Open Diary Diary Page
Week 3 Jan 19–25, 2026
SHIPPED
Jan 25/26, 2026 (overnight)

Civ VI-style game

Time taken: 30h

Created a “let’s invade Greenland” game inspired by recent events

Civ wasn't built in a day. This is still unfinished. Games are hard and complex. Most of your time will be spent debugging. You'll have to build games within games just to get the rules of the game to work. It's hard to get the AI opponent to act logically. Despite all this, games are still insanely fun and I wish I had longer to make this one everything it could be.

See build
Week 2 Jan 12–18, 2026
SHIPPED
Jan 17, 2026

Static website w/ form integration

Time taken: 23h

Redesigned The Tech Bros website and rebuilt it from scratch

Designing and populating the website felt tedious. The backend / server stuff was more fun this time around. I created 3 separate forms and integrated them with Slack, Airtable, and EmailOctopus so I get a notification when people register for the community AND all their info appears on Airtable directly. Time-boxed sprints are ideal for front end decision fatigue.

See build
Week 0 + Week 1 Jan 1–11, 2026
SHIPPED
Jan 9, 2026

Static websites x2

Time taken: 30.5 hours

Updated my singing website and created this one in preparation for weekly projects

The server stuff was a bitch. I felt inspired building both websites. Populating a website with content takes many, many hours. Everything takes longer than you think. Don't be afraid to ask ChatGPT to create a Cursor prompt (they work well as a team). Send ChatGPT screenshots when troubleshooting. I'm a perfectionist & will need to work against this if I want to get anything shipped this year at all.

See build

What I'm Doing

This is my weekly coding diary for 2026.

I come from a mathematics background, so for a long time I’ve assumed that one day I’d be able to do the coding thing properly. But assumption isn’t the same as fluency - and over time, engineering started to feel like a black box I didn’t fully understand.

I want to change that.

The goal here is simple: to get to the point where building things feels easy, intuitive, and genuinely fun. To stop treating engineering as something abstract, and start treating it as a craft I can use fluently.

So for the whole of 2026, I’m building something every single week.

Some weeks will take a couple hours; some multiple days. Some weeks will be scrapped; some will be ambitious. But the key is that - whether a tool, a site, an experiment, a prototype, or a half-formed idea - each week, I have to ship. That rule exists for a reason. Perfectionism is a fantastic way to never finish anything, so this project is deliberately structured to prioritise momentum over polish.

Alongside the builds, I’ll share what I can about the process: this is as much a record for my future self as it is something I’m sharing publicly.

Follow along for the journey - I can’t wait to see where it takes me!

About Me

My name is Dr. Milette Gillow. I’m a mathematician and opera singer by training (University of Leeds, University of Copenhagen, Royal Academy of Music). I’ve worked as a VC, university lecturer, and professional singer among other things, and I now run The Tech Bros: the world’s first all-female, all-technical accelerator. I’ve organised 12 hackathons over the past year with The Tech Bros, but haven’t built as much myself: so my aim for 2026 is to spend a lot more time developing. I love creative work, so I think I’ll enjoy it!

LinkedIn

Tools / Stack

Core Framework

  • Astro
  • TypeScript
  • Tailwind CSS

Content

  • Astro Content Collections
  • MDX

Interactions

  • Vanilla JavaScript
  • CSS Transforms & Transitions

Design

  • Custom Victorian theme
  • Playfair Display & Georgia fonts
  • Canva

AI

  • ChatGPT
  • Cursor

Deployment

  • GitHub
  • Vercel
  • Namecheap