If you're a software engineer right now, your feeds are probably overloaded with AI hot takes, tool announcements, and advice about how far behind you are. In today's episode, I take a different approach. Instead of prescribing what you should be doing, I open up about what I'm actually doing — from physical checklists and label makers to agentic workflows and 3D modeling with AI. This is a snapshot of one engineering manager's life in the spring of 2026, covering the small personal interventions, the books, the media, and the AI tooling that's shaping how I work and think right now.