I used to think productivity meant never stopping. Always moving to the next thing before I’d even finished the current thing.

Turns out, I was just really good at being busy. Until I arrived in Granada.

This is my fifth time in Spain. I know the rhythm here, the language, how to order wine and argue. But every time I come back, I realize I’ve forgotten the most important Spanish lesson of all: Space.

✈️ The Constant Motion of 2025:

• Meditation and yoga in Tulum, which I immediately photographed for social media
• Consulting with retail AI companies, squeezing every possible insight to keep up with the algorithm race
• Flying enough for United Gold status with constant jet lag
• Frantic multitasking because handling everything was my entire personality
• I brought stress home until my daughter had to beg me to watch her cartwheel without checking my phone.

So before we left for Spain, I asked myself: what actually mattered in 2025? How do I want to be different in 2026?

💓 What Mattered When I Stopped Moving:

• Finding love letters under my pillow from my 8-year-old
• Inhaling my new nephew’s intoxicating newborn perfume
• Finally finishing my novel manuscript in quiet cafes
• Joining a company where humans matter more than AI trends (though we’re on top of those too)
• Then my daughter and I returned to Spain.

I’m writing this from Granada, where I first came as a 19-year-old, well before ChatGPT and hell, before most cell phones. Back when getting lost meant something because you couldn’t just pull out Google Maps.

Here’s what I remembered: in Spanish restaurants, you wait forever for your bill. This isn’t bad service. It’s intentional. The meal isn’t over just because you’ve finished eating.

Even though I know this, I spend the first few moments getting antsy. Checking my watch. Calculating how many emails I could answer if they’d just bring the damn check.

But then something shifts.

Paciencia, Heidi, I tell myself. Estoy relajada.

We wait in Spain, so we stay in conversation. Or actually taste the last sip of wine instead of gulping it. I start to notice how the winter light hits the plaza differently. I laugh at something that wouldn’t have been funny if I were already halfway out the door.

And finally I stopped treating the space in between as dead time to optimize and recognize it as an actual thing worth living.

My laptop has been closed for days. When my daughter navigates steep cobblestones, I’m watching her feet find their balance, not my phone screen.

When we get lost near the Alhambra (again, because apparently these streets refuse to organize themselves in my memory), I don’t pull out Google Maps. My daughter finds a tiny courtyard with orange trees and a sleeping cat that we would have completely missed on the “efficient” route.

“Mom, it’s more fun when we’re getting lost,” she says, delighted.

She’s right. The best things in 2025 happened in pauses I didn’t plan. The spaces between things gave me more than the things themselves. Long conversations. New thinking that couldn’t have emerged in a rushed meeting. Snuggles with people who won’t stay small forever.

I’ve written before about being frantic versus focused. Here’s what I keep forgetting: the answer isn’t better time management or productivity hacks.

The answer is in getting lost and waiting for the bill.

So here’s to 2026:

• FAMILY: Present for all our long dinners complete with rowdy card games and no one brining the check
• WORK: Building alongside people I like and using AI to amplify creativity, not just speed up the hamster wheel 🤖
• SELF: Getting lost on purpose. Watching cartwheels without my phone as a witness 📚

Of course I’m not perfect. I’ll still check my phone too much or mistake motion for progress. But I’m done pretending that speed equals success.

The love letters under my pillow? The hour spent waiting for a check while my family argues about whose memory of childhood is actually accurate? Those aren’t interruptions to my productive life.

They ARE my life.

Sometimes the most important work is waiting. Just sitting there. Letting the space between things teach you something you couldn’t learn while rushing.