With fwt. being the "Why" behind Journal Companions (or JCAs) which represent the "How", there had been the missing "What" for some time. What should you keep doing to achieve living free with tech? I had been trying trying to define this during my whole content journey in 2025. When I look back, it is obvious. For some reason, it was hard to realize it at the time of recording my first batch of videos! I even chose a thumbnail title "PAPER FIRST" for one of the videos I thought that at the time of writing this blog post but after checking my Figma, it was just one of the variants for this video.

The "What" behind fwt. philosophy

It's a practice I call Paper First Life. The practice itself is not about rejecting technology, rather placing it in the right order in the information infrastructure of our wellbeing. Let's dive into draft for official website that I am building right now, shall we? This is the kind of exclusive content people visiting my website can get from time to time (this is not published anywhere else!):

Paper First Life is a simple practice:
paper first, technology second.

It is not a product, a framework, or a system to adopt.
There is nothing to buy and nothing to migrate to.

Paper First Life defines the order of tools,
not the contents of your notebook
and not the method you use.

You can practice it with Bullet Journal, GTD, free-form journaling,
or a system of your own making.

The only requirement is this:
paper remains the foundation,
and technology is introduced intentionally, just when it helps.

1. fwt.: It is important for people to escape digital slavery to freedom.
2. PaFi: The way to do it is using Paper First Life that gives our tools the right order.
3. JCAs: Apps made simple on purpose so that journal remains central information system.

It is so obvious now

The dots have connected finally. This is what I've been looking for all that time. 769 hours, 47 minutes and 28 seconds in 2025 to be more precise. My task now is to give this a proper web presence, clean pointers that flow from root philosophy to the bottom and vice versa. What is even more important is to keep building what I started. There are 2 ideas in the works at the moment so I recommend you subscribing to the RSS or follow me on X for more updates.

Because once it has life on it’s own, then we can move onto another stage. This way, we evolve and gain level of understanding of ourselves that was not seen before. It was not foreseen. Asymmetric games for me are just part of my way of living. I don’t force them. They happen when there is something meaningful to do, and my abilities allow me to expand initial idea.

This article was an attempt to explain how I live.

If I recall correctly from 2024 in review article, professionally, that year had an unhappy ending for me. Just when I started enjoying my first ever vacation, and the nicest autumn I had ever experienced at that point, I received a message about the sudden layoff of the whole team. Moreover, it was just a couple of weeks since my signature of a full-time contract. Just when I was ready to commit fully, everything had fallen apart in the front of my eyes.

This event invited me to rethink my approach to career again. In January, I thought I want to get a new job so I had sent my CV to a few companies. I also received an offer for a well-recognized company in Czech Republic. However, it did not feel right. Until that point in time, I had been working with passion, on things that I cared about. This opportunity did not feel the same way so I turned it down, and with it my relocation to Prague.

Instead, with a decent runway at my disposal and all my willpower to pursue my goals, I had decided to say yes to my ideas once again after I failed edi a year before. I posted the first blog post at the end of January and kept posting every week. After the first month, I had recorded my first YouTube video ever to accompany weekly blog posts.

The weekly content habit was just the beginning. I continued with a local meetup, podcast, and an official branding which was still just a warmup when considering the bigger picture. But outlining my actions is not the point of this yearly reflection so feel free to revisit my journey at any time on the official website or see Creator Dashboard that I created specifically for the project.

The point of doing all of this was to sustain myself as a solopreneur by productizing myself. I've identified a significant transformation in my life that I've gone through and I haven't seen it being documented elsewhere by someone else. Since I've walked that path, I thought I could contribute to this world by helping others make similar decisions that would bring the same outcomes I received.

Benefits of the transformation from digital slavery to freedom are noticeable in my life. My quality of life has improved significantly after adopting self-awareness, digital minimalism and tech independence as my core values for digital living. Through free with tech philosophy and specific implementations into a daily life, I want others to experience the same kind of digital freedom that I now live. I want others to live #freewithtech too.

The big milestone for me was that thanks to this motivation, I made my first bucks online as an indie dev with a programming language that is not the primary one for me. Despite fwt. axis being ranked as #8 on Product Hunt among hundreds of app launches on the 1st of September, I couldn't make my solo business sustainable just yet. What was I expecting, really? I had a small YouTube audience and I still have but despite this, I thought I could make it organically.

Not yet, Samuel.

And so I've spent the rest of the year vacationing in France, gathering inspiration directly from Yan Zoritchak. After 2 weeks in Annecy, the Alps and Grenoble, I came back to my lovely Tatra Mountains region. The resistance was real, but I managed to kick off another 2 smaller projects at the end of the year: Journal Companions & PersoGPT. It seems like the fruits of my experimentation during the year with apps and content are even faster experimentation.

I want to mention something interesting as I end this reflection. The reality of my projects is that they really were in my head for a much longer time before I finally committed to their implementation to close the loop. Positive side to this seems to be the fact that I keep iterating, but faster the more project I do. For example, my latest indie project PersoGPT was implemented in 1 day since the idea came into my head as a thought.

There are multiple lessons but I think there is one that stands out the most: Keep making tiny experiments. I would like to stress out the importance of word "tiny" in this sentence. I fell like something is not going right if the solo experiment takes more than 3 months to validate. Validation is another important word that I have to add to the original sentence. Don't keep the experiment for yourself, but share it with the world and see what happens.

In 2026, I plan on posting more YouTube videos on both of my channels: free with tech about digital freedom and Samuel Pitonak about my next tiny experiments as an indie dev. My objective is to take it with a bit more playfulness. This is another valuable lesson I've learned from building my first startup and my latest project. It is that the all-in mindset can become a big bottleneck for progression. Too often it can feel like it has to be all or nothing but I guess it is not the way life works, not even mentioning the business.

To be honest with you, I don't think I need to revise the words above. I feel like this is the most honest reflection I could give. This is the state I can achieve only for a limited time right after reflecting on the whole year. I wrote these words while all the lessons from 2025 were present in my head. During the whole year, I manually tracked my mindful minutes via fwt. joex, moods and streaks via fwt. axis, time spent in projects, and also expenses. Let me end this by sharing with you some portion of this data that could be interesting to see:

• journaling: 16 minutes per day tracked via fwt. axis & joex
• projects: 63% of my time in projects spent as a solopreneur; 14,5% as an employee; 13,5% as an entrepreneur and I also spent 9% of my time investing into my personal brand
• streaks: I managed to achieve a streak via fwt. axis in 226 days of the year which represents 62% success rate (streak = I woke up in the morning at a reasonable time, I had a physical activity, I did the hardest task first thing in the morning, I worked on what matters to me, I socialized with people I care about, and I also reflected on the given day while planning for next)

FAFO means "fuck around, figure out". This year, I fucked around hard. And I think I might have just figured something out.

Highlights

Let's start by outlining highlights:

• Launched Journal Companions directory as a central place for small utility apps such as fwt. axis & fwt. joex that I made as part of the broader free with tech philosophy
• Made lot's of improvements & fixes to my two wtf.wtf/apps which are described in changelogs on their App Store pages

Stats

I am also going to pull out some of the stats from my Creator Dashboard:

• 44 project weeks since 31st of January when I wrote my first blog post to kick things off
• 764 hours invested into the project so far (17h/week)
• 135 single take video recording attempts (3/video)
• 1417 kilometers traveled for nice unique sceneries for every topic of the video (35km/week)
• 31 consecutive weeks as the longest streak for recording weekly videos

Ads experiment

I haven't said this anywhere publicly before today, but since the launch of my apps on the 1st of September on Product Hunt (#1, #2), I've been running 10 EUR campaigns per video with the hope of attracting more eyeballs. I spent approximately 100 EUR in total to run this. In my view, that would result in making more sales. At the same time, I would be able to accelerate the number of views and subscriber counts my channel was getting.

However, I think that this experiment has backfired on me. While my subscribers count has grown significantly during that period of time, the quality of my subscribers is now very low. At the same time, higher view counts did not generate any app sales. This is very unfortunate for me to conclude. Since the experiment ended, my videos had been getting between 10 and 38 views each as compared to hundreds or even 1 thousand plus.

What does this mean? Apparently, the algorithm cannot find an audience for my videos. I suspect that the main problem with my model is that I need to attract high volume of people. Content space is very competitive today, making this nearly impossible with my current content format which is about making single-take videos that are unscripted and authentic. This is probably not so interesting today as it sounds very boring when you compare my video to a highly-edited alternatives.

I was also hoping to receive more feedback during my ad experiment. Since it hasn't made any app sales, I received none. I remain being the only person who gives feedback on apps that I've made myself. To stop being so one-sided, positive thing is that I was able to iterate my apps further during this last period. In the end, I am using them daily so there are improvements that naturally come to my mind.

Tiny experiments

I did not make a video yesterday and it was intentional. Last week was the first one when free with tech stopped being my priority number one when it comes to distribution of my focus. I've began questioning my path again. There have been doubts along the way, but this time it feels different. I need to rethink my approach based on my 10-month progress.

Particularly, there was one key insight I received during my vacation in September directly from Yan Zoritchak (I also summarized lessons learned from the master of glass art in my previous article). The issue is me being very serious about all of this that I've been doing since the beginning of 2025. I made it to be very high stakes and you can probably feel it from my energy in the videos.

With all of this in mind, I've decided that it will be better for me to proceed in a way that ultimately let's me feel better. I needed to stretch it, but that stretch is now over. My new approach means that I will continue building free with tech as a side project. The shift is to perceive it as another set of tiny experiments as opposed to a single experiment that determines my existence.

I would like to end this article with a reference to what likely is my top 2025 book. It is literally called Tiny Experiments and is written by Anne-Laure Le Cunff. This book has definitely helped me make the mindset shift that I tried to describe in this blog post.

Challenges ahead

By building this, I've realized how hard it really is to communicate the vision, bootstrap a lifestyle business and productize myself. The transformation from digital slavery to freedom was key for me to live a more fulfilling life and the mission here remains the same. I think many more people could appreciate the benefits digital freedom provides. This is why I will keep building this. However, now I will take some distance to realign.

