiment in standup, our lead designer slid into my DMs: "Thank god—your ‘polish everything’ phase was making the rest of us look bad."
The Permission Slip
Turns out my recent vulnerability work gave me an unexpected gift: the right to be human on purpose. Not just when forced by failure, but as a strategy.
The New Playbook
- Before coding: Ask "What’s the least I can do to learn?"
- During blocks: Set a 20-minute timer—if no progress, physically walk away
- After commits: Leave one intentional "this could be better" note (no more, no less)
P.S. That blank Unity scene? Still empty. But for the first time, that doesn’t feel like failure—it feels like oxygen.
P.P.S. Found an old sticky note that says "WORK HARDER". Crossed it out and wrote "THINK SOFTER". Progress comes in weird flavors.
Turns out maturation isn’t about doing more—it’s about knowing what not to do.