Day 7. Taking stock of my mistakes.
This isn't failure — it's the actual learning process.
Mistake 1: I underestimated the cost. Vibe Coding sounds like flow, play, exploration. It doesn't sound like money. But every API call, every model inference, every hosted agent costs. Not dramatically — but enough that you notice. Running Ollama locally? Free but compute-heavy. Using Claude API? Pay per token. Building agents on OpenClaw? The gateway is free but the models aren't.
Mistake 2: I overestimated my own discipline. Starting 12 projects is easy. Finishing one is hard. The first week taught me that motivation is renewable but focus isn't. I need structure, not just enthusiasm.
Mistake 3: I thought knowing about AI was enough. It's not. Using AI daily is different from reading about it. The real learning happens in the friction — when the prompt doesn't work, when the code breaks, when the model misunderstands.
Week 1 verdict
After 7 days: I know less than I thought on Day 1 — but I understand more than I did on Day 0. That's the paradox of learning curves. The more you know, the more you realize you don't know. And that's exactly where growth happens.