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Operation: Life Sprint

From Attention to Momentum

Posted on June 30, 2026, by Peter Loomis

Introduction
1. Home Again
2. Observation
3. Maintenance
4. Curiosity
5. Summer
6. New Sight
7. Recognition
Conclusion

Introduction

I got back to PERSONE HQ in San Francisco at the end of May, after several weeks in Austin, TX. With only a few weeks before leaving again — this time for a family reunion in Milwaukee — it was just long enough to lean back into some appointments and errands, reconnect with friends and revisit projects that had been waiting patiently in the background.

Thinking about priorities again, there is a story told in Steven Covey's "Seven Habits of Highly Successful People" about filling a jar with a pile of rocks. The only way everything fits is if the big rocks go in first. Health. Relationships. Family. Work. Creativity. Inspiration... Naming the important stuff wasn't hard. The hard part was actually giving each of those things real attention inside a time window this small.

I've come to call it a "life sprint." It was only a short window, but mine to tune back into. Like a favorite song. The melody of my life.

Good old San Francisco. Still here.

1. Home Again

One of the things I noticed most about coming home again after being away for "so long," was how familiar everything felt.

Of course, right? It's all my stuff. My desk and chair. My bed. My apartment. My neighborhood. The view.

But after weeks away, there was something almost disorienting about how reassuring my space felt. Everything was exactly where I left it. My chair. My table by the window. My desk and workstations. My coffee mug. Just waiting for me to walk in the door and re-engage.

It reminded me of putting on a favorite album after not hearing it in years. Within seconds my brain reconnected with something it already knows. The melody arrived before I consciously remembered it. The structure felt familiar even though I haven't heard it in a while. Like a favorite song coming in clearly after tuning the radio.

I stared at sudoku boards for hours, determined to figure out how to do it. After lots of steady focus, my breathing deepened and slowed. Then, for a time, when I wasn't playing, time felt like it was going in fast forward.

2. Pattern Recognition

Sudoku

Around the time I came back, I got into Sudoku. I had always thought it was some magic power that math experts possessed. My mom - a former math teacher - had taught me some of the basics...each row and quadrant has to have all 9 numbers in them without repeating.

But what started as a way to play Sudoku turned into something more interesting than I expected. The puzzles reward patience. It can take time to notice relationships between numbers even when they're right there in plain sight the whole time. Scanning rows, columns, quadrants, looking for any signal hidden inside a board full of incomplete information.

More than anything, however, Sudoku has taught me to focus on the next obvious move. Reducing options. Doing the next logical thing that will advance completion of the board, and open up - or reveal - other potential next steps in a more clear and obvious manner. As long as the rows and columns of cells are all balanced with each number in its own place, everything fits. It's incredibly satisfying to finally realize such a harmonic resolution.

Formula 1

Just before the Monaco Grand Prix this year I got into Formula 1, also. It was a crash course (no pun intended) in rapid assimilation and context absorption. Learning the drivers, the teams, the backstories and legacies.

Underneath the spectacle, the sport is based on constant micro-adjustments and optimizations, every lap generating data to be integrated. Every race and season at large is its own exercise in observation and refinement. The drivers' fitness, attention and reaction speed is paramount. Anything non-essential is offloaded to other team members or systems.

Results are engineered in racing. Custom parts are designed and printed or fabricated as needed. Everything tuned to perfection. Everything does something, otherwise it wouldn't be there. Even the smallest fin could be directing an invisible vortex of air somewhere to improve handling or performance. I find the science behind it is fascinating and between the many teams, cars and drivers the competition is fierce, so the focus on improvement is relentless.

Everything related to the DMV registration process took about 10x the steps I thought it might, including 4 trips to the office, over 5 hours of waiting and over 1 calendar week for the PB Blaster to sink in and loosen the rusted license plate bolts and let me get the new plate on.

3. Maintenance

Perhaps unsurprisingly, a large amount of my recent life sprint has turned out to be maintenance. Just keeping the ball rolling.

A vehicle registration, required several more trips to the DMV than it should have. Of course there was an administrative typo, too. And in the process of trying to change my license plates, I broke a bolt. I decided to go straight to a mechanic but they wouldn't spend potentially hours on a single rusty screw. So I got supplies at the hardware store on the way home. Still had to wait for another week too, applying PB Blaster and testing the bolts before I could check off this now highly integrated and multi-step "simple chore."

And that is just one errand. Of course everything compounds exponentially. It's not just one task, but a series of nested subtasks. After several weeks away, there was a bunch of other stuff to take do. A dental cleaning. Dermatologist appointment. Eye exam. Picking glasses...

Each completed task cleared space and created momentum for the next on my list.

Driven by curiosity, I attended the Succulent Expo in Golden Gate Park and was blown away by the variety and quality of the plants as well as the plethora of vendors and attendees. Above is a walk-through video that I made of the event.

4. Curiosity

I had the Succulent Expo on the calendar since I first saw the flyer — even invited a couple of friends. But, I almost didn't make it. Saturday flew by entirely. I was tangled up in the license plates: breaking bolts, going to the mechanic, a hardware store. No plates removed.

