[8/14] 2026 Goal Progress

This is my regular check-in on the goals I've declared. This week I only worked Monday — Tuesday through Sunday was a family trip. Which is also why this update slipped to Monday.

Health

Zero strength training. But maximum refresh

Health-wise, I did almost nothing this week. No strength training either. Because from Tuesday to Sunday, I was traveling with my family.

In exchange, I got to spend lazy days on a southern island with zero work pressure of any kind. Mentally, it was a serious refresh.

Island nights end early. Back in Tokyo, I woke up in the 6 a.m. hour

The place we stayed isn't the kind of island that's lively late into the night, so even with nothing left to do, I'd be asleep somewhere between 10 and 11 p.m. Compared to Tokyo, I went to bed earlier — and woke up 30 minutes to an hour earlier than usual.

Then I came back to Tokyo, and on day one after sleeping here, I managed to wake up in the 6 a.m. hour. Felt great.

Quitting smoking: only 2.5 packs in 6 days

Across the six days — Tuesday through Sunday — I smoked only 2.5 packs. And this was with cigarettes available anytime. Having my family around the whole time probably helped, though.

Is it having lots of alone time that makes me smoke? Or is it having work? I still don't really know. But considering how much I usually smoke during work hours, it turns out I can enjoy myself just fine without smoking much — and my head stays clearer. It hit me all over again: I've been smoking a pile of cigarettes I never actually needed.

Which is exactly why I believe the time-locked box will work. It's still in the design phase — I'm researching parts — but I want to build the first one this month.

Work

Not a single call or mention during the trip

I barely worked this week. But on Monday, I went in with one mindset: prepare everything so I could fully focus on enjoying the trip starting the next day. I was extremely deliberate about making things run without me.

The result: during the entire trip, not one phone call, not one mention. Zero.

Call it "hope for the best, prepare for the worst" — but building an organization that keeps running whenever I'm gone is something I need to keep thinking about, always.

Remote work from the Claude app on my phone

I brought only my work laptop on the trip — the personal one stayed home. So the crypto auto-trading bot and everything around it couldn't be operated from a PC.

But these days, I can use the Claude app's remote control to give instructions and check status. Very remote-style work, sure, but I managed a few sessions a day. Being able to do bits of work from a phone is genuinely great.

Money

Waiting for my target US stock to dip. Switching brokerages

With the trip, no real moves this week. The US stock I recently sold for profit might drop a bit further, so I'm waiting for that.

Also, I've decided to change brokerages. I've been using PayPay Securities, but it's really built for beginners just starting out: stocks like Tesla that you'd normally have to buy in full lots, PayPay Securities holds in inventory and sells off in slices. That wonderful mechanism is exactly why fees exist — a $100 stock effectively costs something like $105. Meaning: you're negative the moment you buy. The valuation alone shows +10%, but in PayPay Securities it reads more like 6%. Feels like money left on the table.

Thanks to PayPay Securities, I got to start investing at all, and it took care of me for about two and a half years. I've learned roughly how trading works, so now it's Rakuten Securities or SBI Securities... I went back and forth, and it'll probably be SBI. The account application is under review right now. Once it clears, I'll move the funds, set up a ready-to-trade-anytime state, and run the rest of this year's trades there.

Duolingo: day 228. But it's becoming a streak of pure stubbornness

Duolingo: 228 consecutive days as of today. Keeping it going even during the trip was a win.

But — on the return shuttle bus, a foreign traveler had apparently taken the wrong seat, and in that moment I ended up relying on my wife. All this English study, and I couldn't use any of it. That one stung a little.

At this point I'm continuing mostly out of stubbornness, so I want to step back and think about the real question: what end state is all this studying actually for?

Everything Else — Next trip, I'm the organizer

Above all: family trips are the best. That's what I felt.

Also — planning the itinerary, booking flights — my wife has handled all of it until now. Listening to her, it's genuinely a lot: things you have to remember, things that permanently occupy some corner of your brain. Next time, I want to try running it myself.

And the family app I'm building — I want to load it with the information sets and management features that only my family needs, and build a system where technology absorbs the burden while we enjoy the fun parts.

Closing

We're already into this week, but my main work is one week behind schedule. So, as I wrote in last week's post: rigorously work out "what must be done today," and steadily crush the items one by one.

Aiming for "safely." And keeping up the craft of living with margin to spare.