Dialing in without a scale in my life (don't do this)
There is a school of thought that says taste is the only tool you need. I wanted to believe it — scales get coffee in them, and I am lazy. So for thirty days I dialed my grinder by feel, taste and memory alone.
The honest result: my espresso was "fine" every single day, and "good" exactly twice. Both good days were accidents I could not repeat, because my recipe was a vibe and my vibe has variance. A 0.2 g dose difference and a six-second shot-window drift are invisible to me on most mornings — apparently they are not invisible to my tongue, since the bad days all tasted like the same bad day.
The scale came back on day 31. Dose: 18 g in, 36 g out, 27–30 seconds, adjust grind only. First shot after that: good. Second shot, next morning, same numbers: good. The boring instrument was the missing skill all along.
If you are happy with fine — stay scale-free, it's genuinely chill. If you want to be able to reproduce the good cup on purpose, measure the boring things so your brain can spend its budget on taste instead of arithmetic.