2025 is the Year of the Snake. I was born in a Snake year, and for those familiar with Chinese culture, there’s a concept called Ben Ming Nian (本命年). It occurs every 12 years, marking the return of your birth zodiac animal. Traditionally, this year is seen as unlucky, a time filled with potential setbacks and misfortunes across all aspects of life. Wearing red, including underwear, is thought to combat this bad luck. I’m not quite superstitious enough to follow this tradition consistently, nor do I want to leave that image in your head as you read through this post.

Work

Burnout is no joke. This has probably been the most challenging year since I joined the workforce. I’ve spent the past six years working on the same system with the same team in the same environment. The company itself has grown many times over since I joined. Throughout this time, I’ve had six bosses come and go. I’ve moved between managerial and individual contributor roles, delivered on what I’d call “impossible” goals, and survived numerous restructures. All I can say is that this is exactly what you sign up for at a start-up/scale-up. I have plenty of war stories, which I’ll share in future posts.

AI Fatigue

Don’t get me wrong. I have dramatically increased my usage of AI this year. I’ve fully embraced AI coding agents in my daily workflow and run my own n8n server to automate various aspects of my life. But it’s worth mentioning how the “majority” are using AI. I’ve wasted countless hours reading AI-generated content in our company wiki, witnessed the rise of “code slop” from engineers, and perhaps most amusing — watched non-technical people submit AI conversations as deliverables or proof of work.

Here are my principles for AI usage:

• DO use AI to comprehend, summarise, and understand concepts. You can also use AI as a sounding board for research and brainstorming, but apply your own critical thinking. Always check for hallucinations, especially if you are on the bleeding edge.
• DO use AI as a pair programmer. If you scaffold the codebase, use AI to complete the implementation. If you write the business logic, use AI to write the unit tests.
• DO use AI to proofread and edit what you have written.
• DO use AI as a second pair of eyes when you are truly stuck. Personally, I consider 1 hour of banging my head against a problem to be the sweet spot before reaching for Copilot.
• DON’T draft technical documentation using AI. It is usually filled with fluff, lacks proper context, and makes assumptions that do not apply to your organisation. Designing a system and writing good technical documentation is a great way to reinforce your understanding and critical thinking skills. Don’t outsource this. Assume your readers are skilled engineers. You don’t need a 1,000-word essay explaining how a technology works. Not only does this dilute the idea you are trying to convey, but it wastes your readers’ time.
• DON’T rely on AI as a code reviewer. It has no understanding of different phases of a program (compile, build, run); at best, it performs static analysis. Practice self-review—the time you allocate should be proportionate to the size and complexity of the change.

What’s Old is New Again

If you stay somewhere long enough, you realise that change comes in cycles. Around the three- to four-year mark, you notice the same structures reappearing, the same ways of working, and the same roles. There are only so many ways you can slice and dice an organisation to improve productivity. Try to follow the breadcrumbs back: it is usually a prioritisation issue or a lack of accountability. Changing the structure doesn’t help with either. I am in my fourth role in six years. You eventually reach a point where you wonder if you are part of the solution or part of the dysfunction.

Hobbies

I failed terribly at getting back into reading. I only finished five books this year.

I lost a few indoor plants because I lost track of my watering schedule. It started to feel like a chore.

On the bright side, I have a renewed love for building side projects (thanks to AI).

I picked running back up this year, logging over 500 km. My longest run in 2025 was 17 km. I plan to return to yoga and strength training in 2026.

Productivity

I tried to become more productive this year. I experimented with a few new tools to help organise my life. Here is what stuck:

• TickTick – to-do lists, calendar, and habit tracking
• Ulysses – long-form writing
• ideaShell – audio notes
• Apple Dictation / Gboard – voice-to-text

I think voice will be huge in 2026. From taking notes to dictation to controlling your computer hands-free, I really want to see voice interfaces take off. It is still awkward to use voice in the office, the accuracy drops significantly when a colleague is speaking nearby, or when you are not talking loudly enough.