Forem: koshirok096

Why Walking Has Become More Enjoyable Since I Moved Back (Bite-size Article)

koshirok096 — Fri, 10 Apr 2026 20:24:35 +0000

Introduction

I recently moved, and I ended up returning to a city I used to live in. Since I’m familiar with the area, there’s a sense of comfort, but at the same time, because it has been a while, even the streets and scenery that used to feel familiar now seem a little fresh again. Walking has already been part of my daily routine, and as I mentioned briefly in a previous article, since moving back, I’ve been enjoying it even more than before.

These days, I work almost entirely remotely, and because of that, I’ve come to feel that walking has various benefits. Today, I’d like to write about the value of walking and some of the things I’ve been noticing again lately.

Getting Sunlight Helps Me Refresh My Mind

As I mentioned a little in a previous article, I feel that getting sunlight is important as a way to refresh myself mentally. Since I work remotely, I could easily stay inside all day if I wanted to. But when I remain indoors for too long, I sometimes start to feel mentally stuck, and both my mind and body can begin to feel heavy. At those times, simply going outside for a walk can make a surprisingly big difference.

I’m not an expert, so I don’t know the details, but I’ve heard that exposure to sunlight can help promote the production of serotonin and vitamin D, which may help people feel a bit more positive.

Recently, I’ve also been meeting friends during my walks or stopping by a café to see someone. These small outings also seem to help add some variety and rhythm to daily life.

Walking Is Just Right for Thinking

One of the nice things about walking is that it makes it easier to think. When I’m at home, I tend to prioritize work and tasks. But while I’m out walking, I obviously can’t really work at the same time. I’m away from the screens of my PC and phone, and there’s not much else to do while walking, so it naturally becomes time for thinking.

In fact, things that I couldn’t organize clearly while sitting at home sometimes start to make more sense when I’m walking. Ideas about problems I had been struggling with may come to mind, and sometimes new ideas appear as well. Of course, I do not make an amazing discovery every single time, but at the very least, I feel that walking gives my mind a chance to start moving a little.

It Does Not Require Any Special Preparation

Another appealing thing about walking is how easy it is to do. It costs almost nothing, and you do not need any special equipment. It is also flexible in terms of time: if you want to walk for a long time, you can, and if you are busy, you can just go for a short walk.

Another good point is that you can do it no matter where you live. Whether it is a new city or a place you used to live in, simply walking around lets you notice things a little differently. In that sense, I think walking is a very sustainable habit.

If I have enough time, I think it is also nice not only to walk around the city but to go farther out for a hike. Recently, I’ve been thinking about trying a trail in a nearby mountain area that I have never visited before.

Conclusion

I feel that walking is not just a form of exercise. It can also be a way to refresh yourself and organize your thoughts. Especially at a time like now, when I have returned to a place I used to live in, walking through places that should feel familiar has felt a little new again, and that has helped me rediscover the enjoyment of walking.

When your life revolves around remote work, it is easy to end up staying at home all the time. That is exactly why walking, which requires no special preparation and can be done even in a short amount of time, may be a more valuable habit than it first seems.

Thank you for reading!

Things I’m Glad I Prepared Before and After Moving (Bite-size Article)

koshirok096 — Fri, 03 Apr 2026 21:01:15 +0000

Introduction

A little suddenly, but I moved not long ago.

I couldn’t really come up with a blog post idea today, so this will be a lighter post, but I thought I’d write a bit about the things I try to keep in mind when preparing for a move.

To be honest, I’m not really sure how much demand there is for this kind of post on Dev.to. Still, if even a few people find it interesting, I’d be happy if you read it casually.

1. Make a list in advance of what you need to do on moving day

I’ve never really liked doing things in a completely ad hoc way, not just when moving. Especially with something like a move—where there are a lot of things to do and unexpected things can easily happen on the day—I’m the type of person who prefers to prepare as much as possible in advance.

On days like this, when there are a lot of things to do, simply writing down what needs to be done on the day itself can make things much easier. Moving day often involves long travel times, and in places like airports, you have to pay close attention to your luggage. On top of that, things like meals and bathroom breaks get mixed in along the way, so it’s easier than you might expect to feel mentally overloaded.

In that kind of situation, if you start figuring out “what to do next” on the spot, it can become surprisingly easy to get confused. That’s why I try to set things up in advance so that, on the day itself, I can focus less on “thinking” and more on “following what I already wrote down.” Just not having to rebuild the plan in real time makes a big difference in reducing the mental load.

The key is not to do this right before the move, like the day before, but ideally to have the list mostly ready about a week in advance. The reason is that if plans change or adjustments become necessary at the last minute, it is much easier to revise things if you prepared early.

This time too, I made the list fairly early, and while I was still settled in my old place, it was very helpful to simulate the general flow of the day in advance.

2. Write down not just the tasks, but also the “steps”

I think it’s important not just to write things like “go to the airport” or “check in,” but also to write down what exactly you need to do at each point.

For example, if you have a check-in, it helps to note the address, the scheduled time, what you need to prepare, and what you need to do after arriving.

What matters here is the level of detail in each action.

For example, an item like “get a SIM card at the airport” may be enough if that is already clear enough for you to act on without problems. But if there are a lot of uncertainties involved, it may be better to break it down into smaller steps.

For example, something like this:

Find the mobile carrier counter at the airport and get a SIM card
If I can’t find one:
- Connect to the airport Wi-Fi
- Use an online eSIM service It also helps to decide in advance which company you will use, the URL, and the plan
- Since eSIM can be relatively expensive and not ideal for long-term use, use it temporarily and then get a local SIM card later after checking in or on another day

This is just one example, but leaving yourself notes at this level of detail can make it much easier to respond when something unexpected happens.

In my case, this move involved relocating across countries, so I left detailed lists and notes especially for the following:

What I needed to do when traveling from home to the airport, and from the airport to the new place (such as booking an Uber)
Things to prepare at the airport (wrapping suitcases, doing a final luggage check, etc.)
Things I might need for immigration (visa-related documents, passport, ticket, etc.)
Things to do after arrival at the airport (getting a SIM card, withdrawing cash from an ATM, etc.)
Checking in
Things to buy on the day of arrival (daily necessities, food, etc.)

In particular, planning out details like how I would handle the SIM card at the airport and how I would secure cash in advance made a big difference in how reassured I felt.

