March recap: Work hard, rest hard
Taking a break to grow, annual goal progress, and 5 interesting links
My family and I just came back from a short vacation in Perth.
Traveling with my little one was physically and mentally exhausting on a day-to-day basis. On one of the days, he screamed and cried until he vomited as he was struggling to get out of the car seat—all while I was driving down the freeway at 110km/h. On the last day of the trip, my wife and I even searched for an earlier flight home.
Yet looking back, the trip as a whole was recharging and brought us even closer. And we would do it again without any hesitation.
One, it was precious to experience my son’s first time seeing wild kangaroos and dolphins, feeding a goat, and riding a tractor train on a farm with him. Also, since he started going to childcare, we had not spent so much time consecutively together.
Two, it was rejuvenating to disconnect from our daily work and routine. As an emergency doctor, my wife works about six days a week in highly stressful life-and-death situations. My work (startup, coding, and writing) is much less intense, and I genuinely enjoy it. But some aspects, such as keeping up with AI news, have been draining and, at times, demotivating. It was quite nice that I missed the entire ChatGPT-Ghibli controversy because I was offline.
Also, I was making a lot of mistakes in my work, partly because I was working until late on several nights trying to make as much progress as possible. The break forced me to take a step back and consider if that is the right or sustainable approach. Probably not!
How much should we work? Everyone should have their own answer, just like we all find our own meaning in life. As an athlete, I believe in working hard and resting hard. Growth comes from pushing ourselves and taking regular breaks instead of being go-go-go all the time. Our muscles and our minds need the time and space to recover and then grow.
But just like working out after a recovery week, coming back to work after the vacation took a bit more effort than usual. I expected it. Now that I have overcome the inertia, I’m looking forward to pushing myself harder and bouncing higher with my recharged self.
If it has been a while since you took a break, take this as a sign to take one. Even a short walk outside can do wonders.
How am I doing for my 2025 goals
Overall, I feel pretty good about my progress in March, especially since I had planned to be away for a week.
Like last month, for April, I aim to maintain my efforts for my non-business goals and put everything else into my business goal.
Build a meaningful profitable business
Even though we have yet to create a new profitable business (or any new business) and we had to delay the launch of our latest project Stores, I feel we are moving in the right direction.
We want simplify building AI agents for developers. With Stores, they can easily add tools to their AI agents using our library of tested tools, instead of building tools from scratch. If all goes well in the next few days, we will have a mini-launch next Monday. If you have been building AI agents and struggling with any parts of it, we would love to chat!
Also, my side project, Muse, an AI writing Chrome extension, is live on the Chrome Web Store! I’m not sure if it will become a business. And I’m not even charging for it yet. Regardless, it is something I wanted to use myself, so I built it. As I write this essay, I have been using it to improve my phrasing and find more suitable words. Maybe you will like it too.
Bring my family on a vacation ✅
We just came back from Perth! I highly recommend Perth if you are hoping to bring your little one somewhere nearby. I wrote about our trip, recommendations, and accommodations.
Read at least 3 books on parenting
Like the previous months, I have been reading The Daily Dad, Good Inside, and The Sovereign Child.
Here’s my favorite The Daily Dad entry from March:
March 30
An Important RuleThe economist Russ Roberts lives his life by a number of rules and rituals. He keeps Shabbat, for instance, and he commits to regularly tithing his income. He has another rule, as a father, that we should all observe as parents.
If your child offers you a hand to hold, take it.
Life and relationships are an endless dance of reaching out and pulling away. You reach out to your kids, they pull away—they’re busy, they’re in front of their friends, they’re mad at you. You try to help them and they don’t want it. You want what’s best for them but they don’t understand.
We can’t control that. What we can control is that whenever they do reach out—whenever they offer us a hand to hold—we take that opportunity and grab it. When they want to lie in our bed with us, we can let them. When they call on the phone, we can answer—even if we’re in a meeting. When they ask to talk about something, we can listen, whatever it’s about. We can hold them tight every chance we have.
We can’t demand that those things happen, but we can make a rule that when they do, we take it for as long as it’s being given.
For Good Inside, I doubted the book a little after reading the chapter on self-help.
