About one year ago I wrote about a plan to write more in 2025.

It is now 2026, and you don’t have to go read that post to imagine that I did not, in fact, write more in 2025 (or maybe I did, but I definitely did not post more stuff on this blog).

The one thing I did do, though, was to stop reading so much.

You’ve seen me brag about the system I used to read (what I considered to be) a reasonable amount of books over a year. But this year I decided that, while the system works, it kinda steals the fun out of pretty much any activity you apply it to.

I found myself cheating just to make my daily mark, and eventually realized that the experiment had served its purpose (recover my ability to focus on long format reading) and I could finally let it go…

Enjoying the process, and not focusing on any result is something I’ve discussed many times at therapy, so in theory it’s something I should’ve internalized long ago. But of course I didn’t, and something had to happen to remind me about it:

I lost my wallet in El Segundo watch in Qatar

This summer, me and my family went on a trip to Japan. It’s a pretty long flight, so we had to do a very quick (and very stressing) transfer at Doha International Airport. We ran across the whole airport at 1am to catch our flight. Approximately at the middle of our run, I realized I had left my smart watch in the security control, and by the time we arrived at our gate it was too late to go back to try to retrieve it.

So I mourned its loss, and went over all the stages of grief over the course of our trip, including searching (unsuccessfully) for a replacement in Japan.

The net result of this whole adventure was that I spent 15 days enjoying the freedom of having no idea how many steps, calories, or kilometers I did each day (or what time it was, for that matter).

I cared so little about that stuff, that I actually considered not replacing my watch with anything, and living watch-free forever more.

I could live and exercise based on vibes only, and things would be all right.

Then I found my watch

At this point, I have to admit that one of the reasons I did not buy a replacement watch immediately was that I really liked my watch. We’ve been through a lot together. I wasn’t really looking forward to spending money on something new, that I had to get familiar with, and build new memories…

We’d be stopping at Doha International Airport again on the return flight, and this time we wouldn’t be running like crazy to catch our flight. So I thought I’d shoot them a good old email asking about my watch…

And they had it.

I almost cried when I recovered it. Just thinking about the odds of that whole operation working out gives me a headache.

It’s not everyday that you learn an important lesson, but then don’t have to pay the price for it, so trust me when I say that today, five months later, I still think about this every time I look at my watch.

Have I stopped looking at my stress levels, body battery, or training load? Of course not. But is there a clear “before” and “after” moment about these (and other quantified) things since then? You betcha.

I’m not yet ready to give up some of my training info, because it is important to me. I’m old enough to know that “exercising” is no longer something I only do for fun, and I have to measure some stuff.

But I’m definitely paying 0 attention to what or how much I read or write, and I think I’m slightly happier for that.

Thanks for reading!