Sabbatical Reflections: Week 7 - Focus and Strategic Positioning

This week I wrapped and published my stop-motion book trailer generator — now live in my portfolio. It takes text from my short stories and, through the OpenAI API, automatically produces visual sequences that match the tone and pacing. Shipping the demo reinforced the value of moving projects to completion rather than keeping them in “interesting work-in-progress” mode.

On the learning front, I realized my progress slowed when I tried reading SICP, Clean Code, and Mastering Bitcoin in parallel. Dropping to one at a time immediately deepened retention and momentum — a reminder that pruning focus often increases throughput.

Boxing training brought a similar lesson. Fixing long-standing footwork issues meant breaking movements down to fundamentals and rebuilding them correctly, even if it felt slower at first.

I also refreshed my resume and tuned my portfolio toward roles that fit a staff+ engineering mindset: systems thinking, technical leadership, and strategic problem-solving, not just feature delivery.

Whether in code, training, or career moves, the theme was clear: narrowing focus builds momentum.