I Locked Myself in a Prague Hotel Room for a Week

On momentum, building, and the gap that's widening

Seven days. One hotel room. 15 hours a day. Nothing but code, AI, and drum & bass on repeat.

I went to Prague to disappear. Morning runs, quick food grabs, then back to the room. No meetings, no messages, no one asking me for anything. Just me, my laptop, and the only question that mattered: can I actually build what’s in my head?

The loneliness hit around day five. Hard. Before that, it was pure flow - your brain in that state where time collapses and you look up realising six hours passed. But then the silence gets heavy. You start hearing your own thoughts too clearly. I get why some digital nomads burn out now. Moving constantly, always alone - that takes something from you.

But I got back with months of progress compressed into a week.

What I Learned Locked in That Room

1. Ride the wave or miss the moment

Momentum has a shape. It comes in waves. You feel it arrive - this energy, this clarity, this need to do the thing right now. When that wave hits, drop everything.

This isn’t just about big projects or rare creative breakthroughs. It’s daily. Some mornings you wake up and designing. Some afternoons your brain wants to solve technical problems. Some evenings you’re in the mood to organise and plan. Sometimes you just feel like doing nothing.

I used to fight this. Stick to the schedule. Honour the calendar. Be professional.

Fuck that.

When the wave comes, ride it. The ROI of focused time during a wave is 10x normal work. Your brain is already primed. The resistance is gone. You’re not pushing the boulder uphill - you’re surfing.

I’ve restructured how I operate around this now. When I feel it coming, I clear space. Because that concentrated energy is worth more than a month of grinding through scheduled tasks.

2. The Future Belongs to Software Architects

The builders of the future won’t necessarily write every line of code. But they’ll understand how systems connect. They’ll see what’s possible. They’ll know enough to build.

That’s the skill gap that matters now. Not memorising syntax. Understanding architecture. Knowing how the pieces fit together. Being able to look at a problem and map the solution in your head before a single line gets written.

You don’t necessarily need to be an engineer. But you need to think like one.

3. Custom SaaS is Eating Generic Tools

The next shift isn’t signing up for another subscription. It’s building exactly what you need. Hiring a team for a weekend. Or doing it yourself.

I know I can build half the tools we use now. And I probably will. Might do it in public, actually.

Watch what’s happening - software shops are pivoting to no-code and AI-built rapid solutions as a service. You don’t buy the tool anymore. You describe what you need, and they build it in days. There’s massive potential in this business model.

The era of “best available option” is probably ending. The era of “exactly what I need” is coming.

4. AI turned months into days

Learning has never been easier or cheaper. Claude, ChatGPT, Cursor - these aren’t just tools, they’re unfair advantages. What would have taken me months to figure out alone, I worked through in days.

The barrier to learning anything is gone. The only thing stopping people now is the choice not to start .. which leads me to my next…

6. Laziness is the only excuse left

I don’t want to be harsh, but this is the truth. We’ve all internalised this outdated model - school is where you learn, work is where you apply it, retirement is where you stop.

That world doesn’t exist anymore.

It’s free or almost free to learn anything. The resources are there. The tools are there. The only thing missing is the willingness to do it.

7. The gap between people is widening fast

It’s never been easier to grow. It’s never been easier to fall behind.

The distance between those who embrace building and those who stay comfortable is accelerating. Between understanding how things work and just consuming them. Between creating your own leverage and renting someone else’s.

Scroll through X and watch what’s happening. People are shipping constantly. A normal guy in the middle of nowhere with just a laptop is building products that get thousands of users. It’s insane what’s possible now.

8. Loneliness is the Price of Total Focus

Day five hit different. The silence became heavy. No distractions meant no escape from your own head.

I wonder how digital nomads manage to keep moving, always alone. It’s definitely not for everyone.

But maybe that discomfort was part of the process. The isolation forced me to sit with the hard problems. No one to ask. No way out except through.

The loneliness was the cost. What I built was the return.

9. London Feels Different Now

I’ve been travelling a lot recently - Europe, Middle East earlier this year. And I keep seeing progress everywhere else. New infrastructure, cultural energy, different values emerging.

Then I come back to London and something feels off. Not the city I moved to. Something that wasn’t there before.

Travelling around the US soon. Curious what the mood is going to be there.

I don’t want to be negative about it. Time will show what’s happening. But I feel it differently.

What this all means

That week in Prague was about learning to code. But I learned more than syntax and systems.

I learned that the skills gap I’d been worried about wasn’t as big as I thought. That focus and isolation and obsessive work still create something real. That momentum has a shape, and when you feel it, you drop everything else.

If you’ve been feeling stuck, if you’ve been repeating what you learned five / ten years ago - maybe you need your own Prague week.

Lock yourself away from everything familiar. See what you’re actually capable of. Build the thing you thought required a team.

The wave is here. Are you riding it?

Sorry for the random thoughts. Been a hectic week and day and just wanted to share what’s up.

DM me - would love to hear what you’ve been up to.