The Best Decision of 2026
The best and most life giving thing I have done in the first 3 weeks of the year.
I moved all of my work out of my home.
This past three-day weekend, I did something deceptively simple—but profoundly clarifying.
A Year of Foundations, Not Force
My intention for this year is to focus on building my life, my home, and my future.
That means designing systems—practices, habits, rhythms, and environments—that do the heavy lifting, instead of relying on more effort or grit.
To measure whether those systems are actually working, I use three indicators in my daily evening examen:
- Life → Peace
- Home → Presence
- Future → Progress
These are not aspirations. They are diagnostics.
If peace, presence, or progress are missing, the problem is not my willpower.
The problem is the system.
James Clear puts it this way in Atomic Habits:
“You do not rise to the level of your goals. You fall to the level of your systems.”
Moving work out of my home was a systems change.
What Changed When Work Left the House
Once work left the house, something fundamental shifted.
I no longer pull away from my family to get work done.
Practically speaking, I can’t. Work lives somewhere else now.
I no longer negotiate with myself about “just one more thing” at the kitchen table or on the couch.
My home returned to what it was always meant to be:
a place of renewal, not output.
A haven, not a half‑office.
The physical boundary created mental and emotional boundaries I had been trying (and failing) to maintain with discipline alone.
Renewal Has Four Buckets
(And They Don’t Refill the Same Way)
During my time working alongside Pastor Rick Warren—author of The Purpose Driven Life and Founder of Saddleback Church—I learned a framework that has stayed with me for years and now feels newly activated.
We don’t renew from a single tank.
We renew through four distinct buckets:
- Physical (Strength)
- Mental (Mind)
- Emotional (Heart)
- Spiritual (Soul)
Here’s the crucial insight:
Each bucket is filled differently.
- Spiritual practices refill the spiritual bucket.
- Relationships refill the emotional bucket.
- Thinking (curiosity, learning, writing, reading) refills the mental bucket.
- Exercise, sleep, and nutrition refill the physical bucket.
You cannot substitute one for another.
No amount of productivity will refill your soul.
No level of spiritual intensity will replace consistent sleep.
When work lived in my home, those buckets bled into one another.
Email sat on the same table as dinner.
My mind never fully left “output mode.”
Now, the boundaries protect the buckets.
Work has a place. Renewal has a place. They no longer compete for the same space.
Home as an Environment of Presence
My home is no longer contested territory.
It is not a spillover office.
It’s an environment intentionally designed for:
- Presence with my family
- Enjoyment of my home
- Space for hobbies and rest
- Integration of heart, mind, strength, and soul
Peace is no longer something I chase after work.
It’s something the environment makes possible.
The Best Decision I’ve Made This Year
If I had to name the single best decision I’ve made in 2026 so far, it would be this:
I moved my work out of my home.
Not because work is the enemy.
But because boundaries are benevolent.
Clear purpose of spaces have created:
- More peace in my life
- More presence in my home
- More progress toward my future
None of that came from doing more.
It came from designing better—aligning my environment with the kind of life I say I want to build.
An Update from - https://www.constava.com/home-is-a-haven-work-needs-to-go/