3. Use a task management tool so you can always check the list easily

In my case, I use TaskChute (Tasuma) to organize the flow of moving day.

One thing I personally like about Tasuma is that it works offline, so I can still access it even during parts of the trip when my SIM is not available yet.

It also lets me assign times in the app, so I can arrange everything in chronological order. That makes it less likely that I’ll lose track of what I’m supposed to do next on the day itself.

Of course, the specific tool does not really matter. A memo app or a checklist is probably more than enough. What matters is not trying to manage everything only in your head.

Tip: Prepare with the assumption that unexpected things will happen

So far, I’ve been writing about the importance of listing things out and preparing in advance, but there is one more point I think is important.

That is: no matter how well you prepare, unexpected things can still happen on the day.

It’s completely normal for things not to go exactly as planned on moving day. This is especially true when international travel is involved, since unexpected checks or procedures can come up. That’s why I think it’s important not to plan with the assumption that nothing will go wrong, but instead to prepare with the expectation that some trouble or confusion may happen.

To me, the point of preparing in advance is not to make everything go perfectly according to plan. It is to create a situation where, even if something unexpected happens, the whole day does not fall apart.

In my case, this may not be the “correct” way to use TaskChute, but I use Tasuma while intentionally leaving some buffer time. For example, on a trip like this, I enter the things I absolutely must do at the airport as tasks in advance, but I deliberately do not fix in place things that I may or may not do, and I also try to leave a certain amount of extra time in each section.

For example, I might get a little hungry at the airport and decide to go into a restaurant, but I do not schedule that in advance. If it actually becomes necessary, I add it on the spot as an interrupting task.

Thinking this way—separating “things I must do” from “things that may happen depending on the situation”—helps me avoid being overly constrained by the plan while still making sure the important things are covered.

The same idea applies to emergency tasks as well. For example, I might realize that I forgot my passport at home, or that some unexpected confirmation is suddenly needed. Even in cases like that, if I have already built in a reasonable amount of time buffer from the beginning, the entire schedule is less likely to completely collapse when something unplanned comes up.

Of course, it’s impossible to predict everything that might happen. But I’ve found that simply preparing with the mindset that “unexpected things will happen” makes a big difference in how reassured I feel on the day itself.

Conclusion

Personally, I’ve moved quite a lot over the past few years, and each time I’ve been experimenting and adjusting things. In the end, the conclusion I’ve reached is that it helps a lot not only to prepare the luggage itself, but also to decide in advance how I’m going to move through the day.

If I take time beforehand to think things through and organize them, the burden on the day itself becomes much lighter. I especially feel that this kind of preparation matters even more when the move involves a lot of travel or international relocation.

This is not limited to moving: whenever I have a day with a lot to do and a high chance of confusion, simply organizing the flow in advance can make things much easier. If this gave you even a little inspiration, I’d be glad.

Thank you for reading.

4 Useful Terminal Commands for Awkward Finder Tasks (Bite-size Article)

koshirok096 — Fri, 27 Mar 2026 18:18:33 +0000

Introduction

Today’s article is a short one, but I’d like to share four useful Terminal commands I recently learned for Finder-related tasks (Mac).

Until not long ago, I used to check these things manually, but doing them in Terminal is much faster, so I’ve been using these commands a lot lately. I decided to write this article partly as a memo for myself, and also to share them with people who may not know them yet. Much of this is fairly basic, so some of you may already know these, but if you’re interested, I hope you’ll give it a quick read.

1. Show Only Recently Updated Files

find . -type f -mtime -7

This command lists files that have been updated recently under the current directory and its subdirectories.

Finder does have a “Recent” section in the sidebar, but in my case—perhaps because of my own PC—it can sometimes take time to load, or miss files I expect to see. So this feels like a more reliable method.

The -7 part represents the number of days in the past, so it’s convenient that you can change it to any value you want.

2. Count Files

First, here is the simplest version as a basic way to count files.

find . -type f | wc -l

This command counts the number of files under the current directory (excluding folders).

If you want to include folders as well, you can use:

find . | wc -l

Note: In this form, the starting point . itself is also counted as one item. If you do not want to include it, use find . -mindepth 1 | wc -l instead.

Next, based on these commands, here is an example of excluding a specific folder.

find . -type f ! -path '*/node_modules/*' | wc -l

This counts files while excluding node_modules. In this case, the added condition is “exclude this folder.”

If you want to count only files that contain a specific string in their filename, you can change it like this:

find . -type f -name '*test*' | wc -l

This counts only files whose names contain test.

Here, the added condition is “filter by name.”

Finder already shows the number of items in a directory at the bottom by default, but by combining commands like these, you can investigate with much more specific conditions, which makes them very useful.

3. Find Empty Folders

find . -type d -empty

This command lists only empty directories.

Sometimes you create a folder during work and forget to put anything in it, or empty folders remain after reorganizing files. It is possible to look for them in Finder, but it becomes quite troublesome once the folder hierarchy gets deep.

In those situations, this command is convenient because it lets you check unnecessary empty folders all at once. It is a small thing, but quite useful when cleaning up a project.

4. Quickly See Which Folders Are Heavy

du -sh ./* | sort -h

This command displays the sizes of files and folders directly under the current directory in an easy-to-read order.

du -sh ./* shows the size of each item, and sort -h arranges them in order by size. Because of that, it is useful when you want to get a rough idea of which folders are taking up the most space.

In Finder, you can check information for individual items with Command + I, but comparing multiple folders in a list is a bit inconvenient. When you want to identify unused large data and delete it, it can be very productive to go to a suspicious directory first and run this command.

Note: In this example, hidden files and hidden folders whose names begin with a dot are not included.

Conclusion

Today I introduced four Finder-related Terminal commands that I have been using a lot recently.

Personally, many of these tasks could already be checked manually, so for a long time I never really had the idea of looking into whether there was a faster way to do them. However, once I started using them in real work, I found them extremely convenient, and I feel that they noticeably improve the speed of small verification tasks, even if only in subtle ways.

Finder can already do many things quite well, but when you want to check things with more specific conditions, Terminal still feels more useful. If I come across more commands like these, I’d like to keep sharing them here as notes for myself as well.

Thank you very much for reading!

