#29 - Building fast, crashing slow


Hey πŸ‘‹

This newsletter is for independent creators, expression-minded solopreneurs, and makers who want to build meaningful work without losing heart in the process.


Building a quiz funnel on an island in 2 hours, the addictive side of AI, a task management system that actually works, automating invoices, and a challenging goal. Let's go ;]

🧠 Reflection of the week

Last week I was on Phu Quoc - a small island in southern Vietnam.

I sat down in a coworking there, opened Claude Code, and two hours later I had a full quiz funnel live.

Landing page, diagnostic questionnaire, email capture, branding, everything. For a podcast I’m building with a friend called Solo z MaszynΔ….

Two hours. From zero to shipped.

I had so much hype after that. The kind where everything feels possible and you want to build ten more things before dinner.

Then I flew back to Ho Chi Minh. And the energy just… dropped. Not a crisis. Not burnout. Just flat. I knew what I needed to do.

I just didn’t feel like doing any of it.

I’ve been through enough of these cycles to know what this is.

A few days of high output, then a dip. It’s not a problem to solve. It’s just how my energy works. And honestly, knowing that makes it easier. I don’t fight it anymore. I ride it out, keep showing up, and the momentum comes back.

πŸ’‘ Inspiration of the week

Last week I wrote about AI taking over execution, and how the only thing left is your perspective, your taste, your heart.
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This week I felt that in the most practical way possible.
I spent two hours doing pixel-level revisions on a client's website.

Moving things 2px left. Adjusting paddings.

The kind of work where you're staring at a screen and nothing meaningful is happening. Just maintenance. Just grinding.

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Same day, I built an entire task management system from scratch. Automated reports, AI-powered task management, Telegram integration. In one afternoon.

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Same skills. Different tools. Different feeling.
And I think this is the thing about working with AI that nobody talks about, it's genuinely addictive.

When you're building something with Claude Code and things are just happening, one after another, you're in this flow state where the gap between idea and reality is almost zero.

You think it, you describe it, it exists.
Going from that back to pixel adjustments feels like switching from driving 200km/h to being stuck in a parking lot.

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I'm not quitting client work. But I need to restructure how I do it. The energy gap between "building something new" and "maintaining something old" is too big to ignore.

πŸ”§ Tool of the week

For my entire life, task management apps didn't work for me.

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I tried everything. Todoist, Clickup, Notion boards, Nozbe, Trello, paper lists. Name it.

I'd set it up, use it for three days, forget about it, and go back to keeping everything in my head and piece of paper. Every time.

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This week I changed perspective.

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If I'm using Claude Code for so many tasks, so why not using it for one of the primary need, which is task management?

Brilliant yep? πŸ˜…

I installed Clickup, connected to Claude Code, I built a system where I type a task into Telegram on my phone - AI takes it, figures out what category it belongs to, and drops it into the right list.

No opening an app. No choosing a project. No friction.
Then every morning at 10:00, I get a message with today's tasks. Every evening at 22:00 what's still open.

Meeting transcripts from Fireflies automatically create tasks from action items.
The whole thing runs on n8n (self-hosted automations on my VPS) and took maybe 2 hours to build.

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And here's the insight: the reason task management never worked for me was also discipline (to be frank).

But also it was a friction.

The moment I had to open an app, navigate to the right list, type it in the right format I'd already lost interest.

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What I built this week it's an environment. Automations that work around me, that meet me where I already am (Telegram), that don't need me to be organized. They organize for me.

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The specific tool doesn't matter. What matters is: build the system that supports your behavior, not the one that tries to change it.

πŸ“ˆ Business development

I fixed something small this week that felt surprisingly big.

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Until now, every time a payment came through Stripe, I had to manually create an invoice in Fakturownia (Polish invoicing system), fill in the client's details, match the amount, and send it.

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It's not hard work. It takes maybe 10 minutes. But it's the kind of task that sits in your head, creates a tiny anxiety ("did I send that invoice?"), and eats away at your focus even when you're not doing it.

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This week I connected Stripe to Fakturownia through n8n. Payment comes in β†’ invoice gets generated automatically β†’ PDF gets emailed to the client.

Zero input from me.
10 minutes of manual work, gone forever.

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And it made me think about all the other "10-minute tasks" that silently drain solopreneurs. The follow-up email you forgot. The receipt you didn't file. The spreadsheet you didn't update.

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None of them are hard. All of them are heavy.
Every boring operation you automate isn't just saving time. It's freeing up a slot in your brain that was quietly occupied by "I should probably do that thing."

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If you're running a one-person business, it start with the task you hate most but do every week. Automate that one first. You'll feel the difference immediately.

🎧 DJ Journey 🌏

Phu Quoc was a good refresh.

A few days on an island, no agenda, different environment, coworking and conversations with new people that I met.

But the real thing that happened this week is a decision.

​Bali Time Chamber​

It’s a training camp in Bali. Movement, cold plunges, entrepreneur's community, zero distractions.

I’ve been thinking about it for months. This week I finally looked at the real price - €2,400 for two weeks. I thought it was €5,000. Still a lot, but in my head is a half-price promotion! (joking πŸ˜…)

My birthday is April 19th. The plan is to be there around that time.

My finances are tight. It’s not a comfortable decision. But it’s exactly the kind of thing I need.

Train every day, eat a 1kg of beef steak every day, be around people who are building something.

I have a month to make it work.

Also, next DJ gig confirmed in Ho Chi Minh in early April. The booking muscle is rusty but it’s moving again.


πŸ’¬ Any thoughts or reflections? Text me back!


Thanks for being here.

Have a good week and see yaa next Sunday ✌️

Bart

Weekly reflections on flow, work & freedom

Sometimes it’s about business and systems. Sometimes about music, movement, and nights spent behind the decks. Always honest. Always real. Once a week, you’ll get a calm, grounded reflection - something to think with, not scroll past.

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