diff --git a/.jules/bolt.md b/.jules/bolt.md
new file mode 100644
index 0000000..fca09d1
--- /dev/null
+++ b/.jules/bolt.md
@@ -0,0 +1,3 @@
+## 2024-10-23 - Blocking Animations
+**Learning:** The `animateclient` function uses `usleep(15000)` inside a `while` loop, which blocks the single-threaded X11 event loop. This causes the entire window manager to freeze during any window animation.
+**Action:** Future optimizations should focus on refactoring this to use an event-based non-blocking animation system, possibly using a timer or `XNextEvent` with timeouts.
diff --git a/bar.c b/bar.c
index 8476144..84deaa0 100644
--- a/bar.c
+++ b/bar.c
@@ -56,9 +56,19 @@ int drawstatusbar(Monitor *m, int bh, char *stext) {
     char *text;
     char *p;
 
+    /* Optimization: Use stack allocation for common status text lengths (<1024)
+       to avoid malloc overhead in hot path. Fallback to malloc for larger strings. */
+    char buf[1024];
+    int use_malloc = 0;
+
     len = strlen(stext) + 1;
-    if (!(text = (char *)malloc(sizeof(char) * len))) {
-        die("malloc");
+    if (len > sizeof(buf)) {
+        if (!(text = (char *)malloc(sizeof(char) * len))) {
+            die("malloc");
+        }
+        use_malloc = 1;
+    } else {
+        text = buf;
     }
     p = text;
     memcpy(text, stext, len);
@@ -194,7 +204,9 @@ int drawstatusbar(Monitor *m, int bh, char *stext) {
     }
 
     drw_setscheme(drw, statusscheme);
-    free(p);
+    if (use_malloc) {
+        free(p);
+    }
 
     return ret;
 }