Writing · 7 Sep 2026
Twenty Times Faster
On pace, and the human in the loop
On 11 August I wrote in my notebook: the speed at which we move is about twenty times the old top speed. In one day I do what I used to do in twenty. This post is about that speed, what it does to the human in the loop, and the counterweight I found. It is the first post of September, written on a day of deliberately doing less.
Twenty times
The number is not a boast, it is a measurement. In August two problems on the cloud were analysed and fixed on the day they appeared, work that used to be a week of digging. It is mentally draining, this speed. Still I find it beautiful, because you shoot with precision and power.
Last week was a normal week. A complete restaurant site. A proof of concept for an event venue, promised online within the week. The final touches on a bar site. New sections on two local news sites and a full site for a city square. A site and a members area for a medical publication. Printer support in the shop app, through Apple's review. Analyses of four competitors. A video call setup on the new laptop. And on Sunday evening a prototype for writing by hand, which is how these notes were written. In the same week: three customer visits, two video calls, school runs, football training and a match, a birthday present for my wife built as a little game, a sleepover guest. It is not surprising that we sometimes feel a bit full.
The human in the loop
Mid August, after a week of full throttle, I wrote: I am at my max. Head and body at the limit. The gear worked fantastically, and I was the limiting factor. That is the honest state of things in 2026: the agents do not tire, the logs do not sleep, the builds run at night. The bottleneck has moved, and it moved to me.
On a campsite in France I had already written the paradox down: post AI, the challenge is simple to use, less is more. Ship less. A contradiction with agents that can make everything. And the people around you do not always keep up either. The pipelines give you speed, enough to ship at eighty percent and learn. But a customer will look at the breakthrough tomorrow, and a partner needs a week. I have to learn to accept that not everyone switches at light speed. Sometimes that delay is a gift: a quieter period, a little more time for a delivery.
The counterweight
The answer I found is not slower agents. It is a routine for the body. We must not see sport as not working: the ideas, the space and the energy are crucial. So there is a shake before the coffee, a run on the odd days, the gym three times a week, and no more finishing the leftovers. A 10K alone on a Friday morning is a relief, clarity of mind through real silence. The best runs of the summer, along the Seine at dawn and on the coast of Brittany, were not fast or strong. They were where the thinking happened.
And at the end of August the sharpest note of all: the overload creates the wish for rest and space. That space has to be protected. Sleep matters, and working late at night maybe not. With school, sport and football there is not enough left over to sustain that. I have known this since my first marathon: you can push the limit, but you cannot move it by wanting.
A marathon, not a sprint
Something else happened this week. Sites that generate themselves are becoming common, I see comparable techniques appear around me. The distinguishing factor is no longer the public endpoint, it is the stack behind it: a customer who is happy with the app in her pocket, another who bounces because of his charts. That is much harder to replicate. And there is a harder question still, also for the big AI companies: how do you carry the responsibility of keeping an engine running well, for years? Generating something neat once is easy. Keeping it running, maintaining it, over the long term is another matter. This is a marathon, not a sprint.
This week
So this week we do it differently. Mandatory time for sport and away from the keyboard. A week of rolling out cannot hurt: ninety-nine percent reactive, an empty inbox, and some polish on our own tools. No new websites without a customer's mandate. No customer contact on my initiative.
This morning I slept an hour and a half longer and ran five kilometers. The plan had been a half marathon. The body really needed the extra sleep, and I feel a lot better now. The things that are in motion can roll out on their own for a while.
Conclusion
Twenty times faster is real, and so is the bill. The agents do not tire, I do, and that makes the pace mine to set. A run, a night of sleep and a week of doing less are not a break from the work. They are how the work stays good.