By Sunday it was then or never. So, I drove in after the first couple of World Cup matches. After half an hour circling I finally found parking around 3:15. It was chilly and overcast but worth all the effort and every minute of circling.

The showroom alone stopped me in my tracks — tables of rare, mature specimens that looked like museum pieces, not houseplants. I had my reading glasses on and was so absorbed I had to consciously remember to look up and notice there were other people in the room. I felt like a newb standing in front of some of these — mouth open, completely blown away.

Beyond the showroom was a second, cavernous hall, just tables and tables of plants for sale. I met a couple of growers (@gardeniagardens.california), who showed me a large rainbow cactus that had just flowered. It looked like a striped knit sock.

I kept moving, photographing plants I thought I'd come back for, trying to cover as much of the hall as I could before time ran out. About halfway through I found three Astrophytum Onzuka babies that made me grab a box, just in case, even though I wasn't ready to commit yet.

These three astrophytum Onzuka nursury plants made me grab a box at the sale. I love seeing multiple specimens grow in a series.

Then someone announced the sale was closing and registers were about to shut down. I'd only made it through maybe 60–70% of the hall. I grabbed what I could:

Astrophytum Onzuka × 3 — Botanic Wonders
Faucaria Tigrina — PB&J Cacti and Succulents
Astrophytum Ornatum — PB&J Cacti and Succulents
Echinofossulocactus Erectrocentrus — PB&J Cacti and Succulents
A "Rainbow Cactus" (Echinocereus Rigidissimus "Rubispinus") — Gardenia Gardens & Design

Beyond the plants themselves, it was a great opportunity to explore new things with a vibrant community of specialists, experts and a curious public.

Me at the World Cup Game in San Francisco Bay Area Stadium

Paraguay vs. Australia at Levi’s/San Francisco Bay Area Stadium with my former Paraguayan AFS brother Alejandro.

7. Sport

The World Cup landed at just the right time. For weeks the tournament had been building across the Bay — flags out, conversations everywhere — an unmistakable buzz. I was fortunate to attend the Paraguay v. Australia match at Levi’s/San Francisco Bay Area Stadium with my sister, nephew former Paraguayan AFS brother, his wife and brother-in-law's family.

The match itself was fun, despite ending up tied at 0-0. Sure there could have been more action. But the atmosphere was unforgettable — the stadium was packed with over 68,000 people with jerseys and flags from everywhere. A World Cup Game with my sister, nephew, exchange (AFS) brother and his family hosted in the Bay Area? Absolutely priceless.

On top of which, as a former AFS exchange student myself (to Belgium, '93-94), I am proud to be a US citizen and hosting such an international gathering. I hope the rest of the tournament goes well and everyone comes away from it happy and satisfied. I have really enjoyed watching the games and saturating in something universal and positive.

In addition, I really enjoy sports marketing and branding and have found the broadcast graphics and tournament branding to be especially interesting as with the various player uniforms.

What started as an effort to replace a pair of broken glasses resulted in an exhaustive search through form, silhouette, material, contrast, identity and more.

8. New Sight

One of the more unexpected realizations of the month happened at the optometrist. After years of limping by on a broken pair of frames, after my exam I finally ordered new glasses. The decision-making process turned out to be deeper more personal than I expected. Some frames felt technically fine and completely empty. Others felt instantly familiar, like they were already mine.

I kept gravitating toward the same qualities — natural materials, real craftsmanship, restraint. Something with warmth to it. I was liking the lines of modern minimalism. Wood grain. Quiet detailing. Silhouettes that felt both current and like they'd still feel right in ten years.

It was strange thing to notice the same instincts showing up in a pair of glasses that already show up in my design ethos. Even how I garden and decorate. The glasses corrected my vision. They also gave me the opportunity to search my soul and pick my next identity. Clarifying something I hadn't even thought of yet.

I am especially interested in habits, repetition and accumulation and the patterns created by repeated behaviors.

9. Resonance

With such little time here I wanted to experience the best of San Francisco. All the things that I love about it.

The food. The events. The specialty niches of all types. The rich cultural heritage and mixture of people.

Returning to favorite neighborhoods. Favorite foods. The garden. The desk. The same conversations, picked back up exactly where they left off.

I went to Truly Mediterranean three times in one week — once after my first eye appointment, once when I went back to pick up the glasses. Got a falafel for the day after, too. It's been ages since I've had one, and I don't know anywhere else that makes them like they do.

Each repeated effort reinforces the last one. Plants reveal themselves the more I looked at them. The city feels more familiar than it has in months. Projects that had been sitting in isolated corners of my brain have started connecting to each other — design, work, curiosity, creativity, documentation. All tied to the same instinct in different ways.

That's what I had planned. Why I was doing so much. What I was reinforcing. I had hoped by doing as much it might reconnect me to what I love about San Francisco and why I still live here. It emerged because I kept showing up and I saw it because I kept looking for any signs of life. Any sign that what I was doing was having any effect.

By the end, no individual afternoon mattered as much as the pattern all of them made together. For the first time in a while, the signal was getting easier to hear.