Four Benefits of Keeping a Journal (Bite-size Article)

koshirok096 — Fri, 20 Mar 2026 19:26:13 +0000

Introduction

The other day, I wrote an article about “things I’m glad I started (or increased)” and “habits I’m trying to practice intentionally,” and I mentioned “keeping a journal” as one of them. After thinking about it again, I realized journaling has more benefits than what I covered last time—more than I expected—and I’ve come to feel, once again, that it’s a habit worth continuing.

Because the previous post was short, today I’d like to use “the benefits of journaling” as a standalone theme and organize what I personally find helpful about it, and why I keep doing it.

1. Reducing rumination by “getting it out of your head”

As I mentioned in the previous article, when I take a moment at the end of the day to recall what happened and how my emotions moved—and then write those things down—the process itself helps me organize my thoughts and feel a little lighter. Sometimes, even just seeing what went well and what bothered me can reduce the lingering fog I might otherwise carry into the next day.

This “writing to organize” process can also help with negative rumination—when the same thoughts keep replaying in your mind over and over.

For example, have you ever found yourself stuck in a loop of thoughts about a mistake at work, regret about something you said, or anxiety about the future—without any clear answer?

It’s like having a bunch of tabs left open in your brain. And the frustrating part is that it’s not always something you can solve with a simple action. So it doesn’t go away on its own, and before you know it, the same thoughts start playing again.

Writing in a journal is a bit like taking that open tab out of your head and closing it. Even if the problem isn’t solved on the spot, putting it into words helps organize “what I know right now,” “what I’m feeling,” and “what I can do next,” and it clears some of the mental traffic.

The key isn’t to explain everything in detail, but to break the loop into pieces. Even a few lines—“what happened,” “how I felt,” and “the next smallest step I can take”—can shift you from repeating anxiety to turning it into something you can process and act on. As a result, you spend less time replaying the same thoughts, and your mind can feel a little lighter.

2. Writing down what made you happy—what felt like “well-being”

I touched on this briefly last time, but one thing I strongly try to do when journaling is to write down what made me happy, or moments that felt like “this is nice.” The reason is simple: if I leave things alone, unpleasant events and worries tend to stick in my memory more easily, and my mood can drift in that direction without me noticing.

It can be something small: “The weather was great today,” “The staff at the store were kind,” “I finished one task.” When you put those moments into words and keep them as a log, you may notice—when you look back—that your life has more good moments than you felt at the time. When you’re down, it’s easy to think “nothing good has happened lately,” but having a written record can gently correct that perception.

So rather than forcing yourself to interpret everything positively, this becomes a small habit that helps restore balance to attention and memory, which can naturally lean negative.

3. Making your patterns visible and grasping your emotional flow from a distance

Because a journal remains as a log, you can review it later. I have a habit of reviewing the previous week (seven days) every Sunday, and by the time I review it, my memories and emotions from those days have faded just enough. That distance helps me observe my emotional flow and subtle shifts more objectively.

For example, even if it’s not a strict cause-and-effect relationship, you might notice “what tended to happen before my mood dropped” or “what the good days had in common.” When these patterns become visible, it becomes easier to decide what actions to take next and what mindset to bring into the coming week. I find this a very practical benefit.

Also, if you’re working on something consistently, fragments of your progress and how it felt often remain in the journal. Some days you mention it directly; other days, it shows up in your condition as a result—“things are going well and I feel good,” or “I’m stuck and my rhythm is off.”

When you look back, it becomes easier to see “when things were going well,” “when the slowdown started,” and “what my good/bad days were being pulled by.” That makes it easier to identify what to adjust next and how to get back on track. In that sense as well, journaling has a very practical value.

4. Faster decision-making by breaking down uncertainty

This is somewhat related to #1, but the process of organizing and putting vague thoughts or ideas into words is, in itself, a kind of “prep work” for decision-making. It shifts you from endlessly worrying without clarity to a state where you can handle the issues by separating them into parts.

The point at issue (what exactly am I unsure about?)
Options (what choices do I have?)
What I gain / what I lose (the trade-offs of each option)
The smallest next step I can take today (even a 5-minute step)

With this structure, uncertainty moves from “a state where I can’t decide” into “a task I can organize and work through.” For me, the act of putting something into a journal often becomes a natural filter that passes my worries through this framework. By the time I finish writing, the issue is clearer—and the next day, the uncertainty is sometimes gone, or at least noticeably lighter.

Conclusion

When I think about the benefits of journaling again, I can come up with more, but there’s no end to it—so today I limited it to four. This is just my personal experience, and others may find different effects or develop their own ways of using a journal.

If there’s something that has worked well for you, I’d love to hear it.

Thanks for reading!

Things I’m Glad I Started (or Increased) Recently (Bite-size Article)

koshirok096 — Fri, 13 Mar 2026 18:46:35 +0000

Introduction

The other day I wrote about things I’ve stopped doing or cut back on lately, but today I want to do the opposite: share a few things I’ve started recently (or started doing more), and habits I’m trying to practice intentionally. This is a short post!

Keeping a Journal

I’ve always liked journaling—I’m the type who enjoys keeping records—but last year there was a period when I stopped doing it entirely. There wasn’t a clear reason; habits, for better or worse, tend to stick once they slip into a certain pattern.

Later in the year (my memory is a bit vague), I noticed that I’d fallen out of it and decided to restart and write more intentionally. Since then, I’ve kept it up almost every day.

For me, if I try to write a lot, I won’t last—so I usually keep it to just a few lines. Simple notes like “I was happy that I did X,” or “I learned Y and it made me think about Z.” Journaling has many benefits, but for me, taking a moment at the end of the day to recall what happened and how my feelings shifted helps settle my mind. Even just seeing what went well and what bothered me a little can reduce the lingering fog I might otherwise carry into the next day.

Another thing I try to do is write down moments when I felt happy or genuinely “this is nice.” Life is complicated, and when daily life, work, or relationships don’t go well, it’s easy to feel down without even noticing. That’s why intentionally looking for something positive to write is a small habit that helps me recognize, again and again, that I can still feel happiness in the middle of everything.

Getting Sunlight and Moving My Body

For the past few years I’ve been working as a freelancer, so most of my work happens at home. If I’m not careful, I can easily go an entire day without stepping outside. That’s why I make a point of going out during the day to get some sunlight and take a light walk.