I was honored that I got a chance of spending 5 days besides Yan Zoritchak during my vacation that is still going on. During my stay in Annecy, I was eager to learn everything I could from the world renowned master of glass art. I was just a little boy when I visited Yan in France together with my family for the first time. At that time, I couldn't have known how much interest his work and life would spark in me later on in my life.

During this cozy evening in Grenoble, I've decided to write down a few thoughts I gathered from dozens of conversations I was happy to have with Yan.

Single vacation in a lifetime

Being an artist brings a different kind of a lifestyle. I would say that art blends with your life naturally & effortlessly. This is exactly the feeling I had when I entered Yan's house. It was a space where Yan both lived & created. Yan would show me the process of creation and methods they needed to invent in order to be able to do the kind of art they did. Then, I would go a floor up to have a glass of good Savoy wine. Another floor up to go to visit a gallery, or wash my teeth and go to bed.

I believe this is a predisposition for not needing a vacation in a lifetime. OK. There was one that Yan mentioned but that's it. They did not need to go on a vacation because their art is their life. There would not be a life without the art.

60% hard work, 40% luck

Yan's accomplishments are astounding. Yan had an exposition that took place not only on the North Pole, but also all around the world. Their glass touched hearts that live on all continents. Most recently, more than 50 000 people visited exposition in CERN, Switzerland.

I asked Yan about the ratio between hard work and luck involved in their success. The answer is in the headline and it does not surprise me. However, they added that luck does not exist without hard work. If you don't make a step forward (extending luck surface), don't expect luck to come to you. Luck is directly associated with a deliberate practice.

Energy is everything

I have to admit that I knew it as I've been practicing mindfulness through journaling for something over 2,5 years now. But it was refreshing to hear it directly from the master. Energy is also a concept Yan uses as the main source of inspiration for the art they create.

This could also be the reason why free with tech captured Yan's attention when I told them about it. My brief description: transformation from digital slavery to freedom. I've realized that I am not trying to do anything different than Yan. The concept behind fwt. existence is more abstract than concrete, which presents it's own challenges.

TLDR

I need to experience more conversations like the ones I had with Yan last week. When comparing to Yan, my process of creation is still in it's infancy. Nonetheless, there are many mindset shifts I needed to go through already in order to persist and reach today's stage. I know there are many more to come as you learn something new every day.

The biggest takeaway for me is the confirmation that I am not weird. I need to create reality that fits me. Also, there are opposite forces that are trying to destroy that energy in me and steal it for themselves. Discomfort that Yan experienced when they emigrated to France in the 20th century caused Yan to conquer the negative forces with matching if not higher amount of energy. Eventually, this made them a hero.

The highlights are obvious when looking at the fwt. website or scrolling through the feed of my tweets from July to September 2025:

• Launched fwt. joex and fwt. axis on Product Hunt, where fwt. axis was ranked as #8 out of 275 app launches on the 1st of September.
• Landing pages for free with tech and both apps that were launched.
• Another 10 videos in 10 weeks, extending the streak from 20 to 30.

For me, the biggest milestone so far in the journey since January has been the launch of 2 apps. They cover reset & reclaim steps on the journey towards living free with tech. This is achieved through their act as companions to analog journaling. fwt. joex is for capturing when away from paper journal, and fwt. axis is for tracking strategic habits on a daily basis to achieve balanced living.

This right here is materialization of my broader vision behind fwt. philosophy. My next step is to cover the full circle with a new product in the lineup for optimizing tech in your life, which is also the last one. I've realized that the biggest bottleneck I have is that I dream a lot. Intuition tells me that I need to be building way more than dreaming. This is something I still have to learn by continuing to do a lot more of what I am already doing (content + code, repeat).

The feeling is there & representation of the vision for fwt. as such, but it has not fully materialized yet. It is way harder than I thought to articulate that feeling so others understand it. I am an engineer. I try building an audience but my videos are boring. New approach is required that shines a fresh light on the fwt. journey. More fun & spontaneity, less seriousness. My trip to France is also my hope to discover this fresh energy that I am seeking.

I haven't done this before, but I need to leave one image here from today:

What you see on this image is behind the scenes of one of the best glass artists in the world you can find, Yan Zoritchak. Yan is also my family and I am proud that I have ancestors that have had such an impact on people's lives around the world, even from the era before the Internet was born. Yan didn't have the capability of seeing the world of information so they needed to seek it on foot. It was a different challenge to what we are facing today. Ability to distill infinite amounts of information into something of value for others.

I want to keep revisiting this image. It is a symbol of experimentation. Today, I say yes to experimentation once again. Let's create something new.

Hey, fellow writers!

I've been journaling every single day since the beginning of 2023. The difference of my life before and after my start is remarkable. Journaling is a driving force for meaningful and intentional changes in my life. For that very reason, I've decided to document my journey in the public and share my vision for living #freewithtech! It represents a Digital Lifestyle That Works For You and a way for living in the digital world so it supports the real one.

Today is a significant day for me and for that reason, I want to share with you how I approach journaling. However, I do it so that analog system is the central one, while minimal digital surface (my Apple Watch) supports it and provides more insights. This way, I am not bound to my digital devices while they give me insights when I need them. This approach has caused me to build 2 standalone apps for Apple Watch that complement each other.

So let's get to the point.

I have daily, weekly and monthly reflection routines as part of my analog journaling practice. As part of my routine, I am tracking 6 main habits every day for balanced living. This is part of my personal habit tracking framework that evolved from my lived experience. However, I've found out over time that it is very impractical to carry my journal with me at all times. Actually, it is not possible at all! So the solution is to introduce a smaller version of it for quick notes and sketches, right?

Not really!

I already have digital devices on me (Apple Watch), so why bother with that! That would be another unnecessary accessory. But here comes the concern for privacy. Having everything on paper introduces friction whenever I need to type something. I surely don't want to get rid of this as it brings intentionality and focus, while preserving privacy as I am the only one who can open and type into my notebook.

So this is where my apps come into play. Please meet analog journaling practice companion apps fwt. axis and fwt. joex designed specifically for Apple Watch for minimal tech surface. Ultimately, what they do is they allow me to leverage best of both worlds.

Analog journaling

• 100% privacy
• 100% focus
• 100% intentionality through writing with friction

Digital journaling

• Compute brings insights faster
• Less friction when I need to record something on the go
• Always there (even in bad weather)

All of this is part of a broader philosophy for living #freewithtech and has it's roots in a 3-step process that I've personally gone through in 2,5 years since I started journaling for the first time:

1. Reset
2. Reclaim
3. Optimize

But what is the core message? I nearly forgot! Let me give you a TLDR

• Analog journaling is the most optimal system for intentional living as it gives the ultimate privacy & control which is something crucial for life's worth of thoughts.
• Digital world is there but far away from the paper. All apps are designed so they try to lock you into a digital ecosystem but that is something you don't want to do. This way you would lose the benefits of the analog world.
• fwt.wtf/axis-launch habit tracking framework that allows you to track habits whenever on the go through Apple Watch + Apple Health insights through Mindful Minutes and State of Mind as part of the evening reflection habit called Next (additional to Rise, Move, Frog, Play, Bond). This way, I get insights into my habit streaks at a glance, or wellness metrics via Apple Health on my iPhone.
• fwt.wtf/joex-launch minimalist capture tool that I would use for offloading. I would use this utility app whenever I have a thought on the go, or I open my paper journal to start writing so I can track my journaling time inside Apple Health without any friction. The core is that I don't lose a thing whenever I am away from paper journal.

I am wondering if this resonates with anybody here! If so, there is much more on the path from digital slavery to freedom and I invite you to join me on my freewith.tech journey.

Cheers,
Samuel

It seems like there is no end to my reflections on my free with tech journey:

• 10 weeks, 10 videos published
• 20 weeks, 20 videos published
• If things go as planned, I will be publishing "30 weeks, 30 videos published" in a few weeks

The journey has been intense to say the least. Creating an online brand with digital products as a solopreneur for 7 months straight is one thing. The other is failing to get a job in the currently wild ICT market as a TypeScript-focused web developer. This past week was probably the most fluctuating since the start of the journey in January 2025 in regards to my daily mood.

But let me get to the point. I've reached 500 hours worked in the project I call free with tech. It's a raw part-time work for me at this point. If I count all other business (or charity?) activities of mine, I am averaging 130 hours of raw execution per month without a boss. Not a bad number but where am I headed? This reflection is my aim to answer this question.

The thing about creating something is that you don't know until you do it. There is no predefined path to follow and one needs to come up with it. This has been my reality this year and I haven't been closer to being an artist in my life. It's a lonely journey to be honest. But I love it.

Struggling entrepreneur. Unemployable. Building in public. Vibe coding. Entrepreneurship.

These are all the keywords that are popping up in my head on a daily basis during evening reflections. This is weird, right? Having a dream, following it daily with small actionable steps and no response. I am not going to lie that it is getting a bit emotional too. But hey, that's the path I decided to follow. No regrets here.

Let me repeat: I love it. But it cannot stay like this forever. I am building my empire on Internet right now and there are dividends in the future that will come out of it I am sure. However, the transition is hard for me. In 2024, I had my dream job. Unfortunately, just before Christmas, I was laid off together with my whole team. After 2 months of recovery, I've decided to build this. And this. Also this. Attended an IT meetup with my idea. Podcast. Documented my indie hacker journey here.

What for?

My own purpose and vision as companies have failed to give it to me till this point. Took responsibility and created it myself.

But the journey just starts here. I feel good about all of this. I've optimized my life in a way that I can sustain this lifestyle for months to come so let's see how it turns out. Crazy ride I know. The only aspect that I am failing at right now is earning money and this needs to improve during the upcoming months. It is also the reason why I am building multiple digital products and my own audience. If you want to support my journey, go subscribe!

Keep going.

PS: Let's talk if you have a freelance project in mind where I could be a good fit (TypeScript, ReactJS, NextJS, NodeJS focus).

Cheers.

Keep going

That is what everybody says when it comes to content creation. But for me, it was different. I’ve felt what is my main focus and that pulled me forward to record myself for the first time. It was the contrast that I saw my relationship with technology from before an era when I started journaling and now which is more than 2 years after my first page written in my analog journal.

