While I was still a twinkle in my fathers eye two scientists, James Q. Wilson and George Kelling, published a theory that people have argued over for yeaaars. The Broken Windows Theory states that visible signs of disorder, like a smashed window, graffitti or litter don't just stay there silently. They are actually a "signal", one that says "Nobody is watching, nobody really cares" and it invites further disorder. One broken window that is ignored eventually becomes five, ten...
People have argued for over forty years and they will continue arguing until the cows come home. But the saying stuck with me as it describes how neglect compounds, and I've watched it happen in my own life.
The windows that broke for me
By late 2024 my health had slid and I went to my GP and said "Doc, I'm early forties but I feel like I'm 70... I feel 'used up'". It wasn't a dramatic moment, I didn't end up in ICU on a heart monitor. Yyou know, like dudes are SUPPOSED to ignore stuff until the stuff says "tot hier en nie verder nie" (up to here and no further). Years of little allowances, challenges and "life" had stacked up. Our son was born prematurely in late 2020, followed by COVID lockdowns, followed by health challenges with our son and and and. By the time I looked there were a bunch of little broken windows. I had just kept my head down and kept pushing forward, parking things "for later" and eventually the broken windows were just "how it is now".
That's the sneaky part of this theory, it's things you ignore every day that become "just how it is now" and you don't even notice that those things are actually broken.
Fixing one window
Now... the same thing that causes that neglect works the other way around too.
If you fix one window. And no, I'm not talking about newspaper and tape, I'm talking properly fix it... the narrative starts to change. It shows "hey, somebody actually cares" and that new "order" begins to create more order along with it, exactly the same as the broken ones created more breakage behind them.
I started with the one window, my health markers. Stuff I could measure, stuff I could DO something about. It's easy to feel "trapped" and incapable of making changes (life happens and sometimes there are things out of our control). And me being me, I did the thing I often do, I "engineered" my way along the path of fixing the windows. I built an entire unified health platform to track it. This wasn't a health app for a client or to even make into a product (if people are keen I have some ideas on how to do this). I was initially logging stuff on spreadsheets and chatting to Co-pilot to analyse stuff, but LLMs being LLMs they start to get "confused" when there's a lot of data in one "conversation". So I built something to store my blood work, weight, workouts and and and. When I put the data into one place the picture it painted wasn't pretty. The warning lights on my body's dashboard were bright red, especially my cholesterol and my liver markers.
I had changed GPs since my initial "oh flip" moment due to changing medical plans (medical coverage here in South Africa is complicated if you don't want to pay a LOT monthly). I took my first batch of bloodwork to the new GP and I told him "after looking at my numbers and doing research I felt like the situation was more dire than the previous GP had". Looking at my service and warning lights he agreed. I got some medical intervention in terms of liver support.
That stuff helped a bit, but I hit that compounding window repair grind at the beginning of 2026. I locked in HARD and started properly tracking EVERYTHING. I've been hitting the gym consistently, hitting PRs, shifting 14 to 18 tons of volume in a session. I have been logging everything I eat and drink for 210 days solid as of writing this post. We took a two-week trip to Cape Town, I packed in my food scale and I hit the gym while I was there... 1400km from home, because I was fixing windows and sticking to it meant another window fixed.
The data says "It's working". It hasn't been easy or fast, but nothing good ever is. Since 2024 I've brought my cholesterol markers from bright red to all the way in green. My liver markers recently also hit green. The visible stuff only recently began shifting. In the last couple of months I've gone from 104kg down to 96kg, I've dropped 6cm around my belly and around 8cm around my belt line.
The platform I build is called FlexHealth and it will get a full unpacking of it's own what it does, where it sits, and where it's headed. Coming soon to this blog near you.
The funny thing about health and fitness type fixes is because they are compounding, the more improvement you see... the more you want. The repaired windows start making the house look nicer so you start repairing more and you want to repair even more!
A business is a building full of windows
his year I hard focused my health... but I also started looking at OrganiCode and some of the windows there were scratched and cracked.
One huge one was presence. For over 2 decades I've been building software for big companies like Volkswagen SA, Cape Town Stock Exchange, Multichoice and a long list of SMEs... but my own footprint was scattered across the interwebs. Half owned. Half populated. Secondly, OrganiCode has also traditionally always been the bridesmaid but never the bride, software was thus far only really built for customers (save the original online forms from COVID times). But it finally got engaged when a couple of products went out into early signup, with more to follow.
If you read last week's post, you've already seen the biggest repair: OrganiCode turned eight this month and its site got rebuilt from the ground up. That revamp wasn't a fresh coat of paint for a birthday. It was this exact theory at work, a window I'd finally stopped walking past.
This site is a repaired window
This very site that you are reading this on is a window being fixed.
It's the scattered pieces of Warren (the work, the writing, the music, the making, the riding and more) pulled into one place that's actually cared for. This isn't the "whole building" but that's not the point. This is just a couple of windows I'm working to repairs. I'm building an online presence where I can be "found". As an aside I get to exercise creativity that I don't normally do. Code is creative, but largely logic based. I have at least 64 (my son's favourite number) books knocking around in my head... and perhaps some of what has come out here will form a book or series of them someday.
The point is you don't easily fix everything in one go, but you can focus on a few windows at a time and compound the fixing.
Start with one
If there's something in your life that you are looking past or actively ignoring because it has quietly slipped... whether that is you health, a habit, your reputation or the corner of the garage you have trained yourself not to look at, you'll probably know exactly which window it is.
You don't have to fix everything all at once, in fact the chances of success go down the more you take on at once.
Start with one. Fix it, but fix it properly, and you'll see how that fixed window makes you want to do the next and the next and the next.
That's where I am now. I'm fixing the windows I can, and that's giving my the ability and desire to fix more. Come inside, make yourself comfortable and let's fix some windows!
As always, I'm here if anyone needs an ear to talk to or a shoulder to cry on.
If you want to lament your broken windows and want to discuss ideas for fixing them feel free to drop me a line.