It’s often said that sunlight helps regulate the body clock and can affect sleep at night (including the timing of melatonin release). It’s also well known that when sunlight hits the skin, the body can synthesize vitamin D, and there may be a relationship between daylight and mood changes (including seasonal patterns). For those reasons, I’ve made it a personal rule to take a walk for at least 30 minutes to an hour, even on busy days.

Also, maybe because it improves circulation, walking gives me a sense that my thinking starts to “move.” When debugging is going nowhere or a project feels stuck, stepping outside sometimes makes a solution pop into my head surprisingly quickly. So in a way, when I really want to push work forward, I suspect this kind of time actually increases my productivity.

Finding and Trying Something New in Everyday Life (Try Something New)

When you’re working, it’s easy for each day to start feeling like the same routine repeating. Routine is necessary to keep life running, so I don’t think it’s realistic to change everything.

But the more the same days repeat, the more your thinking and ideas can harden, and you may not notice your perspective narrowing. That’s why I try to intentionally set aside a certain portion of my time for “trying something new.”

It doesn’t have to be a big challenge. I might go into a place I’ve never been, take a different route than usual, try a tool I’ve never touched, or read an article from a genre I normally ignore. Even small changes like these can be stimulating and can lead to unexpected discoveries (serendipity). And sometimes those moments become the trigger for my next step—so the busier I am, the more I try to mix in a little “newness.”

Conclusion

2026 is moving fast—somehow we’re already past March. Personally, I don’t think last year was very satisfying for me, in either work or private life. So this year, I want to avoid slipping into laziness and try to live each day intentionally, aiming for days that feel full and good.

How about you? Is there anything you’ve started recently (or since 2026 began) that you’re glad you did—or anything you’re doing more intentionally? If you’d like, I’d love to hear about it.

Thanks for reading!

Things I’ve Recently Stopped or Cut Back On (Bite-size Article)

koshirok096 — Fri, 06 Mar 2026 18:43:56 +0000

Introduction

I couldn’t think of anything to write today, so I’m going to jot down a few things I’ve recently stopped or cut back on in everyday life—and that I’m glad I did. This will be a short post.

Alcohol

I like drinking, but lately I’ve been cutting back without really making a big decision about it. That said, I still drink when I’m invited out or when I have plenty of time, so it’s not like I’m completely banning alcohol.

The reasons are simple: it tends to affect how I feel the next day (my sleep gets lighter and I feel sleepy during the day), I’ve been finding it less enjoyable than before (this depends on the situation—some gatherings are still genuinely fun), and I’ve started to think, “Do I really need to spend money on this right now?”

Not Setting My “Limit Estimate” Too Low

In work and personal projects, I tend to set goals based on past experience. I think forecasting is important—much better than guessing without any basis.

But sometimes that estimate becomes a hard ceiling. The moment I decide “This is what’s realistic for me,” I stop thinking beyond it.

So recently, I’ve been intentionally creating moments to compare myself with others. In many contexts, comparing yourself to others is seen as a bad thing, but what I mean here isn’t jealousy or self-criticism. It’s more like: “If someone is further ahead, what exactly is the gap—and what would it take to close it?” A comparison as reference data, so I don’t narrow my own possibilities too early.

Not Continuing Things Out of Habit

This is a broad one, but lately I’ve been enjoying questioning the things I keep doing out of habit. For example, canceling subscriptions for tools I haven’t used in a long time, or trimming down my weekly review template to only what I actually need. Small adjustments like that. This year, for various reasons, I’ve been cutting back on a fairly wide range of “defaults” in my life—habits, subscriptions, and fixed costs.

The more automatic something is, the less often we revisit it. Even if it looks like a “good habit,” whether it’s the best choice right now depends on the situation.

For instance, going to the gym every week is generally a good thing. But if there are other priorities and time is tight, sticking to that routine can actually make life harder. That’s why I want to avoid auto-renewing things just because they’re “good,” and instead keep adjusting based on my current circumstances.

Conclusion

I couldn’t think of a proper blog topic today, so this ended up being a simple post.

When we try to improve, we often focus on “adding more”—starting something new, doing more, taking on more. But sometimes, simply reviewing what we’re already doing—and stopping or reducing a few things—can lead to better results.

Have you recently stopped something or cut back on something? If you feel like sharing, I’d love to hear.

Thanks for reading!

Use AI Chatbots Without Increasing Anxiety (Bite-size Article)

koshirok096 — Fri, 27 Feb 2026 19:39:26 +0000

Introduction

Since the emergence of ChatGPT a few years ago, a wide variety of AI chatbots and AI-powered tools have appeared one after another, making our lives significantly—and undeniably—more convenient. Personally, I use AI on a daily basis, both for work and in my private life, and I feel that my reliance on it has steadily increased year by year.

AI is an extremely convenient presence. In particular, AI chatbots such as ChatGPT, Gemini, and Claude can quickly handle research, help refine text, and assist in organizing thoughts. At this point, they have become tools that are hard to imagine living without.

At the same time, however, I recently had an experience where using an AI chatbot actually made me feel more anxious. This wasn’t because the AI provided incorrect information, nor because it pushed an extreme opinion on me. Quite the opposite—it happened precisely because the AI answered honestly and comprehensively.

When you ask an AI about something while feeling anxious, it will carefully present information such as:

“This is unlikely, but theoretically possible,” or
“This is an exceptional case, but it cannot be entirely ruled out.”

Each of these statements may be factually correct, but psychologically, they do not always lead to reassurance. Instead, they can end up amplifying anxiety. I gradually became aware of this pattern.

In this article, I will take my own experience as a starting point and outline the structure by which AI chatbots can increase anxiety, as well as the personal mindset and usage habits I’ve adopted to avoid that outcome. What I describe here is entirely based on my own perspective and may or may not resonate with you. As usual, this article is largely a personal memo—but I hope it may be useful to someone.

For reference, the AI chatbots I use most frequently are ChatGPT, Perplexity, Claude, and Gemini. The discussion below assumes the use of these types of AI chatbots.

Be Careful How You Phrase Your Questions

The first thing I am most conscious of when using AI chatbots is how I phrase my questions. AI has access to an enormous amount of information and can easily give the illusion that you are having a conversation with a human. It is also fundamentally friendly and rarely pushes back against the user. It is obedient and highly cooperative.

