There's this show called Agents of S.H.I.E.L.D.—a hidden gem in the Marvel universe that I'm absolutely obsessed with. In one of the later seasons, the team gets thrust into the future, leaving one scientist behind. This guy, one of the smartest people on the team, sends them a message that eventually finds its way to them. It just says: "Working on it."
Three words. Complete confidence.
(The postcard in question, credits to ABC & Marvel)
That's the thing about someone working the problem - you don't need to know when it'll be solved, you just need to trust the system. You trust the strategy. You trust that it's going to get done.
I think about this concept a lot because it describes how I operate, or at least how I'm learning to operate. I'm working on things. Always have been. But for the longest time, I couldn't tell you what I was actually working on.
The Procrastination Playbook
Let me paint you a picture of how things used to go.
I'd take a week off to work on something - let's say designing this site. I'd think, "Okay, five full days, I can definitely get this done." The weekend doesn't count because weekends aren't for working, obviously. So Monday rolls around and I'm like, "Yeah, I should do something, I know I should do something," and I feel guilty that I don't, but it's Monday and there are still four days left. I can get this done in a morning. So what's the rush?
Monday: loitering. Tuesday: "I've got plans in the evening, better chill today." Wednesday hits and I'm like, "Oh shit, I'm at the halfway mark." So at 4 p.m., after spending the day convincing myself I'm more productive in the afternoon (I'm not), I finally open my laptop. One hour of work, maybe less. Bare bones. A skeleton of a design.
Thursday comes and the pressure's real now. I have to perform. I'm staring at that blank page, stress-designing something that looks decent in the moment. Friday arrives and I look at it again—it looks like trash. Because stress-designing produces trash.
Then it's the weekend again. Then it's Monday. Week's over.
This used to define me. The blank page syndrome is real. Imposter syndrome? Also real. Both make it challenging - not impossible, just challenging - to actually start the damn thing.
The Motivation Trap
I used to think I needed motivation first. Or inspiration. That I had to wait for that unique flow state where creativity just happens, you know? Where the stars align and the muse descends and suddenly you're in the zone.
I talked about this with a coach once. We discussed confidence—what gives you confidence? Success ignites confidence. Feeling good about the work you do. But to do the work, you first have to be motivated or inspired, right?
Wrong.
That's the perspective trap. The thing I finally figured out is that motivation isn't the input - it's the result. You don't get motivated and then do the work. You do the work and get motivated.
I know that sounds like some productivity-bro bullshit, but hear me out.
How I Actually Work Now
Right now I'm building an app. Instead of waiting for motivation and inspiration to strike me like two lightning bolts in the same spot, I just start doing the work. And here's my cheat code: I use Claude to help me unfumble my mind.
I'll literally just scream into my computer for five, ten minutes - just stream-of-consciousness brain dump everything. Then I ask Claude to extract any relevant information, confirm what makes sense, and create an action plan. Step by step. Instructions on how to implement it or design it.
Sometimes I know exactly what to do. If I'm feeling confident and inspired, I can skip the guide rails. But other times? When I'm feeling insecure or uncertain about the next step? Having that AI assistance there—Claude, ChatGPT, whatever—to get my thoughts in order and look at things holistically? Game-changer.
I've even set up system prompts that give me brutal honesty. My "I have a great idea" project in Claude will absolutely roast me. It's amusing, sure, but more importantly, it gives me perspective. It catches those obvious pitfalls I'd otherwise stumble into three weeks down the line when I'm knee-deep in the design thinking, "Oh shit, this is the thing we should've caught earlier."
Those common pitfalls are easy to fall into but also easy to see if you look at things from the outside. AI helps with that.
Motivation as Accelerant
So here's my learning: do the work and the motivation will come. Motivation isn't the spark that starts the fire - it's the accelerant you pour on once things are already burning.
When you're working and it works, when you design something and you build it and it actually functions? That's when motivation kicks in. That's when you can use that extra power, that momentum, because you're motivated now. It works. It's amazing.
As long as you keep working on it.
Why This Site Exists
I think that's sort of my theme for 2026. For this site. For a lot of things.
I have so many ideas, so many thoughts, so many things swirling in my head. It's an absolute soup of random concepts that sometimes ignite my passions, that sometimes reflect how I feel and think and do. It represents me as a whole. And it's tough to make sense of those million thoughts. It's tough to funnel them into something coherent because most of the time they just come and go.
I've seen people with brilliant ideas who just let them lie there. "Why bother?" Yeah, sure. But why not? Why not give it a shot? You don't know what will work.
My old manager had this quote—not his originally, pulled from some book—but he used it at a time when I was trying to figure something out: "We don't know what we don't know."
We don't know what we don't know.
So screw it. I'm going to build some cool stuff here. Applications, software, maybe even hardware-related things. Just things I want to try and build and craft and be creative with. It doesn't necessarily need to go anywhere. It doesn't need to have a grand purpose.
Maybe my only purpose is to inspire myself and others. If I can show people something and for one person it makes a difference - they look at it and think, "That's cool, I'm going to try something like that" - then my job is done.
Maybe I'm just a catalyst. And catalysts are important, even if they're undervalued.
The State of Working On It
I'm learning and evolving. Learning new skills, rapidly adapting to them, sometimes using them before I even completely understand them. But that's the nature of the world we're living in right now. Everything happens fast. Maybe it doesn't have to be that fast—maybe you're right. Or maybe the world is gradually speeding up, and if that's the case, I want to be ready for that pace.
So that's what this is. That's what I'm doing here. Building in public. Figuring things out. Sharing the messy middle parts, not just the polished end results.
Working on it.