I regularly remind myself that in order to get what I need, someone else might have to be invonvenienced or annoyed, and this is okay. Someone else’s distress shouldn’t be a reason why I can’t meet my own needs. Understanding and accepting this allows me to, say, go for a walk on my own without guilt. If my partner seems annoyed, I try to greet that feeling with an “Ugh, I know, it’s hard to be with the kids on your own, I hear that,” and still walk out the door.
I agree with the need to look after ourselves so that we can look after our kids, and I often encourage my wife to go for her workouts. But the approach in the final sentence feels rather patronizing. And this made her previous suggestions of saying similar phrases to make our children feel connected seem inauthentic.
Of course, I’m not a parenting or relationship expert. And I still love the book’s overall idea that our children are good inside and their misbehavior is not them but a window into their struggles. The rest of the chapters still seem helpful, so I might push myself to continue reading.
I only skimmed a few pages of The Sovereign Child in March, so I don’t have anything to add for this month.
Write daily, publish monthly
My journal streak is now at 483 days! I published eight essays in March. I skipped publishing Alfred Intelligence while I was in Perth because I didn’t learn anything about AI that week.
The Substack algorithm decided to surface My weird little habits to protect my time and attention to about a thousand users. It wasn’t exactly viral but I’m glad to see my odd habits resonating with others.
Eat healthily, exercise 5x/week, sleep well
I maintained these habits, except during my Perth trip. I enjoyed some wine and more desserts than usual there, which I think is fine. I balance my life span and health span with joy span.
Overall, I feel more energetic than I was in February. I’m still holding off any supplements for now and seeing if more sleep and healthier food will be sufficient. But I suspect the perceived improvement is a result of enjoying my day-to-day work more and having a vacation with my family.
My remaining goals
One-year goals (i.e. other 2025 goals)
Help my son develop a night routine and be in bed by 8 p.m. - He was back to going to bed around 8-9 p.m.
Take three deep breaths whenever I’m angry or frustrated - I cannot remember needing this in March, which is great.
Accompany my parents and uncle to their health appointments - Two so far. I missed one in March because I had food poisoning.
Cycle 10x a year - I didn’t cycle in March; total is still two.
Switch from kopi (coffee) to kopi siew dai (coffee less sweet) - I switched to latte, which has no sugar. I drank a lot of lattes in Perth.
Host five dinners at home
Get a part-time cleaner for our house - The house still seems fine with our own cleaning.
No coffee after 3 p.m. - I had some cheat days in Perth.
Five-year goals
Bring my family to Europe and New Zealand
Create a library at home for my son - I turned our unused TV console into a mini-library for now.
Teach my son to cycle and swim - He loves going to play in the pool, and we have been going at least once a week.
Learn to play the piano
Complete a triathlon (any distance)
Lifetime goals
Publish a book
Get back into drawing - My son started to scribble, and I have been drawing animals for him. I’d count this as drawing!
Complete an Ironman triathlon
Bring my son somewhere to see snow (maybe Japan, Seoul, or Switzerland)
Raise kids with integrity, compassion, and agency
Build something with my dad
Have a workbench for playing with hardware
Visit Ghibli Park in Aichi, Japan, and Ghibli Museum in Tokyo, Japan
Mentor someone
Volunteer somewhere (maybe contribute to healthcare or education)
Contribute somehow to Singapore (maybe through my business)
Become rich enough to be independent, not to acquire material possessions
Live until 100 while being physically fit and mentally sharp
Use social media to help others, not just consume content
Learn to speak another language (maybe Japanese)
Links
I didn’t read as much in March because I was coding and working on our AI projects a lot more. But I’d still appreciate recommendations if you have any!
[Life] taking things seriously by
[Life] 35 bits of advice from
[Life] I am rich and have no idea what to do with my life from Vinay Hiremath, cofounder/CTO of Loom
[Life] I got a job by
[Family] A memento mori for the anxious age -
wrote a beautiful tribute to her babysitter Melissa. I wrote about my yima when she passed away, and I wish I could write something as beautiful.
The post about your yima is so beautiful because of how much you loved her and how clear that is in every word 🫶
Also this is such a lovely post! I love recaps like this and after a stressful few weeks of moving and lots of work, it's the reminder I needed of how rejuvenating a break can be. Hope you're doing well Alfred!