However, this is precisely where the pitfall lies.

When speaking with another person, even if your wording is vague, they can often infer what you really want to know or where your anxiety lies by reading the context or drawing on their understanding of you. AI, on the other hand, does not infer. It takes the question exactly as it is given and tries to answer it as sincerely as possible.

As a result, the more vague or emotionally charged a question is when asked from a place of anxiety, the more likely the answer is to expand that anxiety.

One thing I am particularly careful about is embedding my own tentative conclusions or worries directly into the question. For example:

“I think this might be a problem—what do you think?”
“There’s probably an issue here, right?”

When asked this way, the AI tends to follow that line of thinking unless the premise is clearly flawed. This is not because the AI is trying to flatter the user, but because it respects the assumptions provided and proceeds accordingly. The result is often that my original anxiety comes back reinforced.

At the point where you are asking such a question, you are usually already feeling unsettled. If what you really want is an objective opinion or factual clarity, I’ve found it more effective to temporarily set aside assumptions and speculation, and ask in as neutral a way as possible.

That said, this approach likely reflects my own personality—I generally want objective advice when I consult someone. If, on the other hand, what you want is empathy or encouragement rather than analysis, this way of using AI may not apply to you.

Separate Emotional Processing from Fact-Finding

The second thing I try to keep in mind is not attempting to process emotions and verify facts at the same time. To put it bluntly, I believe it works best to use AI under the assumption that it is not there to provide emotional care.

As mentioned earlier, AI is cooperative, friendly, and speaks in a natural way. Because of this, it’s easy to mistake it for a close friend. However, AI does not “understand” emotions. It can respond to emotional expressions on a surface level, but it is ultimately processing language, not sensing someone’s emotional state or reading the room.

There are times when people ask questions without actually caring about the answer. Consciously or unconsciously, what they really want is empathy—to have their feelings acknowledged. In such cases, receiving a clear answer is secondary.

This kind of emotional support occurs naturally in human relationships, but it is not an area where AI excels. On the other hand, AI is extremely strong at tasks such as conducting research, presenting high-probability scenarios, and handling a certain volume of work at a consistently high standard.

When something is bothering me, I now try to pause and ask myself:

“Am I trying to confirm facts right now?”
“Or am I still emotionally unsettled?”

Based on that, I decide whether to consult AI—or whether to step away and do something else instead. Simply separating these two processes has made my relationship with AI much more comfortable.

Treat AI’s Answers as Input—and Make the Final Decision Yourself

The final principle I try to follow is treating AI’s answers not as conclusions, but as input for my own judgment.

AI can organize vast amounts of information and present possibilities, options, and conditions with a level of thoroughness that an individual could never match. That said, deciding which information matters most, and how much responsibility to take on personally, is ultimately up to the individual.

From personal experience, I’ve noticed that when I’m tired, irritated, or especially anxious, I sometimes consult AI and end up feeling even worse if things don’t improve. Looking back, I realize that in those moments, I may have been unconsciously blaming the AI for not solving something that couldn’t be resolved that way.

AI has access to immense information and tools, but it cannot directly determine what I want from my life or what I value most. It cannot live my life for me. In the end, I am the one responsible for shaping it.

I often think of AI as a very high-performance car. Getting into an AI-powered car doesn’t mean it will automatically take me to exactly where I want to go, at the perfect time, without any input from me.

I still need to decide:

where I want to go,
when I want to arrive, and
what speed or route feels comfortable for me.

If I clarify those things, the AI-car can suggest routes, avoid traffic, and make the journey much easier. But the person holding the steering wheel and choosing the direction is always me. I believe it’s important to keep that in mind when using AI.

Conclusion

Not long ago, ChatGPT reached version 5.2, while Claude advanced to 4.5—and now versions like 5.3 and 4.6 are already being discussed. The pace of AI development is astonishing, and simply keeping up can feel overwhelming. Gemini and Perplexity also seem to become easier to use every time I open them, which continually impresses me.

With each update, AI chatbots grow more powerful, and I often find myself thinking, “They were already useful enough.”

At the same time, as AI improves, it’s easy to start believing—almost unconsciously—that AI might be a kind of all-powerful solution that can fulfill whatever we want.

In reality, though, AI feels less like a source of definitive answers and more like a tool that strongly reflects the user’s state of mind. When used while anxious, it tends to surface anxiety-aligned information; when used while unprepared, the results often reflect that lack of preparation.

In that sense, AI may function like a mirror. What it gives back depends heavily on the questions we ask and the state we’re in when we ask them.

Rather than being swept along by the rapid evolution of AI, maintaining a healthy distance allows it to remain what it does best at being—not a source of anxiety, but a reliable tool for thinking more clearly.

That, at least, is how I see it now.

Choice means letting go: to gain something, you have to give something up (Bite-size Article)

koshirok096 — Fri, 20 Feb 2026 20:51:23 +0000

Introduction

More than a month has already passed since the beginning of 2026—how has everyone been doing?

This will be a short article, but today I’d like to share some thoughts on daily task management and the mindset around it.

As part of a new experiment and shift in mindset this year, I started setting an upper limit on the number of items (errands, tasks, etc.) I allow myself to put into my daily schedule. Because of the nature of my work, I have a relatively high degree of freedom in deciding my own schedule. However, that very freedom often led me to try to do too many things at once, filling my notes and schedules with an excessive number of items and making my surroundings feel unnecessarily cluttered.

Even when you’re aware of these kinds of problems, actually trying to “fix” them can be difficult—you may not know where to start or what to change. At least, that was the case for me.

But after taking a step back and thinking about it, I realized that the root cause might not be that I simply had “too many things to do,” but rather that I wasn’t controlling the number of things I was trying to deal with in a single day. That realization led me this year to try a different approach: deciding in advance the maximum number of things I’m allowed to do in a day, and then choosing what to include within that limit.

The Problem

I manage my daily tasks using a list called the Daily List in an app called Logseq (I’ve introduced this workflow several times on this blog before). This list is updated every day, and its purpose is to write down—usually the night before—the things I need or want to do the next day, so that I don’t forget them.

