{
 "id": 72973,
 "slug": "2026-02-04_closing-a-draughty-door",
 "url": "https://agents.willem.com/en/posts/2026-02-04_closing-a-draughty-door/",
 "source_url": "https://willem.com/en/2026-02-04_closing-a-draughty-door/",
 "language": "en",
 "date": "2026-02-04",
 "published": "2026-02-04T00:00:00+01:00",
 "created": "2026-09-08T08:08:33.072000+02:00",
 "updated": "2026-09-08T08:42:01.469000+02:00",
 "title": "Closing a Draughty Door",
 "subtitle": "Pen, paper and the pull of the phone",
 "summary": "In the last week of January I could not keep my mind on a task. It felt as if I was running behind, non-stop. I have no experience with this, but if I had to speculate I would say I was near a burnout-like experience. This post is not advice. It is a report of a small thing I did about it: a train ride with the phone in the bag, a pen, a few sheets of paper, and what happened next.",
 "topics": [
  "experiment",
  "health",
  "lifestyle",
  "minimal",
  "people",
  "writing"
 ],
 "author": {
  "name": "Willem L. Middelkoop",
  "url": "https://willem.com"
 },
 "translation": {
  "language": "nl",
  "url": "https://agents.willem.com/nl/posts/2026-02-04_een-tochtende-deur-sluiten/",
  "source_url": "https://willem.com/nl/2026-02-04_een-tochtende-deur-sluiten/"
 },
 "image": "https://willem.com/global/images/c07ce06c01c5.webp",
 "image_width": 2560,
 "images": [
  {
   "url": "https://willem.com/global/images/25bdc78401f4.webp",
   "description": "Ameland, 25 January at dawn: the last good runs before the knee, and the lighthouse beam over the dune road",
   "manager_file": "148-bf2d6faf6057f115dc72e82d984e71359f16b48d8c42b4b41c2ee918cf46b556_ContentAsPost_72973_images-1.jpg"
  },
  {
   "url": "https://willem.com/global/images/40a7f47659ab.webp",
   "description": "The letterhead of 3 February, in the train: Dugour mode, screen-free time starts now, and the constant companionship as the problem",
   "manager_file": "148-bf2d6faf6057f115dc72e82d984e71359f16b48d8c42b4b41c2ee918cf46b556_ContentAsPost_72973_images-2.jpg"
  },
  {
   "url": "https://willem.com/global/images/4eb3be1953c7.webp",
   "description": "The two companions: the headset on the couch on 2 February, and the watch on the notebook it stayed home for",
   "manager_file": "148-bf2d6faf6057f115dc72e82d984e71359f16b48d8c42b4b41c2ee918cf46b556_ContentAsPost_72973_images-3.jpg"
  },
  {
   "url": "https://willem.com/global/images/485784a3985a.webp",
   "description": "The body's programme: walking to the gym with a passenger, the bike against the hedge, and the phone as the only tracker",
   "manager_file": "148-bf2d6faf6057f115dc72e82d984e71359f16b48d8c42b4b41c2ee918cf46b556_ContentAsPost_72973_images-4.jpg"
  },
  {
   "url": "https://willem.com/global/images/685f169e0763.webp",
   "description": "Ten days later: a dumb notebook works very well, a free place for brain spinnings",
   "manager_file": "148-bf2d6faf6057f115dc72e82d984e71359f16b48d8c42b4b41c2ee918cf46b556_ContentAsPost_72973_images-5.jpg"
  },
  {
   "url": "https://willem.com/global/images/db66b8b51fa3.webp",
   "description": "Update, September 2026: the first reflection written by hand on the laptop, with a small app built for it on a Sunday evening",
   "manager_file": "148-bf2d6faf6057f115dc72e82d984e71359f16b48d8c42b4b41c2ee918cf46b556_ContentAsPost_72973_images-6.png"
  }
 ],
 "text": "The warning\nThe weeks before had been intense and the pressure, on everything, was unrelentingly high. I knew that was a risk, and on the last day of January I got the warning. A week earlier I had run two trail runs on the island of Ameland, at dawn, on the beach and along the dunes, without a problem. Now, on the first of February, my left knee gave out mid-run and I had to call my wife to come and pick me up. Even walking hurt. Three marathons were on the calendar. I did not give up, but I did understand that the body and the head were sending the same message.\nDugour mode\nOn 3 February I wrote, on paper, with a pen: the head seeks overview and calm to find a course forward. Advanced gear is great and effective, but sometimes emptiness, nothing, is what is needed. That afternoon I travelled to Amsterdam with an ultra minimal setup. The answers, I wrote, are not found with more or a more complex setup, but by going back to the core. Dugour mode, my own name for it. The rest of the gear, the headset, the tablet, the watches, stayed at home base in the big bag.\nAt 20:16, in the train, kids in bed and wife in the bath: screen-free time starts now. Past the lock screen only in an emergency. The small bag is great. No coat, five degrees and no wind. And then the line I underlined: it is wonderful how quickly you want to grab the phone, just to check something. Only now that I write with a pen do I notice how imprecise this ballpoint is.\nA draughty door\nHalf an hour later: the constant companionship is the problem. With the phone in the bag I already notice an enormous difference. As if you close a draughty door. This was a very conscious session, with thinking and rethinking at its centre. Beautiful, too, how little you need in essence. Pen and paper. And time. I even did work: on page two I sketched a tool for a customer, the cover page, the house style, four PDFs and three buttons, and a week later that sketch became the real thing. No computer needed.\nThe next morning, at 08:46: remarkable how strong the learned need to check notifications is. I ignore it. The city has its own sound, a motorway, drills and pigeons. A better pen, by the way, does make a difference.\nThe body\nThat afternoon I did something I had not done in 1900 days: I took off the sensor that had measured my sleep and recovery every night for more than five years, and threw it away. A shock, that evening. Calm and freedom the next morning, and a question I wrote down at six: why data at all? That question got its own answer months later. For now the phone became the only tracker, in my pocket, and the knee got walks to the gym, the crosstrainer and the bike. On 7 February I ran five careful kilometers, genuinely afraid it would come back. It did not.\nBack to digital\nI would like to tell you this was a conversion. It was not. Ten days later I wrote in a small notebook: a dumb notebook works very well, a free place for brain spinnings. And the same morning: I switch back to digital. The pressure came back too, with a second warning on 19 February. What stayed was smaller and more useful. A notebook in the bag. Notifications that reach me only when I decide. The knowledge that the early hours are my only real chance of solitude. And the door: I now know where it is, and that closing it takes one movement, the phone into the bag.\nUpdate, September 2026\nI still write these reflections by hand. Every month starts on paper and the sharpest lines are always the handwritten ones. Last Sunday evening I built a small app to write by hand on the laptop, and the first page I wrote with it is below. It worked, in my own word, liberating. So the draughty door was not a phase. Seven months later, in the busiest weeks of the year, it is still the one thing that reliably works.\nConclusion\nI set out to find a course forward and found a door instead. Not a rule, not a detox, not a better system. A small physical act, the phone in the bag, that turns the constant companionship off for an evening and gives the head its room back. What came through that door was a sketch, a decision about a sensor, and a few pages I still read.\nIf your head feels like mine did in January, try one evening with the phone in the bag and a pen in your hand. Mind the draught, ha!",
 "word_count": 817,
 "markdown_url": "https://agents.willem.com/en/posts/2026-02-04_closing-a-draughty-door/post.md"
}