Already There
It starts early sometimes.
Before anything is even clear,
I’m already picturing how it might look.
Not the problem.
The solution.
A framework I know.
A structure that feels familiar.
Folders. Modules. Interfaces.
All there already,
before anyone has really said
what this is about.
I used to call that experience.
Now I’m not so sure.
Might just be habit.
Too Early
The longer you build software,
the faster you start seeing patterns.
A few keywords —
and you already know
where this is going.
That’s useful.
You get faster.
More confident.
You don’t have to think as much,
because you’ve already done that thinking.
And that’s where it gets dangerous.
At some point,
you stop thinking about the problem
and start thinking in familiar solutions.
You hear requirements
and jump straight to architecture.
No detour.
No friction.
And none of that brief moment
where you don’t know anything yet.
Not Wrong
I’ve seen systems —
and built a few myself —
that were technically clean.
Well structured.
Carefully thought through.
And still somehow off.
Not wrong.
Just… not right.
Like the right tool —
just for the wrong thing.
In hindsight, it was obvious.
We decided too early.
Not out of laziness.
Just habit.
We reacted
instead of really looking.
It Never Went Live
There was this one project.
I had the architecture more or less done
before the requirements had even settled.
It all made sense.
Familiar.
Right.
It just never went live.
Not because it was bad.
It just tried to solve more
than it ever needed to.
Too many abstractions.
Too many options.
Too much architecture
for something that was actually simple.
Everything clean.
Everything made sense.
None of it needed.
Not Autopilot
Experience isn’t autopilot.
It’s something you reach for.
And like with anything you can reach for,
the risk is grabbing something
before you’ve even stopped to think.
You can use it
once you know
what you’re building.
Or you reach for it too early
and end up with a pile of things
you don’t actually need.
These days, I try to start every project
like it’s my first.
Not naive.
Not clueless.
Just stay open.
And okay with saying:
I don’t know yet how this should work.
It Doesn’t Repeat
Every project starts from scratch.
Not the tech.
Everything else.
The world is different.
The people are different.
So are you.
Routine can help.
But if you’re not careful,
it starts to rust.
And that doesn’t come from standing still,
but from moving too much
in the same way.