Last year, however, my Daily List often included items like the following:

“I’ll do it if I can, but it’s uncertain whether I actually will.”
“I probably won’t do this today, but I might do it in the coming days, so I’ll add it now.”
“Items added on a previous day for similar reasons, which kept being carried over without ever being completed.”

Many of these items were added with the vague intention of “I’ll put it in now so I don’t forget,” or they lingered on the list after being added once, neither completed nor removed. As a result, my list was almost always long and cluttered. A list that was supposed to contain only “what I should do today” ended up burying those truly important tasks under a pile of less relevant ones, creating a negative cycle.

This issue had been bothering me since the first half of last year, but without enough time to think it through properly, I kept carrying around an oversized Daily List day after day.

Rethinking the Approach

During the year-end and New Year holidays, I had some time to reflect on the past year and think about this issue more carefully. The more I thought about it, the more I felt that this problem might be quietly draining my daily productivity, efficiency, and even willpower.

As a concrete way to address this, I decided to introduce a strict limit on the number of items allowed on my daily list. At the moment, I’m still experimenting, so the number isn’t fixed, but for now I’ve set the limit at eight items per day (excluding very small tasks or errands). For example:

# MAIN TASKS (9)

- Work on Project A
- Work on Project B
- Task A
- Task B
- Write a blog article
- Shopping (Costco)
- Post office
- Go to the clinic
- Meet with a friend

No additional items allowed beyond this point. If there’s more I want to add, it gets pushed to another day.

The exact limit may change depending on circumstances, but by deliberately keeping it slightly lower, only truly necessary tasks can remain on the list. This makes it easier to focus on what really matters. I’m still in the trial-and-error phase, but so far it feels promising, and I plan to continue managing my schedule with this rule for a while.

Conclusion

Looking back, I realize that last year I had a lingering sense of comfort in thinking, “It’s better to have more items than fewer.” If higher-priority tasks were finished early, having a list of “things I could do next” already prepared felt like a kind of insurance—something I could immediately turn to without thinking.

In reality, though, having too many options made it harder to decide what I should be doing at any given moment. Important tasks were more likely to get buried and harder to spot. And while this is difficult to quantify, even tasks that were labeled as “low priority” or “only if I have time” still left a subtle sense of failure when they remained unfinished at the end of the day, quietly contributing to a feeling of incompleteness.

Now that I’ve reduced the number of tasks, there are still days when I complete everything and days when I don’t—but overall, the list itself has become much easier to finish. As a result, I often end the day with a clearer, more refreshed feeling than before.

Of course, this approach is based entirely on my own experience, and it may not work for everyone. That said, if you find yourself thinking, “I always have my tasks clearly listed, but I still feel uneasy,” or “I manage my tasks, yet it’s hard to feel a sense of accomplishment,” it might be worth reconsidering not the content of your tasks, but the number of them.

This article may have leaned a bit toward the abstract, so I apologize if any parts were unclear.

Thank you very much for reading :)

Sometimes, Thinking Too Much Keeps Us from Moving (Bite-size Article)

koshirok096 — Fri, 13 Feb 2026 20:59:14 +0000

Introduction

There is an Aesop’s fable called The Fox and the Cat.

To briefly summarize the story: a fox who boasts about knowing many ways to escape meets a cat who knows only one—climbing a tree. The fox proudly shows off his wide range of knowledge, while the cat offers no argument and simply says that he has only that single option.

When hunting dogs suddenly approach, the situation changes at once. Faced with so many possible choices in his head, the fox cannot decide which one to take. While he hesitates, he is caught. The cat, on the other hand, immediately climbs a tree and escapes safely.

What this story depicts is not that the fox was foolish, nor that the cat was exceptionally clever. Rather, it highlights a contrast between knowing many possible options and being able to act in a real situation.

In moments of danger or under time pressure, having too many choices can itself make decision-making difficult. This fable seems to capture such a situation in a very compact form.

Rethinking Records and Reflection

The reason I am writing this today is that, during the year-end and New Year period, I was reviewing and taking stock of the past year.

I enjoy tracking my working hours, progress, and daily activities using various tools, and then reflecting on them. I also enjoy choosing those tools, designing systems for recording and reflection, and actually building and operating them. Starting from a weekly reflection notebook, I created systems to review daily insights on a weekly and monthly basis and to organize ideas, and I continued doing this with a fair amount of enthusiasm.

Keeping records makes it easier to understand one’s situation and identify areas for improvement. I have felt through experience that these practices themselves carry real value.

However, when I looked back over an entire year’s worth of logs, I noticed something. I began to wonder whether the time and effort spent recording, organizing, and reflecting had grown larger than necessary. Once these activities become “normal,” they can continue as routine without much thought, steadily consuming a certain amount of time and energy from everyday life.

What Happens When the Weight of Reflection Grows Too Large

This is a purely personal observation, but throughout 2025 I had many things I wanted to do. These included both work-related and personal goals, and they remained in large numbers within my reflection notes and records.

Those notes are filled with ideas and improvement plans, written down one after another and neatly organized. At the same time, many of them were never put into practice or were left halfway done, leaving behind a small sense of regret and the feeling that “perhaps I could have done more.”

Within the records, ideas and thoughts are plentiful. But in terms of actual actions, I had not moved forward nearly as much. When I reviewed last year’s logs, this gap became very clear.

When What Should Support Action Starts to Distance Us from It

Records and reflection are originally meant to support action.

As tools for organizing one’s situation and thinking about the next step, they are extremely effective.

Still, in my case, I was left with the impression that the proportion of time devoted to recording and reflection had grown a bit too large. Records increased, reflections became more thorough, yet the balance with actual action felt off.

To put it bluntly, taking action on even one idea can sometimes move things forward more than writing down a hundred ideas.

What was depicted in the fable of The Fox and the Cat was not a lack of knowledge, but the difficulty of deciding when faced with too many options.

Records and reflection themselves are not the problem. But when they increase too much, the distance between thinking and acting can gradually widen. The discomfort I felt while reviewing last year’s logs lay precisely in that point.

Conclusion: What Kind of Year Do I Want This to Be?

Up to this point, it may sound as if I have only been listing the shortcomings of 2025. In reality, when I look back overall, there were no major troubles or drastic negative changes, and it felt like a fairly stable year, including work. At least from my own perspective, I believe I spent my days earnestly.

At the same time, compared to how complete my records and organization felt, the amount of real trial and error may not have increased all that much.