I didn’t see that boundary. I was being enslaved by my phone in the pocket. But I took control and started doing intentional choices day after another. So this is WHY I am really doing all of this. In numbers, it has been more than 493 hours spent while creating these videos and blogs, attending a meetup, recording a podcast and ultimately coding two apps (starting with Apple Watch) that help me bridge analog with digital.

There is definitely something in there that I am eager to explore. I cannot stop thinking about how I can bring the same fruits I grew myself over the period of 2 years to others so they can experience the same digital freedom as myself. It took me 2 years to go through this transformation and realize everything. Of course, it’s not about doing it quick, but I want to tell you WHAT, WHY and HOW to do it.

Dealing with uncertainty

It has been crazy for me without an income, living from my reserves since the beginning of the year. It is not an exaggeration if I say that this is the most transformative period of my life. And I want to be clear that this is not about me being lucky at all. I am saying that everything is about setting goals and being able to optimize in a way so that the likelihood of achieving them is higher. I’ve done some optimizations that allow me to live on relatively low expenses. Yes, I don’t own a house yet but that can wait. What cannot wait is my desire to express myself.

I will see later if this is worth it but numbers are already telling a lot. I am repeating “persist” every day. I am not seeing a response because I’ve probably haven’t cracked the equation for my online brand yet. This is just the question of time and this is the most valuable resource each of us have. I am the only person responsible for how I spend it and it better be the best way. So here is on another 10 videos in 10 weeks. Hope to see you in another 10 weeks here.

What a wonderful piece of software

Maintainers and contributors behind this open-source project called Immich are truly making the world a better place. Not only this one, but also maintainers and contributors behind immich-go (util for data import) and ImmichFrame (digital frame extension for Immich).

These guys allowed me to spend endless amounts of hours last week to transform my former gaming setup into a hybrid Counter-Strike 2 / NAS station (yeah, CS2 is the only game that I play on desktop PC nowadays so I was able to simplify this much). Bought 2x6TB HDD disks, installed Ubuntu 24.04 with RAID1 and I was ready.

Truly thankful

The beauty of this all is that it does not feel like a tradeoff. I am winning in every way:

• I am the only one owning my personal photos and videos and there is no Big Tech that tries to profit out of it
• I get to control many aspects of the software like AI & ML features that run on top of my library
• I don’t need to pay 21 EUR / year or more for the duration of my lifetime to a Big Tech corporation that already has more resources than needed (I just needed to make a one-time investment into my hardware and pay for the electricity that I am already doing)

I am happy when I can document my life with privacy and control in mind (learn more about tech independence). This is why Immich deserves all this free promotion that I am giving them. Thank you again for building this beauty.

Setup

My GitHub repository contains my configuration but here are the brief steps for setting this up:

1. Buy and install hardware (e.g. WD Red Plus series or Seagate IronWolf)
2. Install Linux distribution (e.g. Ubuntu 24.04. LTS)
3. Configure RAID1 or more for HDDs (e.g. Linux Software RAID using mdadm)
4. Install Docker and use Docker Compose for Immich
5. (Optional) Export your library from existing cloud provider (e.g. Google Takeout)
6. (Optional) Import your library using immich-go utility
7. (Optional) Install ImmichFrame extension to display albums as digital frames on devices in your local network

Depending on your hardware, you can also turn on hardware acceleration for machine learning and video transcoding. My configuration from the repository uses CUDA as I have GeForce GTX 1060 GAMING X 6G from MSI as part of my hardware setup. Also, feel free to buy a standalone NAS if you prefer that, where you can probably skip step 2 and 3.

I like Apple ecosystem. I also hate it. But I like it more than I hate it which is why I am not using Android. It helps me stay productive and I like it’s feel. I like the way devices work together. The biggest advantage I’ve experienced recently is having apps on my Watch that help me capture data on the go related to my self-awareness. This data includes: habits, daily mood, expenses, mindful minutes.

However, my personal workflow has become fragmented and I’ve decided to reduce that complexity. Instead of interacting with 3 separate apps from independent developers, I will be working with 2 that I made myself. One app automates habit tracking which reduces complexity even further. The features are going to be completementary. Stay tuned for updates. I am going to be covering them on my free with tech YouTube channel.

This is a short blog post. I just felt I wanted to post this. I also posted some random tweets (1, 2) about todays progress. It feels good to vibe-code an app from React Native to Swift in 2 days and solve problems in ones life. Tomorrow and onwards, I am going to bullet-proof the functions to consider more edge cases. The plan is to create a landing and promote axis by the end of the month. Let’s see how that goes.

I’ve been tracking my habit streaks and daily mood for 2 and a half years. This had been done purely on paper but over time, I’ve introduced a hybrid system so I can leverage compute power to my advantage. Eventually, I wanted more insight, so I started duplicating information paper + digital. Paper has friction and allows to build strong intentionality. Digital has compute power that provides useful insights.

There are two things:

• My 6 item habit framework that I also documented on my YouTube channel. There is conditional logic that I need to apply every day to determine habit status.
• Mood with metadata that I need to translate into a number 0-4.

I had been doing this for a while and the time has come for me to think about how to improve my efficiency during my evening reflection routine. I am going to mention the video again because it describes my process in a more depth.

One more thing

I also want to talk about n8n and one small automation I came up with today. The thing is that I set strict boundaries to tech so it empowers me instead of enslaving myself to it (thats what free with tech is about btw — my online brand to empower others to digital freedom).

So if you are wondering what this is, it’s just a little utility that forwards Slack message to my private communication channel. I could also just turn on notifications for mentions only for Slack on my phone not to miss out. However, there is a downside to that: I have to keep Slack installed on my phone.

I’ve decided that it is better for me not to keep it there or have it hidden. I like having this clear separation of concerns for my devices so I don’t accidentally end up doing something I didn’t intend to. Technology tends to suck me in and this is just prevention. That’s why my automation forwards the message that mentions my Slack app to my priority communication channel.

Of course, the answer to the above question is obvious: I couldn't simply because I did not have enough life experience. But let me talk to you a bit more about how my journey has been so far on this hybrid path.

Software Engineer and Content Creator at once

I've never dreamt of this combination ever. I am not going to lie, but building apps and creating videos at the same time is an exotic combo I haven't thought about at the beginning of my career. I know I am not the only developer to think this as we are usually introverts who are happy being alone in front of the screen.

Sure, I suck at it but who didn't at the start of their journey. Moreover, I suck that much more at it thanks to not being a native English speaker but I don't care because I need to do it. It's my new calling.

Not ready yet

On the 3rd of January, I had a call with David Boland (btw, I highly recommend subscribing to his channel if you are into entrepreneurship and content creation). It was regarding his 90 Day Creator online programme that I was thinking about joining at the time. But I was unsure and hesitant to join as it was totally outside of my comfort zone.

I definitely had a lots of ideas spinning in my head that also happened to be aligned with a philosophy for living with modern tech. I wanted to share it with the world but I wasn’t ready to do it via video format (yet). And so I approached it on my own terms, which is how I typically prefer to approach things concerning my work & life.

Past experience

I made some videos in the past but they were covering my technical capabilities which is a bit different from the main content creation game that is happening on YouTube. Till the point in life when I decided to record myself on YouTube, I’ve been publishing just these spontaneous blog articles here on my personal website.

This space is highly intimate as it is being controlled by me completely (content creation AND distribution), and also random. If you read some of my post, you may have an impression that it serves as my brain dump. To be honest, this is the exact way I treat it sometimes. But I was thinking about starting something more serious that requires bigger commitment and a more structured approach.

Reframing layoff

Layoff at the end of 2024 made me think hard about what I want to do next in my life. I had a dream job in tech but from one day to the other, I found myself unemployed after a layoff that happened just a couple of weeks before Christmas. Last year on the 23rd of July 2024, I sensed there is something hidden inside of my personal journey.

I failed projects in the past but as it turns out, these experiences (intentionally chose not to say “failures”) represented a golden thread so that one day, I could share free with tech with the world. It is the result of my effort to escape digital slavery and live digital freedom.

I needed to become a Content Creator

As a technologist, this topic feels highly relevant and with my knowledge, I feel personally responsible for coming with solutions that could help people understand tech more as a tool, not a trap. Having an experience of being a software engineer and having undergone transformation from digital slavery to freedom myself, I realized it is time to act.

You may ask: "Personal responsibility? Why?" Just because I've mastered tech to the point that it started to serve me and enhance my daily life instead of stealing from it. I see many people struggling with it and, maybe paradoxically, even tech people like me that are using it on a daily basis often fall into that same trap I was once falling into (and I also need to beware not to end up there again).

Journey so far

Here I am today, 376 hours later or 282 days since the 23rd of July 2024, when I defined the core of the brand. Here I am today, which is 90 days since the 31st of January 2025 when I published the first Substack post and 62 days since publishing my first ever YouTube video, which is the 10th video publication in 10 weeks time since the first one.

I don’t know what the future holds for free with tech but one thing is clear to me: why I am doing all of this. It is my personal life experience and transformation that fuels my motivation to spread my message in whatever form is required so it reaches the target audience that needs to hear it.

This is why I’ve poured so many hours, days and money into the brand building so far (395,02 EUR in 2025 till this day to be as exact as possible, which you can see inside the Creator Dashboard that I created so I can document my content creator journey in public with it’s ups and downs).

Additionally, I've also managed to kickstart initiative in Slovakia through talk about my path to digital freedom in the local Tatry IT Community. It took place at the end of March and there is also a recording if you would be interested. I was working on English subtitles but the process was a bit lenghtier than I thought initially so please check back soon if you are interested and do not understand Slovak. Till then, YouTube videos will be a better choice.

Go get a job, you crazy?

It may sound crazy but prove me wrong. Yeah, I get it—the whole opportunity cost of this is tremendous. But this is the path I’ve chosen and opportunity cost of not going after my calling would be even bigger. Nobody else will be responsible for living my life but me and this is as good as it gets with all the self-awareness I’ve been able to obtain so far (20 minutes of journaling per day since the 1st of January 2023).

