For the past few weeks, I’ve had a nagging feeling that my hands-on AI work had stalled.

I am way past being the “new kid” at work. I started a new job last September 2025. You only get to be new once. Eventually, the honeymoon phase of pure exploration gives way to the reality of the Engineering Manager role: high context switching and the day-to-day operational grind.

Recently, my cycles have been entirely consumed by setting the Q2 direction for myself and my teams. Aside from a few small demos and PoCs, my deep, focused AI learning felt like it had been put on pause.

But today, the dam broke.

I finally carved out the time to execute on two big ideas I’ve been holding onto since the beginning of the month. I’ve always viewed AI as an amplifier, and as a builder at heart, I absolutely thrive in this phase. Getting these visual prototypes live was incredibly energizing.

As I watched them launch, a realization struck me: the last few weeks weren’t a lull at all. They were road-clearing.

Today felt seamless because I had absolute clarity on exactly what I needed to build. It might have felt like I didn’t have visible outputs to show for my recent work, but the invisible strategic planning of the past month was the prerequisite for today’s rapid execution.

It reminded me of batch cooking.

When you spend hours chopping ingredients and prepping sauces in bulk, you don’t immediately sit down to eat. The output isn’t instantly visible. But when a busy day hits, you can whip up a complex, delicious curry in minutes because all the heavy lifting was done in advance.

Sometimes in leadership, you have to “batch cook” your context, roadmaps, and strategy. You prep and store it for the busy days. Today was the day I finally got to use that prep work to serve the meal, and as a builder, it was a great day at work.