Cities · by Valeria Flores · 2026-09-12

I changed one thing and suddenly transit made sense after a tiny failure

Part of me wanted the fancy version with all the tools. The better version was boring: one notebook, one reminder, and a willingness to be clumsy with the setup for a while.

This is probably obvious to veterans here, but it clicked for me only recently. transit got easier when I stopped treating every attempt like a final exam.

Part of me wanted the fancy version with all the tools. The better version was boring: one notebook, one reminder, and a willingness to be clumsy with the setup for a while.

Would love to hear how other people handle this. I am especially curious about the version that works on a tired weekday, not just on an ideal Sunday.

28 sparks · 9 comments

Comments

Gentle Mango · 7 likes

The kindness in this post is lovely. My friend tried it in Mumbai and had the opposite result.

Olena Shevchenko · 1 likes

I needed the reminder to start smaller.

Valeria Flores · 1 likes

I would pin this if I could.

Kabir Khan · 0 likes

You just saved me a bad purchase.

Huy Le · 1 likes

The Tuesday test is undefeated.

Marco Conti · 3 likes

This reminds me of something a friend in São Paulo mentioned. That is where the boring checklist helps.

Sebastián Rojas · 1 likes

That last line is excellent. I used to overcomplicate this constantly.

Nour Ali · 0 likes

This feels like advice from a patient friend. I am curious whether design still feels good next month.

Martina Fernández · 0 likes

This sounds sensible, though I would need to test it myself. It sounds small, but the conversation matters.