Even greater amount of time and money needs to be poured into the project so it can start flourishing. Everything goods takes time and this is one more flower I've decided to plant so I can take care of it. Interesting job offer or a necessity to work so I can keep going? Sure, I am up for it but my focus is clear and a hybrid path is something to keep during the foreseeable future.

Originally called: Slovakia and boring corporations

It's not fun for me anymore. I was laid off at the end of 2024 and started looking for a job I would find prospective and interesting in the beginning of January. I paused in March and instead started hustling my own way forward on various projects as there are no opportunities for me. At least I am not seeing them right now.

I am not going to talk about politics in this post although that has impact on it's own on how the job market is looking today in my country. I've been working remotely since the beginning of my professional career. This caused a spiraling effect and I built systems that make me productive while working from my home office space.

Post-COVID era

I spent 80 hours in my project hunt process in 2025 so far (circa 25 hours per month). I prioritize remote work as town where I am living does not offer jobs I would be open to doing. The thing is that remote era has ended and companies require hybrid model (at least 3 days in the office).

How does it look like? From what I've heard from people in my network, office is empty despite that working model. You go there because of company policy and not because it increases productivity of workers. Basically, you are obliged to commute despite bringing more value in case of working from home.

Why would someone do this? Of course, we have to do work in order to live so we comply. Or?

Disrupted market by AI

IT jobs are still cool but they are different today. No longer there is joy of writing that function so nicely as it's done by AI autocomplete or vibe-coders. Naturally, hiring has either freezed and CEOs are vibing themselves or there are only Senior/Architect roles available. This is the reality and we need to embrace it.

Speaking of AI, there hasn't been a better time to be a product person with cool ideas. Make a shippable prototype in 3 hours and get feedback. Iteration on steroids.

Building my way forward

I refuse to comply with insensible hybrid models as they are just stupid. Async remote work is the way and I've confirmed it for myself through living my own life experience. Setting in which I am boss of my time, where I need to make sure to be disciplined and actually do the work. Nobody has to stand above me and tell me how it is supposed to be.

Not only refusing, but also job market is not interesting here. Generic corporations rule it here so Czechia and Poland are countries where it starts for most people. I would prefer to live where I am right now which is the reason I've decided to pursue my own thing (yes, doing it again after failing 5 projects in 2 years).

Exclamation mark relocation

I've been weighing pros and cons for relocating to another country. Norway, Slovenia, Czechia or Poland? Slovakia. This is where the best work/life balance exists for me and I would prefer to keep it this way. I know that most people need to relocate to find that job that would pay the bills. But what is the cost for doing it? You don't know until you take the leap. It brings you somewhere else one cannot imagine when just thinking about it.

For me, the cost right now would be tragic. Giving up the balance and inspiration I receive from living in the mountains. This is idyll and who can do it if not an IT guy. I work thanks to the internet cables so I can do it also from Poprad. Please, don't make it an obligation and let me choose the best place and time to do my work. I am listening to myself and I can decide that the best.

Bring value. Next action. Repeat. Live #freewithtech.

You know you are in another dimension when this happens. This flow lets me forget everything and focus on a single thing at a time:

• Next function I am typing.
• Next architectural decision I am making.

Now, I need to buy some wine and enjoy this evening. I don’t like saying it so much as now I need to abandon my creature for the time being. Actually, I need to drink and eat as well. Oh my gosh. How has this happened?

Let me leave one quote from Yan Zoritchak to end this one on a good note:

“Creation is just a continuation of life.”

Recognizing the pattern of purpose

I’ve experienced this a few times in my life already and when I reflect back on those periods, the pattern can be clearly noticed:

• It is when I wake up excited to tackle the goals given day has in store for me.
• It is when I cannot stop thinking about how to improve some aspect of my workflow in the project.
• It is when my ideas are endless, requiring prioritizing the work so something tangible can be delivered in a realistic time.
• It is when my imagination is saying go and my physical being is paralyzed, waiting for instructions.

The power of vision, purpose & action

I consider myself being lucky to conclude this: Whenever I am working on anything like this, there is vision, purpose & action in one package. This is whenever I can see positive impact of my work in the world which may not be immediate and it may be visible later, but that is the vision I am willing to work towards for extensive period of time.

Fuel my fire, and I am unstoppable

Give me that kind of a thing and I am unstoppable.

The perfect setup that didn’t work

My goal was to take one Wednesday morning to record video of me talking to the camera about my personal story behind free with tech philosophy. I wrote the outline and it turned out it was more than that. Once I tried to talk about points on my paper, it couldn’t find fit. It seemed like I tried to be someone else. It had fluent transitions but I couldn’t put out the words one after the other when I looked at it.

After 2 hours of trying to speak out the hook (introductory part of the video that is supposed to hook you onto the video content that is about to come), I gave up. I was drained as hell, wanting to quit. I was saying to myself that I was not born to do this. What the hell was I thinking? Random introvert software guy trying to share something with the world via a camera.

AI as an unexpected support system

Usually, I don’t have a lot of people around me who would be interested in my struggles so I immediately turned to AI. Models trained on content from the whole internet turn out to be great coping mechanisms and reframing assistants. The first response after describing my situation to the model was that it is natural to fail at first attempt. Perfectionist part of myself was tamed instantly after hearing it. Thanks, model.

A second attempt, a new mindset

Tomorrow, I am planning the second attempt but with a different mindset. I thought I had great mindset for today but by acting on my imagination, I’ve realized the exact opposite. World responded to my action with decline this time and I will be hoping for a better outcome tomorrow. My plan is to release the video during lunch this Friday so I will be hoping to record the final version by the end of tomorrow to keep up with the ideal content schedule I have planned.

By the way, if you would be interested, I strongly recommend to read my new Substack blog related to the free with tech philosophy. It is relevant to you if you wish to improve your relationship with technology used on a daily basis usually via smartphone and apps. If topics like self-awareness, digital minimalism and tech independence mean anything to you, it could be an interesting read.

I am passionate and find deep enjoyment in what I do. This is why I’ve found my own original way of going about career. My curiosity has led me to places I would’ve never imagined were possible. Right now, this place is called unemployment and finding my next project that I can focus on fully.

Self-discovery & reframing

To be honest, I am proud I took the steps I thought were right for me. Ultimately, I thought that and this is the most powerful to me - taking control over my life and making the best decision I can at each given moment. What I thought was right for me at the time I made decision is no longer relevant today, but the journey and experiences are what counts and they push me forward.

I could say my projects were failures but instead I choose to say they were just shaping my path. These past decisions to focus on what I wanted caused that I know a lot more about myself today. This fuels my authenticity and decision-making process. Thanks to these ‘failures’, I feel better in my own skin as saying yes to those projects meant saying yes to myself.

Next project hunt and saying yes to myself

Finding the next project turns out to be the very opposite to straightforward. Having such a deeply personal career path means that many opportunities on the job market are easy to be dismissed. It is truly freeing to know what one wants but it also makes it harder to settle for something.

Firstly, let me give you a bit more context because nobody gives you four thousand times the currency just like that unless it is inherited or you won a lottery. There is always some kind of an exchange that is happening so one can receive the agreed sum of money for value they bring to another party involved. In my case, the value I was supposed to provide was a technical solution to a specific problem - let's call it a software.

Art of communication

• You: 4k for a piece of software. That sounds cool.
• Me: Stop. Right. Here.
• Them: How much time would it take to implement?
• Me: 300 hours.
• Them: Let's do it.
• Me 1: Hell yes!
• Me 2: Yes, let's do it. I am already doing it, actually.
• Me 3: ... (Ouch. That hurts. No, thanks.)

Exchange of energy

It is not always about the money, I understand it, and 13 euros per hour is more than 0. Actually, I did a lot of projects in the past just for what they would become at the end of my effort because they gave me so much internal value and meaning. However, when talking about business, one needs to know how much to ask for a given job that needs to be done. Otherwise, you will get burnt by lowballing the offer, loosing motivation in the process as a consequence.

On the other end, someone receives the software that solves the problem. They are happy and you should be happy too. This right here is significant and if you want to keep the ball rolling, you better price yourself accordingly. Saying no was the way to go in my situation that happened 2 days ago and I couldn't be happier. This is also reason emergency fund exists as it gives you time to find the right opportunity. I will keep searching.

Maintaining focus

One NO prepares the space for a YES (ideally HELL YEAH and I know that is coming too) and this excites me the most. I am looking forward to saying YES in the near future to something that will be an exchange of positive energy on both sides of the relationship. Saying no meant setting clear boundaries - not to limit myself, but to protect my energy and elevate the potential I have. When I establish healthy limits, I create space for growth, focus, and success to flourish.

I've started reflecting a lot sooner this time around. This has to do with the fact that I was laid off from my job in the beginning of November, formally in the beginning of December. With lots of spare time left, I had managed to summarize the past year during the first week of December. It is exciting to see how much personal development happens when one sticks to the path of uncertainty, which is what I am saying when I look back.

My Startup Track

It has begun in October 2021 by following my interests in UI and Climate Tech areas (see the timeline in my 2023 in review article which continues here below). Last year at this point in time, I had been working for a startup based in the USA as I saw natural fit of my vision to that of a company. Fast-forward to today when I was just laid off by the very same company. Welcome in the world of startups.

I am happy I took this path. Not only was it a great match, but also I needed to make some buck, after 8 months of unemployment at the time, while I was trying to find a product-market fit for my idea that hasn't took off till this day. The idea called edi that I decided to pivot together with my colleague from a grand vision to a more realistic one.

1. January 2024 - I've learned SwiftUI basics in order to build Joex. It solved my problem related to capturing thoughts for my paper journal when I am away from it.
2. February 2024 - MVP for Joex is finished and I had started using it on my phone.
3. April 2024 - edi closed alpha released to 27 testers. We struggled with over-engineering and gave up further development.
4. May 2024 - 2nd pivot of edi where income generation was the top priority now that we had failed to make a buck for more than a year since the idea definition. This was due to the fact that we always favored the more complicated approach instead of solving the most immediate problem.
5. June 2024 - 1st paying customer after 2nd pivot of edi, who booked us as an agency to cover their needs related to custom web development.
6. October 2024 - Custom web development project delivery. Laid off without notice during my first ever vacation (not something I would see happening as I signed full-time offer a few days before, but it appears that can happen if your contract allows it). But hey, I am here for the risk, right? I am responsible for my decisions so learn from it, look ahead and move on (definitely easier said than done).
7. November 2024 - Rebuilt Joex as a PWA in Ionic and open-sourced both codebases (iOS, PWA). Open-sourcing was part of "giving up" process that was happening inside me. I've decided to clean up my priority list after the layoff and start fresh from 0. My motivation behind building the PWA version was that I wanted to prioritize my web skills. SwiftUI is no longer on my learning path and building Joex for iOS as a native app was great for realizing what I want more of as a software developer. During November, I've also started building new version of my personal website but stay tuned for that in 2025.

