Coming Out of Rest Mode: The 50% Lesson

Sword-energy tarot spreads and weather this week and I'm very slowly coming out of the shell of rest mode. The lesson that stuck is this: 50% in the right direction beats 100% of the wrong system. Not "50%" as a literal number — as a concept. Sustainable tech is often choosing to work with what we have and what compromises we can live with, instead of holding out for the full vision. That's the key I'm building this issue and my upcoming event around.

We're back! The 2026 season is open under the Fire Horse. This month's theme is Sustainable Digital Practices.

This issue: what rest mode actually taught me about 50% vs 100%, a concrete example (selling classes online), and a Mac tool that handles the chaos so you don't have to. Sunday, March 29 — live on YouTube, Coming Out of Rest Mode: Sustainable Tech for the Long Game. We'll go deeper on exactly this.

Free, Q&A format. Register on Luma →

Rest mode taught me one thing above the rest: sustainable tech is often choosing to work with what we have and what compromises we can make — and settling on a solution that's "50%." (The number is arbitrary.) The concept is: no longer shedding fully. Last lunar year the Wooden Snake had us observe, adapt, find smarter paths. Now the Fire Horse asks: what's actually available that gets us moving, even if it's much less than what we wanted in the beginning?

My version: I'd planned to rebuild my website site from scratch (again) — rip out Next.js, rebuild in Django. I did not do that. I rested. Vercel's recent ties don't sit right with me; I care where my infrastructure lives. But rebuilding the whole site during rest? That's pressure in a productivity costume. So I migrated deployment to Netlify — a platform I've used since my bootcamp days, one not tied with Vercel or Salesforce. Site still on Next.js. Values addressed. I actually rested. Netlify instead of a full rebuild. That's the 50% move. It counts.

A question I get all the time as a software engineer: What's the best place to start for selling my classes online?

The 100% answer is: it depends on your budget, your current web stack, how you take payments, how you handle email and marketing workflows — and that's before you even consider video hosting. That's the complete picture. It's also a great way to never start.

The 50% answer is: I recommend Thinkific, Mighty Networks, or Xperiencify for building courses and communities. Look at all three, see what they offer, try one. While you're setting up your first course, keep all your titles, descriptions, notes, and organizational flows in a copy you control — because you will inevitably change tools one day. We could build a new site from the ground up, and you'll still want features these platforms already do really well. So pay them for the upkeep and focus on the rest of the solutions you have to inevitably solve.

That's sustainable tech. Not the perfect stack. The move that gets you in the game with what you've got, plus a compromise you can live with. This is the main key we're unpacking at Coming Out of Rest Mode: Sustainable Tech for the Long Game on Sunday, March 29 — live on YouTube, Q&A format. Register here. Bring your "what's the 50% move here?" questions.

Try Sparkle → discover.every.to/sparkle (Mac only)

I'm not naturally a tidy filer. My brain spits out ideas, screenshots, and downloads faster than any folder structure I've ever built. For years I thought I needed a better system. Turns out I needed to stop pretending my brain wants to manually categorize. Sparkle is an AI file organizer for Mac: point it at the chaos and it organizes photos, files, documents — duplicates gone, smart structure, works with your cloud. It leaves your intentional notes and systems alone and just handles the pile you haven't touched since November. My structured stuff stays where I put it; Sparkle handles the overflow. That split works for a brain that can do deep organization sometimes and needs to not think about it the rest of the time. Mac-only, so a real limitation if you're not in that ecosystem — but if you are and file organization is eating energy you'd rather use elsewhere, worth a look. If you try it, I'd love to hear what you think.

Your tech struggles, reflected back. Got one? Send it in.

First issue, so I'm opening with a question for you:

What tech system or tool are you maintaining out of obligation, not because it works for your brain?

Productivity app you've guilt-tripped yourself into for two years. Folder structure from a hyperfocus session that no longer makes sense. Platform you're still on because leaving feels like too much. Reply to this email or send it through the form — I'll reflect it back in a future issue. Naming it might be exactly what someone else needed to hear.

The Wooden Snake had us observe, adapt, shed what wasn't serving us. The Fire Horse doesn't wait for the full shed to be done. It asks: what's the 50% move? What can we work with right now? What compromise gets us in the game instead of stuck in planning? Dynamic energy isn't full intensity — it's moving with what you've got, in the right direction.

🔥 Carry this forward: Stop waiting for the perfect stack. Find the move you can make today and the compromise(s) you can live with.

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