January 2026: Full Speed Ahead

early mornings, reading books, and finding my new rhythm

I’m in Jackson Hole, Wyoming, chilling in the day bed nook of our condo rental. This is my fifth time in the Tetons and I’ve never flown here. This time, I decided to split the 15 hour drive across two days, without taking any time off of work. The two consecutive days of hitting the road at 5am, combined with only stopping to get gas or work at Starbucks left me feeling drained with tight hips.

Glancing outside and downwards towards the ground, there’s snow on the ground, which is dangerously low for this time in the season. I’m sipping a zero calorie cream soda and have three tangerines sitting standby for consumption. I’ve been reading the memoir Wild, about a woman’s journey through the PCT, but ten pages in, and I remember how scarce time to write has become, so I shut the book and grab my laptop.

I would love to have the time to read more, write more, stretch more, and in general chill more, but my days so far have oscillated between work and skiing with little breathing room.

Life is intense and simple right now. I have less anxiety but more stress. It can be overwhelming at times, but it’s also been fun to live this familiar way again. Even though I have a lease now, I still believe in seasonal living, matching my personal rhythm with the environment around me. I’m currently in a go-go-go season, and in a few weeks, things should slow down a bit.

The early bird gets the worm

I started waking up earlier, and it’s awesome. If most people are morning birds or night owls, I’m definitely the former. Now that I work a full-time job again, I’ve realized that the only way to get my personal stuff done is to do it outside of the work day. Back in 2019, during my first job, there would be weekdays where I would only remember ever working, nothing else. I’ve since learned to side-step the false dichotomy of putting myself first versus following through on my work responsibilities.

At 5:30am, after I’ve chugged a glass of water and meditated for anywhere from 5 to 15 minutes using Insight Timer to keep my streak going, I plop down at my dining table and proceed to indirectly stare into a light therapy lamp emanating 10,000 lux of brightness. It works. After journaling and reading for a bit, there’s a sense of momentum, like one thing just rolls into the next. By the time I start working, I’ve already lived a mini day.

Experimenting with time

We’ve all experienced how time isn’t linear. Being in the DMV line feels different than surfing a wave or skiing a steep line.

With less free time and more constraints, I’m learning how to expand time rather than just manage it. Waking up early is the unlock. When I start the day with meditation, journaling, and reading before anyone needs anything from me, the morning stretches. It’s a kind of healthy selfishness, claiming the first hours for myself before giving the rest away. The workday is simply an addition, a large one, but not the whole thing.

I’ve had to adjust to more structure and not always having total control over my time. This is my way of flowing with the constraints rather than fighting them.

Reading is fun again

When I was a kid, I used to devour books like My Side of the Mountain, The Hardy Boys, and The Boxcar Children. I could sit, whether in a chair or on the ground in pretzel formation, and read with the focus of a sniper for hours. Maybe it was school, social media, or work, but I lost that spark at some point. I stopped reading for enjoyment when I was forced to read for class, or when more addicting alternatives dominated my attention.

It’s been a practice to reclaim my attention. I think I had to sober up from social media before I could get back into reading again.

This month, I read Matthew McConaughey’s Greenlights which was an epic read of absurdity and a refreshing look inside the famous man’s life. Then I read Draft No. 4 by John McPhee. To read a book about writing was quite meta, and I noticed myself picking apart the word choice, structure, and rhythm, occasionally how even though I’ve improved as a writer, there’s still many levels to this.

No longer am I forced to read, and that has made all the difference.

finishing up Draft No. 4 in Lake Tahoe

Work

The role of a product manager is evolving quickly. In terms of timing, I left my previous full-time job right when ChatGPT first launched at the end of 2022. Until three months ago, I wasn’t working in tech, which means I missed the toddler stages of AI development, only to join right before Anthropic released Opus 4.5.

Even though my full-time jobs have always had the “product manager” title, there’ve been some new adjustments to get used to. With tools like Claude Code, Vercel, and Cursor, I can rapidly prototype new ideas and get customer feedback without involving a single engineer. In addition to product, I’m also spending part of my time on sales and marketing. But I think that’s less due to AI, and more just because we’re an 8-person startup.

There are days that feel intense, but I’m glad to be in this position. From my vantage point of building AI products and using AI tools in the creation process, I can see just how powerful this new technology is, and also its limitations.

As of now, I don’t have any specific predictions about AI. Things are going to get even crazier, and we should brace for change and stay adaptable.

Intentions for February

1. Continue to find my rhythm at work, largely a function of working hard, prioritizing what’s important, nurturing relationships, and taking care of myself.

2. Enjoy skiing this week in Jackson Hole and then next week in Salt Lake City.

3. Less: multitasking, late night work, and dairy (I’m lactose intolerant).

4. More: reading, writing, walking, and stretching.

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Hope you all are having a great start to 2026 ✌️

met Travis Rice today 🤘 (watch this video if you don’t know who he is)