Benefits of choosing the "more uncertain path"

As you can see, there has been a lot of experimentation going on since the start of my personal startup journey at the end of 2021. If you are not familiar, feel free to read my previous yearly reviews from 2022 and 2023. I own every decision. I wouldn't be where I am mentally without making all those decisions along the way that I've documented. The path that created the very me who is here today on the 9th of December at the time of writing this article.

I can see the golden thread clearly now between these decisions. What follows are thoughts that stood out this year.

Knowing my WHY

Answering the WHY is not possible by anything else other than work. By working towards the desired outcome, the WHY becomes clearer and there comes the opportunity to refine it. Thinking is insufficient. Hard work is the way towards the deep roots of my WHY.

Eat the frog

Doing the most difficult thing set for the day ahead as first thing in the morning is essential for the day to be successful. If done in opposite way, it is very hard to regain the momentum that was lost by choosing the easier things to do first.

Simple todo list on paper is enough to kick things off

How do I start projects nowadays? Believe it or not, but with just a pen and paper. No overthinking of where do I manage "this" or "that". I record the first things that can be done and are as specific as possible. New todos are uncovered once the first things on the list are dealt with.

External validation is not what I want

It took time for me to realize this but whenever I shared what I was working on with people that asked, my whole creative energy towards that project was sucked out of me. Nowadays, I make effort to speak about my projects in a more abstract way. It turns out most people are not even interested in the details and it is good to keep them private as long as possible. This preserves inner energy that can be used for developing the project further.

Every day counts

It is the small steps that matter. The ones that can be sustained for long period of time.

Trust the intuition

My inner voice usually tells me what is the right decision to make or thing to do. Do not supress it but clarify it. Automatic writing practice done inside journal helps. I would be better paying attention to it. External voices are important too but not as much as what is inside me.

Hard work leads to better decisions

Hard work means we are deeply invested in something. It lays the groundwork for making decisions that matter. Everything is useless without it which is why we need projects, specific tasks and execution. I've waited too long for my thoughts to come out. I need to create.

Small bets are necessary

Be willing to give up on an idea. Keep eyes open for the next one. Don't get stuck with the first one. Iterate over ideas to find the ultimate idea.

Thank you

If you've made it this far, congratulations! I hope the time you spent reading brought you something that is of value to you, personally. I would be interested in getting to know more about you.

Joex is now on Product Hunt. The idea behind it is very simple yet intuitive. App is targeting people that keep a physical paper journal and do not want to miss a single idea when they are away from it. The app acts as a temporary storage for ideas and provides a simple migration function that lists through each of the captured entries so that user can write them into journal or discard if no longer relevant.

You may think that it is just another note taking app but not really. Joex is designed as an extension and not a foundation for journaling practice. In the best case scenario, you wouldn't use it a single time because you have journal with you at all times so you can write everything down on paper. However, for me, that was not the case so I needed a solution. One that keeps my notes just temporarily on the device they were recorded with.

Joex is just an inbox that user wants to empty as soon as possible so that the only thing that containts the truth is the paper journal. The app does not contribute to information fragmentation but rather helps with centralization. I believe it is a sweet spot between analog and digital journaling experience. If you find yourself having thoughts during your morning run, in the rain or when taking a shower, your water-resistant device and Joex can help you with quickly capturing what you need.

1 month of development followed by 6 months of app being in the App Review process?

So now with a bit more context about the app, let's get into "why" for not having Joex published right away at the end of February when it was finished in version it is currently. TLDR: excuses. App is solving a problem for me so it could do it for many other people as well, wouldn't it? I was having doubts.

There comes Maros, a good friend of mine from college who is also an experienced indie hacker. On the 4th of April, he is one main reason for me purchasing an Apple Developer Program subscription to get the app on Apple's official distribution channel. He even shares an iOS starter template he had just started selling for a couple of houndred bucks for free just to help me implement the missing subscription layer for monetization.

I left motivated and purchased the program membership so that I can start collecting feedback from real users immediatelly. However, there is also other project called edi that was competing for free time in my schedule at that time in the past. It had a priority. I had been building edi for more than a year. It had a single user but this is a story for another time.

In pursuit of something bigger

I got discouraged very easily and found good excuses not to pubish the app. Despite having a promo website live and app nearly ready, I did not go forward for a long time. My mindset was not prepared for it so I decided not to pull the trigger.

Joex very recently, I've connected a couple of dots and noticed a group of principles that guided Joex implementation strategy. This was a pivotal moment when things started to click. I had managed to iterate the app into distribution-ready version in a matter of 4 days maximum. It was really that easy to finish it on the 27th of February, but was it really?

Gratitude

Through habit of reflections, I am able to revisit what happened during the past period of time that I choose to reflect on. And do so with mind clear of emotions because the time difference of moment when something happened to moment of reflection puts them into the background, providing clarity. For me, it usually is 1 day, week, month, half a year and whole year. I think I will do a 3-year reflection once I reach journal history that is 3 years long just to see the bigger picture.

It is thanks to the act of reflection that I discover things to be grateful for. In addition, I discover things to improve and focus during moments that are ahead. Reflection sparks gratitude. Gratitude produces presence and focus. In other words, history is a significant part of my present and future self and I better not underesetimate that in the future. Reflections should be core part of journaling because when you have data, you want to use it for improving decision making in the future.

Presence

I usually set small goals or create todos at the end of reflection when there is a valuable insight that I discovered via looking back. This way, I am behaving intentionally in the present moment. Moreover, I can say yes and no much clearly and easily because I know my priorities. Living in the present moment hasn't been easier with journaling. Offloading distractive thoughts on paper helps me with pursuing my goals with full focus. I revisit them during the nearest moment of reflection to gather new insight.

Presence is essential to living life fully. There is only present moment and what we do with it dictates our fate. What I am after is that I am in control of it. That is possible only by knowing what to do. It helps me do things with full commitment. This is also a great reason for me to charge more while working on projects. This is the reason I can sustain long hours of deep work and productivity. Digital minimalism is a good tool to enhance present moment even further.

Focus

Focus is always on goals that are somewhere in the future, not totally under my control. Goal setting is fundamental practice that leads to success. I frequently take time during the present moment just to think about my goals and whether I am aligned with them or not. What is very important as well is how many goals I set to achieve in a given time frame. There has to be a reasonable number. It is good to have more goals than 2 but it is not optimal to have 50 because you can do only so much in your life.

Goals can also feel overwhelming. It is usually the case when one does not take the time to break the goal down into smaller projects. I have introduced a practice of setting a next action point. Next action is a unit of work you can do right now without any dependency on anything else. Completing multiple next actions gets the momentum going in direction of a desired goal. Opposite of that is romaticizing the vision and just thinking about it instead of walking towards the goal.

Journaling is a routine I've integrated into my life in the beginning of 2023. It has remained with me till this day and evolved into something very personal. The fact is that the less time I spend on practicing the process of personal reflection as part of the routine, the more I feel it. Journaling is something I cannot live without.

If you take journaling so seriously that you don't want to miss a thought because you realize how much value it can hold when you reflect on it later after capturing, you start building habits that let you capture what you want, when the thought occurs. I talk about my habits in my previous blog article.

Best way to learn something new

Before I wrote Joex, I felt my process for capturing thoughts when my journal is not with me, via my smartphone, is not as intuitive as I wanted it to be. The problem was that I needed to click around on the phone too much. This process can be distracting you from the present moment when every second matters.

The problem I had became my personal motivator to learn Swift UI, framework for creating iOS apps created by Apple. I failed to find an app that would fit my needs and througout my humble career, I became obsessed with creating what user sees on the screen. Two great reasons to spend some portion from my month's free time on a problem that needs solution.

Unprecedented execution

5th of January marks the day when I noted down first thoughts about the app. I've spent around one month researching if something similar exists and refining description of core features. On the 28th of January, I made the first git commit in a repository and defined model for log entry with type note as a core unit for information structure that app is going to use. Finally, on the 22nd of February, the MVP was finished and ready for publishing to see if anyone else may have the same problem as I did.

Issues with the distribution

I am a fan of Apple ecosystem mainly because of how minimalist it is and how much it simplifies my life thanks to features like continuity or consistent user interfaces and high-quality hardware. On the other hand, the ecosystem is closed and Apple tries as hard as it can to keep you and your data for themselves, for as long as possible.

In order to start publishing on the App Store, you need to pay a fee of $99 USD. Not only that but also pay it on yearly recurrent basis. This caught me off guard and I decided to keep the app for myself, at least for now. This fee surely eliminates significant amount of adversaries who develop malicious software and then distribute it.

What now?

As far as I consider Joex being just a fun hobby project, I am not planning to start distributing it on the App Store. I am rather considering to make it an installable web app (a so called Progressive Web App). This would come with a trade off of not being able to use native iOS functions like widgets or shortcuts that Joex uses.

At least to me, it is essential for journaling to remain in written form. Writing things down helps your memory remember things more easily, adding to overall weight of the information that is being recorded. However, sometimes it is not the most convenient to take physical journal with you. That's where the smartphone comes in, but not so fast.

The Smartphone Trap

One more reason why I like writing things down on paper is that there is nothing that can disturb me. I am fully present and focused. Nowadays, it is rather an exception than a norm not to get distracted by these magical devices. Before I was able to use smartphone as an extension for journaling, I needed to eliminate unnecessary noise that was caused by constant stream of notifications and sounds.