With this in mind, although my thoughts are still somewhat vague, in 2026 I would like to simplify processes such as reflection, record-keeping, and introspection, while consciously increasing the proportion of actual actions—putting my hands to work and taking concrete steps.

What kind of year do you want 2026 to be?

I hope it will be a better year for each of you, one in which you can move forward little by little at your own pace.

Thank you very much for reading.

When Progress Feels Like Failure: The Superego and Internalized Standards (Bite-size Article)

koshirok096 — Fri, 06 Feb 2026 20:25:39 +0000

Introduction

The superego refers to an internal standard that evaluates one’s own actions and state by comparing them against internalized ideals and norms, even without any external orders.

This concept was proposed by Sigmund Freud.

The superego does not only function as a set of prohibitions that says “you must not do that,” but also as an ideal image that says “you should be able to do this” or “this is how you ought to be.”

For that reason, the superego is often described not so much as an entity that gives commands or punishment, but as an internalized set of judgment criteria or an internal “evaluation rubric.”

Also, the superego’s evaluation is not limited to after an action is completed. It can also extend to earlier stages such as choosing an action, avoiding one, or considering possibilities. In this sense, the superego can be positioned as an inner structure that continuously evaluates a person’s actions and decisions.

The Superego as an Evaluative Structure (The Case of Benjamin Franklin)

To illustrate the evaluative structure of the superego, here is one example in which the structure is easy to see.

In the 18th century, the American statesman Benjamin Franklin defined thirteen virtues (such as temperance, industry, and silence) for self-improvement and kept a daily record of whether he had upheld them. This was not something anyone forced him to do, and there were no penalties or external supervisors. It can be seen as a concrete historical example of how an internalized ideal becomes a standard for evaluating oneself and functions as a form of self-monitoring.

At the same time, it is said that fulfilling all of these virtues was impossible and that his tracking chart was constantly filled with marks indicating unmet standards. Franklin himself also remarked, in essence, that carrying them out perfectly was difficult. What this example suggests is that once you place the standards of evaluation inside yourself, a state can arise in which you continue to evaluate yourself regardless of whether any tangible “result” has been produced.

The Effects of Internalized Standards

The superego does not change the events of reality themselves. What it changes is the evaluative framing of those events. Because internalized ideals and norms function constantly as standards, the very same situation can be judged as either “sufficient” or “insufficient.” This judgment is not made intentionally, but emerges as a result of the evaluation criteria being applied automatically. As a result, even if external circumstances have not changed, internal evaluation can reposition only one’s own situation into a worse place.

In other words, even if the situation itself has not deteriorated, having the standards of evaluation inside you can lead you to interpret your situation as “insufficient.” This also means there is a risk that, regardless of the outcome of events, internal standards can repeatedly reframe your situation into a more disadvantageous position. For example, even when things appear to be going reasonably well from the outside, if your ideals are set too high you may not feel satisfied with the results. If that state continues, you may keep rating yourself low, and as a consequence you may feel unnecessary shame or interpret yourself as being unhappy.

—

However, having relatively high ideals in itself is not a problem. In many cases, it becomes a driving force for growth.

On the other hand, if you keep pursuing goals that are simply unattainable, those ideals can stop functioning as indicators of growth and instead become standards that easily generate “failure experiences.”

A failure experience does not necessarily deny a person’s ability or judgment, but it can discourage them and lower motivation to act. As a result, even if the situation has not objectively worsened, only one’s perceived state can come to feel worse.

In principle, there is no rational necessity to make one’s own situation worse in this way.

What matters is not lowering ideals, but setting goals after determining what level is actually achievable. Placing goals at the borderline of “barely achievable,” and continuing to meet them at a high standard, may be a realistic way to sustain both growth and long-term consistency.

Conclusion

I wrote this article because I felt this is exactly the kind of problem I tend to fall into. I wanted to put it into words as part of my own self-analysis, so I did some research and came to suspect that this mechanism of the superego may be contributing to the issue.

This article ended up being fairly abstract, but thank you for reading to the end.

LaTeX (Bite-size Article)

koshirok096 — Fri, 30 Jan 2026 20:44:11 +0000

Introduction

LaTeX is a text-based tool and system for creating documents.
Instead of focusing on appearance, you write by specifying the role of each part of the text, such as “this is a heading,” “this is body text,” or “this is a mathematical formula.”

By specifying only these roles, LaTeX automatically handles visual formatting such as font size, layout, and line spacing.
As a result, even if the document grows longer or is revised later, the overall layout is less likely to break.

LaTeX is commonly used for the following types of documents:

Documents containing many mathematical formulas, such as those in mathematics or physics
University reports and academic papers
Technical books and manuals
Documents with strict formatting or layout requirements

Comparing LaTeX and Markdown Syntax (Basics)

Since the discussion so far has been somewhat abstract, let’s look at a simple example to compare Markdown and LaTeX.

# Heading (Markdown)

This is an example of writing a heading in Markdown. The same heading written in LaTeX would look like this:

\section{Heading (LaTeX)}

LaTeX also uses the term “section” to define headings, so even without prior knowledge of LaTeX, it should be relatively easy to understand what this syntax does.

Comparing LaTeX and Markdown Syntax (Advanced: Footnotes and Citations)

So far, we have only looked at simple examples.
Next, let’s examine a slightly more advanced case that includes document structure and annotations.

First, here is an example of writing headings and footnotes in Markdown:

# 1. Introduction
## 1.1 Background

This is an example sentence.[^1]

[^1]: Footnote content

The same content written in LaTeX would look like this:

\section{Introduction}
\subsection{Background}
This is an example sentence`\footnote{Footnote content}`.

As you can see, \subsection can be used in much the same way as \section, so even for first-time LaTeX users, this syntax should not feel particularly difficult.

When document-level reference management is required, LaTeX uses a citation mechanism that is separate from footnotes.
The following example shows how to write a citation:

This is an example sentence\cite{example1984}.

This kind of \cite{example1984} syntax assumes the use of BibTeX (or biblatex) to manage references.
By assigning a key (for example, example1984) to each reference and simply referring to it in the text, LaTeX can automatically handle numbering and ordering.

