Before you dive into building iOS apps, let's talk about how to start 2026 on the right foot. With the right tool, you can track your new year resolutions in style – and that's exactly what I built addTaskManager for. But don't worry if you're not tracking resolutions; you can use it to monitor finances, habits, or anything else.

As I sit in my favorite coffee shop, sipping on a high-quality espresso and connected to the internet, I'm ready to start my coding session on my iPad using Claude Code. But before we dive into the actual workflow, let's take a step back. With over 35 years of experience writing code, from Slackware to Objective C, Swift, and React Native, I've had my fair share of coding adventures.

The Actual Vibe Coding Workflow

Without further ado, let's dive into what I'm actually doing. First, I review yesterday's priorities file. I keep between 4 and 6 projects alive at the same time, which means I'm juggling through them in real-time. Sometimes, I can remember yesterday's session, but most of the time, I need reminders to know the context, features, blockers, and priorities. That's why, at the end of the day, I write down my priorities for tomorrow.

In a way, I'm starting backwards. After that, I select whatever I'm committed to do in the next 3-4 hours. Yes, no more than 3-4 hours – and you'll see why later. In Assess-Decide-Do terms, I'm staying in the Decide realm. I evaluate what can be reasonably done in that time slice and sometimes leave some projects out. On average, each project gets at least 3-4 days of consistent work.

Once I have a clear understanding of the features, I start my working sessions. These unfold in this order: actual coding (the technical mumbo-jumbo), review stage (kind of the second Decide stage), and committing (writing logs and setting priorities for the next session).

The Technical Mumbo-Jumbo

If you're the technical type, this is for you. But even if you're not, you may get some insights (otherwise feel free to skip to the next section). I work with Claude Code on my iPad, using remote repos. On each app, I maintain a different branch, usually named version/X.x.x, and then set up XCode Cloud workflows that trigger builds when merging to master.

All coding happens in the version branches until the app compiles, and the feature I'm working on is ready to test. Then, still on my iPad, I open my Github app and start a PR, aiming at merging the version branch into master. If there are no conflicts, I hit merge, and that triggers XCode Cloud builds.

The Review Stage

Around this time, my espresso is more than 80% gone, just maybe two more sips left. That means I can get out of the technical workflow and look at what was actually achieved. This usually involves a thorough end-to-end testing of the features but without any pressure to add code.

I'm going again through all the projects I'm working on and take time to write down any quirks, improvement ideas, and leftovers, and then mark as done anything that's already done. I'm using addTaskManager for this.

This is also the stage where my mind can start resting. It's a big step from focusing deep down on one project and writing uninterrupted sessions of 1-2 hours to actually juggling between 3-4 apps, all with very different requirements and at very different stages.

The Productivity Throughput

In simple numbers, my throughput is now 5x-7x higher. I can code 3-4 iOS projects in parallel and cut time from idea to deployment from months to weeks. It's not unusual to do a cold start of a new project at the beginning of the month, and by the end of the month, it's ready for App Store.

On top of the iOS apps layer, I'm also maintaining this blog and a little bit of marketing around it (and around the apps, of course). Here, I think I'm around 2x-4x more productive. I can maintain the 2-3 articles/week posting speed, and most of the time, my audience on social media is up to date with what I'm doing – including blog readers like you.

So, I'm revisiting the opening question: even though I have a 5x-7x throughput, can you really say I'm a vibe coder? I dare to say no because behind this dramatic productivity increase is not only the AI but mostly my 35 years of coding experience. Maybe the special workflow too (I'm talking Assess-Decide-Do here), but honestly, I think it's the hard-earned ability to know what to pick, how much time to dedicate, what to cut out, and generally, how to maintain a consistent architecture that's slim enough not to slide out but strong enough to produce.