Becoming hard to be reached

In order to remain in focus while using your smartphone, one has to get their notifications in control. For me, this meant making a distinguishment between essential and non-essential apps. For example, every app that falls into entertainment category is non-essential for me and banking apps are essential as I want to be reminded when I make any transaction. It also meant that I deleted my social media accounts.

There is more but in short, one needs to know where their attention goes. Once this is known, it is possible to evaluate whether that energy provides any value to daily functioning. I was able to reduce the amount of information that flows through my senses significantly just by thinking and making strict decisions which apps stay and ones that need to go away from my magical device.

Smartphone as an extension to journaling

I am using smartphone to temporarily store my thoughts during journaling while away from physical journal. The important part is to rewrite these thoughts once physical journal is at hand. Bujo method has the mechanism of reflection already built-in. During daily reflection process, I collect my ideas from all sources (usually during the evening if not earlier in a day). Once migrated, I am free to delete the digital footprint.

Rapid logging

When there is time to type my thoughts, I click shortcut that takes me straight into the note that exists in my note-taking app of choice.

Rapid recording

In a scenario when I am in a need for handsfree communication with my magical device to record my thoughts (e.g. walking or driving), I use different type of shortcut that immediately starts a voice recording.

Data collection for self-awareness

I also use apps that store data regarding my daily goals completion, emotions and expenses. The reason for me doing it is data visualization that I get for free. This is one aspect that is a bit tricky in physical journaling and can take more time than I am willing to invest into it. That's why I've decided to duplicate these types of information, keeping simple table view inside my journal but also recording digitally in privacy-focused apps to get instant visualizations regarding different aspects of self-awareness.

Be free

The point of having an extension to something is to reduce friction in doing the activity. Having a smartphone helps me keep record of ideas that would otherwise be forgotten in most cases. The surface on which I capture ideas got significantly bigger for me after introducing smartphone in my daily journaling experience.

Fundamental tools for journaling will always be pen and paper. Something that can change should always remain being an extension. For me, extensions are very unpredictable and subject to frequent change. In order to be truly free human being, I must be willing to give up on these extensions at any point in my life.

The following quote summarizes the year very precisely for me:

A vision without a task is but a dream, a task without a vision is but a drudgery, a vision and a task is the hope of the world. — David Allen

The biggest challenge for me in 2023 was to break down my vision into a concrete set of the very next actions. It was a challenge of continuing to dream about the future while doing the real work now in direction of the world I envisioned.

Sustainable UI

You could learn from my 2022 in review article that at the beginning of this year, I had begun to get involved full-time in Sustainable UI (SUI) open-source project of mine - project awarded as The Most Innovative at Carbon Hack 22. I gave up on my regular income to follow my passion for enabling others to create websites that are aligned with people and planet.

Passion mindset

I bet you felt not only a tiny bit of enthusiasm from the above paragraph. Some would even say blindfoldedness which is the way I prefer to call my past attitude today. On one hand, I had a fairly large runway to afford not working at least for the next 6 months, on the other it created a pressure that stood in my way of execution. Today, the decision back then does not make much sense to me anymore when I look at it with a 12-months difference.

Can you imagine the amount of work I managed to do in 2 months time (till the end of February) in such a situation? Plans were to finish with implementation of the headless React library (sui-headless-react) and expand the ecosystem of open-source SUI headless libraries that switch UI components based on grid carbon intensity and user input.

Burnout

The reality is that I burned out after creating the official SUI documentation website. I wasn't able to finish the library implementation and make it available to a broader developer community. I was a great dreamer but a bad software developer at that time. Before making my decision to "do my own thing" right after winning the hackathon, I thought that I am a superman.

Success is like a drug, opposite of failure. — Steven Pressfield

I took that drug when I won the hackathon. I thought it gave me superpowers, that I am more capable than others. I have the ambition so why not risk it? I am a young man that can take risks. So I took it and failed hard. In the beginning of March, I was completely burned out, falling back to reading books about entrepreneurship and personal development. I registered on labor office to become officially unemployed, with an intention to recover in the coming month and find a job.

SUI Builder

There is something more hidden under the above sentences that I want to talk about to give you a bigger picture understanding. This whole time since the beginning of the year, I was thinking about how to use SUI to make profit as I was without an income. I was asking about how to have the biggest positive impact on the global web.

Instantly, it became obvious that I want to allow anyone to create a sustainable website, not only programmers whom I provide SUI libraries for free, as a gift to the open web ecosystem. The idea was to create a no-code website builder using SUI open-source technology. I've asked more experience software developers I know to voice their opinions and I received not a single hesitant response but a handful of them. Nonetheless, I did not get discouraged and dreamed forward.

Communities, professional network and opportunities

Before I continue in the timeline, let me take a pause and talk about something important I continually observe in my life. I cannot stress enough how significant are communities and networking in my professional life. I wouldn't do what I do now without the two. Let me tell you about a series of events that unfolded in my life to give you a proof:

1. October 2021 - I joined ClimateAction.Tech (CAT) community to get to know more like-minded individuals who want to innovate todays tech space in an eco-friendly manner.
2. May 2022 - Inspiration from web and design channels in the CAT community had helped me evolve and further develop my own thinking about web UIs and sustainability, ultimately becoming more and more interested in the topic.
3. August 2022 - I read a blog post via CAT regarding Green Mode Design principles that convinced me I am not alone who thinks the way I think about UIs in general and a "less is more" approach.
4. September 2022 - I won The Most Innovative Award at Carbon Hack 22 with SUI that was the first project that implements aforementioned Green Mode Design principles in practice and also makes UIs carbon aware. I also joined Adora Foundation Incubation Lab that had helped me accelerate the project after the hackathon.
5. December 2022 - I presented the topic of Carbon Aware UIs to the local Tatry IT community to spread awareness about an emerging topic in the field.
6. January 2023 - I took a leap of faith and made SUI my full-time endeavor. Later on, I joined forces with Albert Fourage who I knew via CAT and who learned about me taking SUI seriously via my LinkedIn post.
7. August 2023 - Got a sustainability-oriented job from Ismael, author of the Green Mode Design principles blog article above and also now my mentor and a colleague. At the same time, working on edi with Albert, more on which below.
8. December 2023 - Attended a panel discussion by Adora Foundation as part of their COP28 panel series, where the topic of discussion were the Web Sustainability Guidelines (WSG), with their co-chair and editor Tim Frick.

What I've realized by acknowledging this sequence of events is that communities and professional network can mean everything for having a career that gives joy, and also can open new directions previously unimaginable.

Sense of direction

Unifying mission to your working life can be a source of great satisfaction. — Cal Newport

How to find communities and build network? Find a unifying mission that directs your attention in the distracted world. You can work on anything you want but the most important is to have a sense of direction. You cannot be everywhere so choose wisely and then join communities to get surprised again and again. What could be the most interesting is to merge 2 or 3 areas of your interest to build a totally unique identity.

edi

So now let's get back to the timeline sequence of the most important events of 2023. What had happened after my burnout while working on SUI? In addition to lots and lots of personal development, it was mainly shaping the idea of SUI Builder together with my co-founder Albert who specializes in UI/UX design.

EIT Digital Venture Program

I partnered with Albert to join the European accelerator programme for early-stage startups in May. We were selected as the only project from Slovakia, attending the programme together with 2 Czech and 3 Polish projects, if I recall correctly. Thanks to the programme, we received valuable knowledge and resources for entrepreneurship from experienced mentors, investors and entrepreneurs across Europe.

As an MVP, we created an official edi website with sustainable elements, most notably low-mode switch at the top-right corner that degrades the user experience. It saves energy resources required to render the website on the user PC. This was far from no-code but it conveyed the message very well to the broader public. The website serves to us as a great medium for communicating our vision, till this day.

Reframing

During the programme, we realized our idea is valid but overly ambitious for a small team like us. At the same time, we decided we want to grow rather sustainably and organically than via 3rd-party investments. We decided to start small and slow, which is more aligned with our sustainable mindset and edi brand in general.

This required us to rething technology behind the no-code platform and also narrow the definition of value that we will want to be providing in the future to our potential customers. The programme has helped me to go from a pure dreamer to a dreamer and a doer. For what this year was, this sounds like a big-enough reward to me. Nowadays, I actually write lines of code, something I was supposed to be doing from the start of the year.

So once again, I put the following quote down:

A vision without a task is but a dream, a task without a vision is but a drudgery, a vision and a task is the hope of the world. — David Allen

Books

I could have given up already. But the vision remains the same as it was in May 2022, just the conrete steps were made much more clear this year thanks to variety of challenges I faced, mostly together with Albert. This made us much more resilient and focused. I attribute the source of my courage and endurance mostly to knowledge I've gathered from books I've read this year. This was also the year I read the biggest amount of books in my life.

Read

1. The 3 Alarms: A Simple System to Transform Your Health, Wealth, and Relationships Forever (link)
2. Jsi značka?! (link)
3. Weapons of Math Destruction: How Big Data Increases Inequality and Threatens Democracy (link)
4. The Bullet Journal Method: Track the Past, Order the Present, Design the Future (link)
5. Impromptu: Amplifying Our Humanity Through AI (link)
6. Nevyžádané rady mládeži (link)
7. So Good They Can't Ignore You: Why Skills Trump Passion in the Quest for Work You Love (link)
8. The Pathless Path: Imagining a New Story For Work and Life (link)
9. Keep Going: 10 Ways to Stay Creative in Good Times and Bad (link)
10. Show Your Work!: 10 Ways to Share Your Creativity and Get Discovered (link)
11. Steal Like an Artist: 10 Things Nobody Told You About Being Creative (link)
12. The Psychology of Money: Timeless lessons on wealth, greed, and happiness (link)
13. Ikigai: The Japanese Secret to a Long and Happy Life (link)
14. Getting Things Done: The Art of Stress-free Productivity (link)
15. How to Live: 27 conflicting answers and one weird conclusion (link)
16. Hell Yeah or No: what's worth doing (link)
17. The War of Art (link)
18. Turning Pro (link)
19. Your Music and People: creative and considerate fame (link)
20. The Highly Sensitive Person: How to Thrive When the World Overwhelms You (link)
21. The CBT Workbook for Perfectionism: Evidence-Based Skills to Help You Let Go of Self-Criticism, Build Self-Esteem, and Find Balance (link)

In the process of reading

• The Sovereign Individual: Mastering the Transition to the Information Age (link)
• How I Built This: The Unexpected Paths to Success from the World's Most Inspiring Entrepreneurs (link)
• Elon Musk (link)
• Sapiens: A Brief History of Humankind (link)
• Speed Reading: Learn to Read a 200+ Page Book in 1 Hour (Mental Performance) (link)
• A Promised Land (link)

2024

My aim for the next year is to keep a sustainable balance between work on edi and work on projects that represent my main income stream. I want these projects to be aligned with my vision to fit well into the bigger picture of my professional life. Current work at EarthShift Global is very exciting and I am hoping our partnership can evolve significantly in a positive direction during the coming months.