This approach allows references to be centrally managed even as they are added or removed.
Therefore, LaTeX is particularly useful for long documents that are revised frequently.
On the other hand, for short and simple documents, Markdown is often more than sufficient.

Comparing LaTeX and Markdown Syntax (Mathematical Expressions)

Next, let’s look at an example of writing mathematical expressions, which is one of LaTeX’s strongest features.

In LaTeX, mathematical formulas can be written naturally as follows:

\[
\int_0^1 x^2 \, dx
\]

Support for mathematical expressions is built into LaTeX, so no special configuration is required to render them correctly.

In contrast, Markdown does not include mathematical notation as part of its standard syntax.
To display the same expression as a mathematical formula in Markdown, you need extensions such as MathJax or KaTeX.

When such extensions are available, many renderers (such as GitHub or Obsidian) use the $$ ... $$ notation:

$$
\int_0^1 x^2 \, dx
$$

Even in this case, the content inside is still LaTeX mathematical syntax.
In other words, Markdown itself does not understand mathematics, it merely embeds LaTeX expressions for rendering.

For this reason, when a document contains many mathematical formulas, LaTeX is generally a more integrated and stable choice.

Conclusion

I recently had the opportunity to work with LaTeX a little, and I wrote this article partly as a personal memo.
I usually write documents in Markdown, and I am still very much a beginner when it comes to LaTeX.
For that reason, this article intentionally focuses only on the basics.

If you found the content insufficient, I recommend you to explore further on your own. There are many resources on the internet, like online playgrounds, editors such as Overleaf and Papeeria and etc.
By experimenting hands-on and seeing how different syntax is rendered, your understanding of LaTeX will deepen.

Thank you for reading!

Why “If I Can, I’d Like to Do It” Quietly Turns into “I Have to Do It”

koshirok096 — Fri, 23 Jan 2026 19:10:21 +0000

Introduction

Goodhart’s Law is the principle that

“When a measure becomes a target, it ceases to be a good measure.”

Something that was originally meant as a reference point for understanding a situation loses its original function the moment it is transformed into something that must be achieved.

For example, consider tracking working hours in order to understand whether you are able to concentrate. Over time, this can quietly turn into a goal of “I must work for X hours.”

Originally, working hours are nothing more than reference information for understanding states such as:

How well you were able to concentrate today
Whether fatigue is accumulating

However, once time itself becomes the goal, different behaviors start to be selected: continuing to sit at the desk even without focus, or filling time with low-substance work just to reach the number.

The numerical value of working hours may still remain, but it no longer functions as an indicator of concentration or a healthy pace.

The Moment an Indicator Turns into a Goal

What matters here is not that there is something wrong with “working hours” themselves. What is happening is a structural shift: something that was used as an indicator has begun to be treated as a goal.

Goodhart’s Law does not claim that placing numbers or measuring things is inherently bad. Rather, the problem arises at the moment when something placed in order to measure quietly turns into a condition that must be met.

Once it becomes a “goal,” people stop trying to improve the underlying state and instead begin optimizing their behavior to satisfy the number being evaluated.

As a result, the indicator remains, but the original state it was meant to measure becomes harder to see.

This structure appears not only in workplace management or organizational evaluation systems, but also in much smaller, more personal decision-making processes.

Why “If I Can, I’d Like to Do It” Turns into “I Have to Do It”

The phrase “if I can, I’d like to do it” is not originally a goal for action. It is a very light reference point for judgment—something used to check whether there is spare capacity, whether it seems feasible in the current state, or whether interest and motivation are present.

However, the moment you write it into a to-do list, put it on a schedule, or make it something to review later, its role quietly changes. “If I can, I’d like to do it” shifts from being an indicator for measuring the situation into a goal that is evaluated by whether it was achieved or not.

As a result, not doing it is treated as “not achieved,” which is then interpreted as failure, and that failure leads to a drop in self-evaluation. What should have been nothing more than a judgment of “I chose not to this time” turns into “I couldn’t do it” or “I was lazy.”

This is not a problem of willpower. Just like the example of working hours, it is a structural problem caused by treating something that was meant to be an indicator as a goal. Goodhart’s Law shows that the moment this kind of substitution occurs, behavior itself begins to distort.

The transformation of “if I can, I’d like to do it” into “I have to do it” is simply the personal version of this phenomenon.

Why It Feels Like a “Failure”

What complicates things is the fact that “if I can, I’d like to do it” was never an action you had decided to take in the first place. And yet, from the moment it is treated as a goal, it is retroactively reinterpreted as if it were something you had decided to do.

As a result, the reason for not doing it shifts from a judgment such as “I chose not to this time” or “I prioritized something else,” to a perceived problem of ability or willpower—“I couldn’t do it,” or “I couldn’t keep it up.”

What is happening here is not a failure of the action itself. It is a cognitive shift in which the outcome of a judgment is replaced with a judgment about one’s character or self-worth.

In terms of Goodhart’s Law, an indicator that was originally placed to measure a state turns, at the moment it is not achieved, into a device that produces a sense of failure. That is why, even though you simply did not do it, a lingering feeling of failure remains.

The Problem Is Not Willpower, but Placement

As we have seen, the reason “if I can, I’d like to do it” becomes painful is not a lack of willpower or self-control. It is a structural issue of where it is placed and how it is treated.

The moment something that originally functioned as an indicator is put into the frameworks of to-do lists, schedules, or reviews, goal-ification almost automatically occurs. As a result, actions that were once voluntary become obligations, and obligations are far more likely to generate experiences of failure.

In other words, “things you’d like to do if you can” are not a problem of execution ability, but a problem of management design and placement.

Conclusion

As we have seen, the phenomenon in which “if I can, I’d like to do it” turns into “I have to do it” can be explained not by issues of willpower or personality, but by a structural substitution between indicators and goals.

I wrote this article because I repeatedly noticed that items I had originally placed low on my task list as “things I’d like to do if I can” gradually began to bind me as “things I must do,” without my realizing it.

The specific content of each task certainly varies case by case. But looking back, what they all had in common was this: things that were supposed to be placed as reference points for understanding my situation were, before I knew it, being treated as goals.

Goodhart’s Law operates quietly not only in organizations and systems, but also in personal task management and thought processes like these. Simply noticing this structure may allow many self-evaluations of “I couldn’t do it” to be replaced with a different perspective: “I chose not to this time.”