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2026.H1 Review

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TL;DR - In 2026.H1, I started feeling like a real dad, took parental leave, went to a programming retreat, shipped CloudSeed Rust + QuietCut, reached 130k views, got back to building for fun, and started an AI diet.

Top Releases

Overview

My 2026.H1 domain scores across ten life domains

This past year has been defined by my kid. It changed everything - our sleep schedules, our free time, our chore load, how we can hang out, where we can go, and what we have to bring. It's also been the most fulfilling year of my life. Watching her grow and living / understanding the work behind the scenes has given me a greater appreciation for the circle of life - how much effort goes into the things we take for granted and how each generation has done this for the next.

It's hard. It's humbling. and it is THE work.

The first 6 months were really hard but the last 6 months I think we've hit our stride. It's not easy but we're figuring it out and have found a bit of a rhythm.

Dad mode has permeated much of my life:

In practice this has meant

My domain scores reflect that trade off - the self domains ran 8-9 this half while the output domains ran 6-7.

The second big change has been AI. It's growing and improving at an astounding rate and while it's expensive, I think longterm this is going to be a commodity utility like the computer, phone, and internet. And I'm increasingly leveraging it in my life:

Create

My 2026.H1 by the numbers — the half's key stats

Work

The shape of my 2026.H1 — parental leave and Recurse Center ran in parallel for four months, then back to work

I spent the first 4 months of the half on parental leave taking care of the baby and carving out time for a programming retreat at Recurse Center. I focused on agentic engineering and what I could get done with limited time and attention - the big themes were Applied AI for Engineering, Web Systems with Rust, and Networked Games.

For the past 2 months I've been back to work. It's good to be back, but I'm working too much for too little impact. It's been rough - I've been trying to ramp back up on domain / project context, agentic engineering at enterprise scale, and typical corporate cycles frequently pulling 50h weeks.

AI is helping me move faster (~60% more PR throughput) but I'm not seeing those savings in work time and I feel like I'm working MORE than before AI. I think part of this is just slow ramp up, part my agentic systems not scaling to enterprise context, and part poor project planning / timelines at the outset. Hoping to refactor some of these for next quarter so doesn't happen again.

I'm shifting my career focus towards more platform work. I've realized that's the work that gives me energy and aligns more with the kinds of things and skills I want to build long term. This is more aligned with some of my previous work at MasterCard, Instagram, and Rippling as well so it's not new but is a bit of a pivot from the product direction I've been exploring recently.

Build

I shipped CloudSeed Rust, QuietCut, LightClone, and Task Golem this half (and retired Phase Golem). I also spent a lot of time figuring out my agentic cycles - trying to build a factory for the things I like to build, with skills and tools geared towards more speed, more quality, and less mental overhead.

Not much revenue which kinda makes sense cause RC is all about shipping things not for money and haven't done much marketing.

Moving forward I want to ship a few more biz (1 / month?) and see what happens. Hopefully cutting back on work hours will give me more bandwidth for side projects.

Share took a backseat this quarter - I have less bandwidth and it has less impact than my other domains. I still like writing and making videos but it is time consuming and ultimately I want to build more so that's where my limited bandwidth is going to be focused.

Ideally I can get back to 1/week but it may need a bit more help from AI for researching and drafting. I like writing a lot and think I'll keep doing it myself for the most part but I can't deny there's some drudgery involved in revising and editing so if it's the difference between sharing and letting it rot in my drafts for years then might as well get it out there.

If you want updates when I publish new posts, you can follow me on socials for day-of updates or my email newsletter for ~monthly roundups.

Play

Recurse Center resparked some joy of creatoin. It was slow and I think I was still a bit too focused on outcomes but it's reminded me of a lighter, more fun approach to building that I lost touch of some years ago.

The Play bucket is back to try and capture that - art for the sake of art.

I'm vibe coding more, mostly shipping to my Labs server:

Back when I was an ~artist I built a lot of things for fun but I dropped it after awhile because a lot of it felt like work and I didn't really see the point of putting in extra hours. Vibe coding has brought some of that back. I can iterate while sitting on the couch without full deep work cycles and it's fun to build tiny little things that won't go anywhere.

LMK if you've got ideas for things to make!

Reflect

Health

I told AI I want a 6 pack and we planned it out:

I now track all my calories with Macrofactor, AI helps me pick grocery and restaurant items, and we have a 60 minute workout plan I cycle through 6 days a week. I'm eating way more protein, more fruits and veggies, less carbs and snacks, plus supplements (D, fish oil, creatine, magnesium). I'm also drinking a lot less - most weeks 0, 1-2 max.

I don't know if I've ever been healthier. And it feels lifelong-sustainable which is exciting - a real Simple Scalable System.

Lately I've been thinking that the best systems are just simple. They approach the outcomes you want and you can do them over and over. Do the work and the score takes care of itself.

Wealth

The market is booming. I still think there's gotta be a correction some time but I'm still investing cause you never know. I'm stacking cash for the dip (emergency fund + money market) while keeping my regular auto-invests going, trying to hedge both sides.

My savings rate came in at 43% for the half above my 40% floor and under my 50% target. I still think savings rate is your best lever for long term financial stability so I'm always focused on it.

We're looking into how we want to invest for the kid long term, more on that when we figure it out but likely a mix of 529 and tax deferred / taxable.

Improve

I believe AI is here to stay and I've been finding good leverage with it. AI assistants are a core part of my life now: my diet and exercise plan, research + analysis, writing, and coding.

The other big one is my terminal-based workflow - most of my computing happens in the terminal now, with portable AI skills that work across harnesses and Claude Code running from my phone.

Observe

Connect

The baby is 1. Most hangs now include her or are heavily constrained by her as it's hard to leave her alone for any amount of time. Hangs are easier when we can bring her, and they make more sense with people who have a baby too - same phase, same constraints.

The people and activities I've been drawn to are family activities, interesting projects, and casual dinners. We see family 1-2 times a week (50-100 times a year) which is much closer to what I want long term than our average in NY.

I'm learning that connection runs on infrastructure. One-off events take a lot of effort to plan esp with the baby whereas weekly rituals (sunday walks, saturday explorations) are easier to keep up with and plug into. Kinda like time blocking for connection.

Explore

Places: NY (twice - friends and work), Japan, a wedding, a cabin, and day trips downtown.

Contumption:

Happiness

I'm happy. It's not what I necessarily thought would make me happy a few years ago, but family life has been extremely fulfilling.

We're healthy, we're happy, and we have freedom to do what we want. We're supported by our family and friends. In my Q1 review I wrote about the second mountain and I think we're well on our way.

Is this all there is? No, there's so much more. But this is what I can handle right now, so I'm focusing on managing this well before adding more.

Next

The theme for the next half: Balance life.

I did well on self (health, happiness) and poorly on creation (work, build, share) because work consumed a lot of my bandwidth. So H2's focus is pulling work back to 40h and rebalancing across my domains.

Thanks for reading.

Live long and prosper, HAMY