Let me end with a phrase that testifies itself as true in my life repeatedly:

Stick to it for a while, even if it hurts you a little. - Samuel Pitonak

And also something on mission from Yan Zoritchak, world-renowned artist and cousin of my father:

You go forward, angelic signs, you create even without a response, but you look at your mission and it gives you meaning. - Yan Zoritchak

What's new now

First and foremost, there is an email form on welcome page which you can use to give me, you guessed it right, your email address! One thing I am pretty sure about is that it's generally a great idea to build an audience. This year I've realized that this website receives a solid amount of internet traffic (not negligible for sure) and it is a shame that there wasn't a way for my people to leave me their email address. This changes today!

Upcoming new website

Speaking of things that are currently in the making, we are working on something amazing with my co-founder Albert (yes, we've nearly started our own business this year but more on that later in the "X in review"-type of a blog post that's coming this month). This something is a no-code sustainable website builder called edi. It is being built with our own SUI technology that is going to be open-sourced in the future.

This website is going to get an overhaul in 2024, using edi. This means it is going to be better optimized for the 4 aspects of web development many people are not talking about: accessbility (a11y), sustainability (s12y), performance (p9e), digital inclusion (d14n). At the same time, these 4 aspects act as core pillars for edi. If you are interested, head over to edi website to learn more and even request a beta access.

Features

On the top of re-using existing content, among other features, the new website will have:

• Page with people who inspire me: I am a result of a sum of people I let myself be surrounded by. My journey is significanly influenced by people I meet in my daily life, either in person or virtually. I am going to make the list public as I believe these people deserve a spotlight on this website.
• Now page: This page is going to act as a single source of truth for discovering what I am doing at the moment (meaning this week or month). It is inspired by Derek Sivers, successful entrepreneur and book author I personally aspire to.
• Blog comments section: I would love to engage with my people. Be it either via an email or a direct discussion in a comment section under the blog post I write.
• Photo gallery with reactions: I call myself LFP - Low-Friction Photographer. Over the last years, I was able to take lots of shots that I think are worth sharing in the public space. I am working on a page where people will be able to react with likes as they would do on a social network such as Instagram, but without the need for an account - to make it low-friction.

What's next

Right behind the corner is the year 2024. For the past month, I've been busy reflecting on my steps in a yearly reflection as part of my Bujo process. You can expect me to share a public "2023 in review" post during the upcoming weeks. If you haven't already, feel free to read my 2022 in review blog post from last year. As 2022, 2023 was also an eventful one and I cannot wait to share with you how the journey looked like.

There is simply a lot happening at once. That's why I used to manage my life through various digital services. In the beginning of 2023, I gave up on my digital productivity tools Notes, Reminders and Calendar as I had beem failing to achieve what I wanted despite having everything noted down with alarms set. In January, I read a book called The Bullet Journal Method: Track the Past, Order the Present, Design the Future by Bujo author Ryder Carroll that inspired me to make this move and I am very happy I did it.

Intentionality

Digital tools failed me and so I gave up on them in January. I have been using them for years during my high school and college years. Writing something down digitally, having it accessible from any device and anywhere at any time has a downside which is not apparent from the first moment. I have realized that this comfort is a disability that stands in a way before an actual execution.

As with everything, there should be a compromise. I am still using my Calendar with Cal so that it is easy to keep track of meetings with others. But I do not think I am going to use a digital to-do list in the near future. Taking that extra step of writing something down with a physical pen makes you think twice if you really want to put that item in there. This additional step is a fundamental element to intentional living, also described by Ryder in his book.

Reflections

Ryder recommends to make daily, weekly and monthly reflections during which you allocate time to re-evaluate items that are on your lists (Monthly log, Daily log, Collections). During the 3 months trial (time period recommended by Ryder) that is currently ending for me, I found myself forgetting to do daily reflections. As a side effect of that, I started losing track of my priorities in life. Bullet Journal serves as a place where you offload your thoughts so you can stay in the moment.

Migrations

Migration is a process during which you analyze tasks that weren't completed during last month and decide whether it makes sense to move them somewhere else or delete them completely. In addition to this, I started writing down my thoughts in regards to progress I have made during last month relative to my personal goals and projects. Migration is a great filter and a perspective shift from day-to-day life to month-to-month birds eye view.

Bujo is enough for me, at least right now

There are more sophisticated systems than Bujo such as GTD. While Bujo provides lots of flexibility and allows to live with more intention, I think it may not be sufficient at some point. Bujo provides everything I need right now. Thanks to the method, I am able to have a better understanding of a direction I am heading. At the same time, I am able to choose the direction more clearly and with more authenticity as I am no longer working in my mind alone, but also a sheet of paper that keeps track of the mess I used to carry with me.

With Bujo, I make sense of my mess and take meaningful action.

Why is it the way it is? I asked myself the same thing during my last Bujo migration. I noticed a couple of significant trends since my decision. At the moment, there are more important things that require my attention in my personal life. Conclusion of my Bujo reflection is the following: "It's time for a change."

I don't want to go into too much detail right now. What is important to me is that this decision hopefully improves my work and life balance which is something I have been trying to find since the beginning of 2021 as mentioned at the end of my 2022 in review article. Despite having the desire, I always focused more on work and results even though I knew this is not the way I want my life to be.

I am learning by experience that life is about relationships. Work is very important, but it is not the most important thing in life. This is just another attempt by me to give work an appropriate priority all things considered. In the end, everyone has to find their own balance.

I have realized entrepreneurial mindset is not something that you can take for granted. It is a way of thinking that you either inherit from your parents or build up from scratch because you have an idea you impatiently want to push out to the world. The latter is my case which is why I am reading 4th book in one month time, in hope for finding something that would encourage me to make the mark.

Purpose-driven businesses

There is one big difference for business unit I want to establish when comparing to current approach to business that majority of CEOs have in the current world. Business is created to make profits by providing value to its customers. How to build a business that, with authenticity and full integrity, provides value for the planet and humanity while also being financially sustainable? This is the kind of question I am always getting back to.

You can create value for customers in various ways. Today's world faces many challenges - coping with war of two civilizations in Ukraine that has lasted for a year now, climate change that is a consequence of comfort we people in a developed parts of the world are living in, inequality as those who are least responsible for this problem are hit with the biggest force and very likely more than what I am aware of at this moment.

Oxymoron is a newsletter by Tom Greenwood, founder and CEO of Wholegrain Digital. Thoughts of Tom have resonated with me a couple of times before and is a big source of inspiration for me. When I have a successful business one day, it has to have success defined in the 3 aspects very well: well-being, equity and sustainability. How could I make this?

Seeking investment opportunities

Sustainable UI (SUI) is an open-source initiative of mine that has started on Carbon Hack 22. It embodies my interest in nature & user interfaces to briefly describe it. I am asking what is the symbiosis of the two? How do you create user interfaces that are in symbiosis with the planet and users? In my eyes, this ultimately means designing and developing user-facing applications in way that benefits well-being, equity and sustainability.

I could be more specific here as I have a startup idea in mind right now that could be built on top of the SUI platform. The point is there is a need for entrepreneurial mindset rather than engineering mindset that I graduated from at college roughly 2 years back in time. I wish college taught me more in area of entrepreneurship. I couldn't expect this from my parents as they are working for the state their whole life.

In the interest of raising funds for my idea, I attended networking events in my town, contacted a few friends who may know something, crawled the websites of programmes that European Union comes up with in regard to the green deal and found out about lots of interesting things I wouldn't otherwise. Implementing my idea and making it a startup makes the most sense on a bigger scale in case of the SUI project. The more users the project has, the better. Thats why I am thinking it is important to focus on getting support from a higher-regional level organizations.

Programme Slovakia

Nearly 13B euros in euro fond programmes will be flowing to Slovakia during the upcoming years through the Ministry of investment, regional development and informatization. This could be relevant for a business idea that focuses on making software better for the planet and humanity. As there is a strong correlation, it would make sense to find a relevant challenge.

Venture Program by EIT Digital

Programme on the European level that helps people from 22 EU countries develop a MVP (Minimal Viable Product) and find their first investor. EIT Digital receives 5% of equity and there has to be at least 2 team members to join. Corporation will be established during the programme.

My decision

Venture Program makes perfect sense for SUI and idea that could be built on top of the platform for building UIs with sustainability at core. I am going to give it a shot, contact a few people that may be interested in helping me out. There are other programmes but this idea is early-stage. Later on, it could be interesting to join an accelerator such as ClimAccelerator for Baltics & Slovakia or EIC Accelerator where the solution has to be on a different technology readiness level (TRL).

I wanted to write about one good discussion I had today with a friend of mine. We were talking about what is my internal drive for taking the harder path of starting my own business rather than following what most people do - regular income, more stability and certainty.

My answer was energy. Energy is what dictates direction for me for the most part. It could be rationality in case of other person (maybe you, maybe not) but for me, the feeling does it and once I am starting losing it, I point my attention to something that gives me the missing energy.

In retrospect, I can see a handful of life moments:

• working on any of my past projects gave me energy because of how creative and user-centered the solutions were
• waking up at 4:45 AM for a morning run gave me energy because of school-life balance I was able to achieve with this activity at the time
• deciding to work for a cool agency gave me energy because of unique company culture, modern tech and positive overal vibe
• deciding to give up on my stable income gave me energy because I decided to pursue a dream bigger than me which is about building software that is inspired by nature
• asking that girl out gave me energy because of how well she complemented me

What is your force? Do you observe similar energy momentum in you as I do in myself?

