Week 51 log – 2025

Between transitions

This week sat between two transitions. I had left Asia after 1.5 years, but hadn’t fully settled back into life at home yet. At the same time, the relaunch of Hagen Growth went live, while much of the supporting work is still in progress. Both in life and in work, things had moved forward – but neither had fully landed.

Week 51 metrics

Training
Workouts: 2 | Cycling: 8 hrs

Recovery
Avg sleep: 7:01 hrs | Sleep score: 74

Work
HG work: 19 hrs | Other work: 4 hrs

What I worked on

The past weeks have been leading up to this one: returning home, ending the preparation phase of Hagen Growth, and publishing the relaunch. This week brought those together and marked a shift from preparation into what comes next.

Coming home

After 1.5 years living in Thailand, and only two short trips back during that time, I arrived late Monday evening. It was a 23-hour journey with a seven-hour time difference, and I landed more tired than I had expected.

On my last visit to Denmark, I had rented a small apartment, but I didn’t really have time to move in. So when I came home this week, it didn’t feel like coming home to a finished place – it felt like arriving to a room that still needed to become liveable. There was a bed set up, but the apartment required work before it felt comfortable, and I was still carrying the stress from travel and the final weeks of my old job.

By Tuesday, I thought I would be able to jump straight into my normal routines again. Instead, the days filled up quickly. The apartment took more time than I had planned for, I had overbooked myself socially, and I was exhausted throughout it. In the evenings, I kept trying to squeeze in extra work on top of the basics, partly because I didn’t want the week to feel like a slowdown.

What went well

When I’ve been exhausted and in periods of transition before, I’ve often responded by neglecting my needs and doubling down on work and training. This week, I noticed traces of that pattern, but I also noticed clear differences in how I handled it.

I prioritized spending time with friends and family, focused on making the apartment liveable, and allowed myself more time to rest than I usually would in a situation like this. Even though the start of the week was chaotic, those choices helped slow things down. As the days passed, taking care of practical things, improving my surroundings, and staying socially connected made it easier to feel grounded again.

It didn’t feel clean or controlled, and I didn’t handle everything perfectly. But instead of isolating myself or trying to push through the exhaustion, I gave myself more room to settle than I have in similar transitions before.

What could have been better

There were a few things that could have made this transition easier. One of them sits further back in time. When I rented the apartment this summer, I could have done more to make it liveable before leaving again. Coming home to a place that still required work added unnecessary friction to an already demanding week.

More importantly, I underestimated how little capacity I had in the evenings. The core tasks for the week were limited: wrapping up the preparation phase, writing this log, and sharing it in the newsletter. I completed those, but I also added strategic and logistical work on top of it, even though it didn’t belong in this phase.

That choice wasn’t driven by necessity, but by impatience and a quiet sense of guilt. Working while exhausted slowed everything down, and instead of gaining momentum, I mostly added fatigue. Waiting an extra day or two would likely have led to the same progress with far less strain.

Ending the preparation phase

This week didn’t just mean coming home. It also marked the end of a phase of Hagen Growth that I’ve been in since starting this log. Over the past months, my focus has been on preparation: clarifying what the site is about, reshaping the core pages to fit the new direction, and building workflows that support how I actually work.

Closing this phase meant taking time to look back at the process. Not just at what was built, but at how I worked during it. Those reflections became the basis for planning the next phase, which begins tomorrow. Compared to where I started, these past ten weeks have changed both my output and my approach to work. Systems replaced memory, structure replaced improvisation, and consistency became something I could rely on rather than force.

What went well

The main positives from this phase aren’t tied to this specific week, but to the way the preparation period reshaped how I work. Before starting it, I relied heavily on memory. Notes were scattered, planning lived mostly in my head, and staying on top of tasks required a constant mental effort. I generally showed up, met deadlines, and rarely forgot things, but the lack of structure meant unnecessary cognitive load and uneven use of my time.

By the end of this phase, that has changed. I now have systems that carry the work instead of my memory doing it. What to work on, when to work on it, and how things connect are clearer, which has reduced friction and made it easier to sit down and focus. My energy is more stable, and work feels more contained rather than mentally noisy.

The preparation phase made the role of systems tangible. There’s still room to refine them, but the foundation is in place. From here, improvement looks like adjustment rather than rebuilding.

What could have been better

This phase also had clear limitations. Some of them were structural. More time would have allowed for better testing and calibration, and a calmer approach to certain decisions. At points, I tended to overplan or add more than was necessary, even when my available energy didn’t support it.

More than anything, this phase highlighted how much tension I build around milestones. Over the past weeks, that tension became a constant stressor. I placed a lot of emotional weight on the relaunch itself, expecting it to feel significant once it was published. When it finally happened, what I felt was relief rather than satisfaction.

That contrast points to a pattern worth paying attention to. The pressure I attached to a single moment slowly shifted the relaunch from something motivating into something draining. The work still moved forward, but the internal cost was higher than it needed to be.

Reflection of the week – What milestones don’t provide

This week carried two moments I had anchored myself around since starting this log: coming home and publishing the relaunch of Hagen Growth. Both were meant to mark a shift. An arrival. A sense of being on the other side of something I had spent months preparing for. But when they finally happened, what I felt wasn’t satisfaction or momentum. It was relief.

Relief that the travel was over. Relief that the preparation phase was closed. Relief that I could finally let go of the pressure I had been carrying. And that difference mattered more than I expected.

I had assumed these moments would add something – energy, clarity, direction. Instead, they mostly removed something. Strain. Tension. Anticipation. Once that pressure lifted, there was no immediate replacement. Just quiet fatigue, and the need to settle.

What this showed me is that milestones don’t create meaning on their own. They release the weight we attach to them. When too much emotional resolution is placed on a single moment, the moment itself can only clear space – it can’t fill it.

Coming home didn’t instantly restore routines. Publishing didn’t instantly generate momentum. Ending a phase didn’t immediately open the next one. These events removed noise, but they didn’t provide direction. The mistake wasn’t expecting change. It was expecting arrival — as if reaching the moment would also settle the body, the mind, and the way forward.

This week reminded me that relief is a necessary step, but it isn’t a beginning. It’s the pause that follows prolonged tension. And if I rush past that pause, I miss what it quietly offers: the chance for things to settle before anything new takes shape.

Week 51 summarized

Week 51 marked the end of the preparation phase and my time in Thailand, alongside the start of settling back into life at home and a new phase of Hagen Growth. It was a demanding transition week, with several things shifting at once. As the week closes, the groundwork is in place to move forward from here.

Next week’s focus

Next week marks a shift from preparation into creation. I’ll begin publishing more while continuing to settle into my new surroundings. The focus will be on maintaining forward movement without rushing the transition, and allowing the pace of the week to stay compatible with the holidays.

  • Training –  four gym sessions and six hours on the bike. Keep intensity low to not overextend myself.
  • Hagen Growth – Publish the weekly log, a new article about systems, and send out the newsletter. Slowly get ease into the focus areas of the next phase.

Read next log
Read previous log

Paul Hagen
Latest posts by Paul Hagen (see all)