This is the first time ever in my life I have decided to release any kind of personal blog post to the public. I view reflection as an important part of one's life's journey not only professionally-wise. At the same time, I think someone else may find it inspiring, insightful or valuable. People I personally aspire to (e.g. Ismael Velasco and Fershad Irani) posted similar posts regarding last year.

Reading theirs encouraged me to put together mine and post it as well. Sometimes, it may feel like a lot has happend in life recently and that's also the case for my 2022. By putting together this piece, I wanted to make my path more clear to myself in aim to live with more authenticity and intention. If it accidentally sparks an interest in any reader (maybe you?), that is a great bonus!

Living in the mountainous area

Usually, during winter in the mountainous Tatras region where I live, me and my friends take advantage of a good snow conditions and go ski touring or ski mountaineering, depending on equipment used during the sport. In January, I tried the sport for the first time ever which was an empowering experience. We went together through ski slope in Tatranská Lomnica all the way to Skalnaté tarn which is around 860 meters of elevation gain to 1751 m.a.s.l. Shout-out goes to my friends who have encouraged me to rent a set and go. Not even a year later and I now have my own set. In February, I went skiing to Spálená resort in Roháče (The West Tatras) for three days as well. Sport is definitely an activity that helps me keep the balance right in my life. During spring, summer but also autumn days, it usually is about taking my bicycle out. Running and hiking are an all-year-round sports to me in contrast to the three already mentioned. Active body = healthy body and clear mind.

Vacations / Workcations

Before jumping straight into career development parts of my reflection, in addition to the sports intro, I would like to highlight my two vacations or rather one vacation and one workcation to be more precise! In May, I went to Norway for 2 weeks with Patrik and Ladislav. We travelled fairly big chunk of it's southern part from Bergen to Bergen through Preikestolen, Lysebotn, Oslo, Besseggen, Trondheim, Atlanterhavsveien, Alesund, Geirangerfjord and Lovatnet. Norway is an expensive country, even more so for regular Slovaks which holds true also for close-to-fresh computer science graduates that I together with Patrik were at that time. Thats why we boarded our plane in Krakow with a tent and dried food. To call it a vacation, we drank tank beers in Oslo that cost us 10€ each (beer costs around 2,5€ in Slovakia for comparison). After Norway, I visited Slovenia for the second time in my life after living there for 6 months during Erasmus+ stay in 2019. It was a lovely family trip with target destination in Croatia - Brač. Together with my father, we climbed Vidova mountain (778 m.a.s.l.) on our bicycles from Sumartin where we resided. My brother and mother relaxed on the beach in Bol during that time.

Career development

Year 2022 was eventful when it comes to my career development and so I decided to write about it in three separate parts.

Reverberation of graduation from 2021

I tend to push myself hard when it comes to the work I do. I know that doing something properly requires lots of effort. This held true during my college studies as well in case of subjects that interested me the most. During my studies, I have discovered my true passion for frontend development thanks to hard work and dedication to push projects I valued to state I adored. Thats the reason there is a bunch of them from that time that I am simply proud of. I realized that pushing yourself hard is not certainly a bad thing because then you see opportunities you wouldn't otherwise in addition to a good feeling from doing the job properly. Because of hard work and dedication, my master thesis was nominated for IT SPY (IT Student Project of the Year) in 2021 after my graduation. IT SPY is an elite IT competition, evaluating diploma projects of students in 14 Slovak and Czech universities.

What does this has to do with year 2022? That is a valid question. Company I had worked for gave me space to prepare a talk for a virtual StrapiConf 2022 in March. I thought this was a great way to promote not only myself and the company, but more importantly to promote software with higher purpose that was used in a real world for 6 weeks time as part of my master thesis experiment. In my master thesis, I developed an application that aimed at motivating car drivers to drive in a more eco-friendly manner via 2 motivational strategies rewards and gamification. At the conference, I spoke how my technical solution leveraged powers of a popular open-source content management system called Strapi. Unfortunately, I haven't managed to develop my solution further since then. I think it still has a great potential. In December, a friend of mine contacted me that a company is hiring software engineers in order to develop a system with similar objective but in React Native for smartphones instead of web technologies for the web.

For me, title is not only a set of characters that I type before my name. It is my story of personal and professional growth and I am proud to say I am a Software Engineer as I gave it all I could at the time. Do things so that you can be proud of how you did them.

Working remotely on modern web UIs for a high-growth agency with global reach

I have been fascinated by speed, simplicity and consistency of user interfaces ever since I was a little kid who spent nearly all of his free time playing Counter-Strike. Not sure if it's only me but I tend to get lost quite often inside such user experiences in software. They make me feel as if someone really respects me and cares about me. Someone who has developed the solution so that it is joy to work with from the user perspective. This is what real craft means in my eyes within software boundaries. From proper UX analysis to UI design and development, every part of the play was handled to achieve such a great end result that is synonymous with perfection. Would you like to see an example? I think that Vercel is unbeatable in this regard from what I have used so far in the digital world. I may be biased as they also develop NextJS React metaframework that I am also fan of but hey, you gotta admit they nailed it in the 3 aspects I mentioned earlier.

Where is the aforementioned high-growth agency with global reach though? Speaking of Bejamas, they caught my eyes instantly because of the way I perceive craft that I described above. They are frontend-focused agency building solutions based on Jamstack architectural approach which is characteristic of speed. That is because in the beginning, you always have just a static website and iterate from there. For nearly 2 years, I had been building the static web in a modern way with them. I had worked with clients from around the globe on different projects from my little home office space. Slowly but surely, I was advancing to a more senior role. When it comes to 2022, I am very happy I took the opportunity to lead the DR SMILE project. To put things into perspective, their websites receive real traffic in hundreds of thousands visits per week. This is a piece of cake for a static website hosted on CDNs built with GatsbyJS, Cloudflare Workers and Optimizely. It was an honour for me to be responsible for delivering new features for their frontend part of the application that is deployed in 11 countries accross Europe.

I made a decision to part my ways with Bejamas which I describe in a bit more detail in section that follows. However, it was a great time working with so many enthusiasts in one place. I had a full taste of asynchronous work in a completely distributed team. I also worked with cool clients and expanded my professional network beyond Slovak borders.

Climate Tech

Climate Tech is an area where the power of technology is leveraged to solve problems related to the climate change that we are inherently facing as a humanity in today's industrialized and capitalistic world. I have been interested in the Climate Tech area since I was working on my master thesis for the first time (mentioned in the Reverberation of graduation in 2021 section above). The next blog post I am currently working on is going to be about the broader story of how I got into the space and I how I stand where I am standing today. People I have personally met with asked me these questions a few times during past two months and I found out there is no easy answer as this journey has been progressing for more than 2 years now. In this section, I would like to highlight significant events from last year. I have been member of ClimateAction.Tech community (CAT in short) since October 2021. I would highly recommend joining to anyone who is interested in the Climate Tech area as there are lots of other like-minded people looking for ways to make a positive impact with their careers. Through this community, I have learned a lot about greener web development, greener design, climate justice and more. I have also managed to expand my network in the space as I am always eager to get to know other people who are concerned with same things as I am. For me personally, job is not only about making money anymore. Seeing the negative impacts of human activity is causing a substantial shift in my mindset when it comes to my relationship with work.

In 2022, my curiosity unlocked a whole new set of possibilities to me. I have been writing down different ideas into my engineering daybook since the beginning of 2022 and one idea stuck with me for the whole year. It was just the two keywords: UIs & Climate Tech. In May, I coined the name Sustainable UI for the first time without connecting any other dots with it. I have learned about the Green Mode Design principles in August. Through the CAT community, I found out about Carbon Hack 22 which was a 3 weeks long global hackathon about building carbon aware software. I didn't hesitate to join with idea from May made more concrete by the Green Mode Design principles I learned about in August. What if we could make modern web apps based on React carbon aware? Even better, library or framework independent? What if we could build a tool that helps developers build such UIs with more ease? It would help build Carbon Aware UIs. So I built a headless library based on React that provides Carbon Aware UI primitives to any React-based application. Coincidentally, the project has won The Most Innovative award among minor category winners. 395 participants in 85 projects and mine was among 7 that won the prize.

I have been telling myself ever since the moment that there has to be more than the award. That's why the award was just a start of something way greater than I could have imagined at the time. I haven't identified more with anything else I did for work previously in my life as much as with Sustainable UI. The project merged two areas I have been immersed in for a long time: UIs and Climate Tech. I happened to be a member of Tatry IT community and one of the organizers there whose name is Radovan has reached out to me in the beginning of November that my LinkedIn post about the hackathon has sparked interest in him. In December before Christmas, I presented my solution on Tatry IT meetup to the local community of IT specialists with a live-coding demo. By winning the prize in the hackathon, project was also granted a slot in Incubation Lab of Adora Foundation. It's founder Ismael inspired me with his Green Mode Design blog series and also mentored me during the hackathon.

I think you now have a better understanding of why the end of 2022 was a hectic time for me. At the end of the year, I had a performance review meeting in the agency I was working for that I mentioned in the previous part of the blog post. It went great as I was doing everything that was expected from me in the leading role of the project. Unfortunately, despite enjoying the work with them a lot, my expectations didn't meet with theirs and so I did not hesitate to take a leap of faith and start a new journey in January of 2023. I need to say that this step felt as natural as nothing else before. I had an impression that parting my ways with the agency liberated me in multiple ways. Considering my financial situation at the time, I didn't see any reason not to pursue my dream of working on Sustainable UI on a full-time basis as a volunteer. That is what I am doing at the time of writing this blog post and I couldn't be happier.

A look ahead

I would like to close this blog post with a reference to my tweet from around a year ago. Balancing things out is still a hot topic for me despite being more than a year old at the time of writing this blog post. I have read a book called The 3 Alarms by Eric Partaker recently about importance of basing our lives on the top of the three fundamental pillars: health, wealth and relationships. With my tendency to overkill a single aspect of life, I now have a system in place to confront my unwanted tendency directly. Let's see how it goes.