Family guy and web developer
Next time you make a goal or come up with a plan, think about this. Make note of your primary source of motivation to complete the goal/plan, and then assume that it is not going to take you through to the end. Supplement with alternative sources of motivation.
— A Shotgun Approach to Motivation by Buster Benson
I love my steel hardtail frames, but even I have to admit this 29er from Maxlight looks amazing.
So tonight, I deployed my first version of a plain text journalling product to Heroku. It's finally up and running! Those little hours here and there are finally paying off and now I have scratched the initial itch and provided a better way to write to my journal from anywhere.
After the excitement of deployment and seeing it work I was then tempted to power on through for another couple of hours and start the real work of implementing basic features, styling web pages and other things.
I'm going to hold back though and wait for another window of time to work on it. For the moment it's doing the most basic functional thing it needs to do, which is better than nothing. Yeah, it might be great sitting up for another couple of hours, but I'll only be robbing myself of energy from tomorrow. Also by the sounds of the weather on the window, I think it's going to be a hell of a cycle getting into work in the morning.
So until I can schedule more code time with my side-product, I'll hold back.
I'm 35 today!
It probably doesn't mean much to many people when they turn 35 or any other age really for that matter, but for me this year feels different and that's in a good way. Let's wind the clock back a few years first though.
When I turned 30 I was pondering on my career and what I wanted to achieve. I hadn't produced anything that I would call art (well in my case as a developer, a web application of some kind), and so I started thinking about what I wanted to achieve in my career in the next five years. I had thoughts and ideas, but no plan. Five years later I still haven't produced anything that I could put out there and say "Yip, I made that".
After a couple of years, I lost track of my ideas. I carried on with my job as a developer for a small consulting firm and tried to keep my development skills up to speed by playing with some programming languages in my spare time. I even produced a small mind mapping blog for a couple of years that let me practice some writing for a while.
Fast forward to today and I still haven't produced anything career wise that I would call mine, but it's not something that I am going to lose any sleep over.
Which brings me back to today. So why do I feel like everything is in the right place?
Well at the start of the year, my wife and I found out that we were going to be parents again. We already have a five year old son, so it's great news that he will have a younger brother or sister in August when the baby is due.
At home, we're also kicking off a project to convert our garage into a multi-purpose room. Mainly it will be sitting room, but I'm also claiming a section of the room as a more practical place to do more sideline work. I don't have what you would call a great area for working when I am at home, so it's good to know that in the future there will be a better place for turning some ideas into reality.
My career is in a good place at the moment. I'm using my preferred tools and languages on a daily basis and I'm also gaining more experience in working in agile software development teams. It's not long term though, no job ever is, but it's good being in place where I am learning new things everyday.
So what's different from today than the same day five years ago?
Well I'm more grounded in plans and expectations for the future. I know that I can't do it all, but instead I'm focusing on things that are close to my heart and really interest me.
I'm also a bit more realistic about my strengths and weaknesses. I know I've got skills in programming and I enjoy writing. Okay my strength in writing might be me being biased, but I do enjoy it and that's what counts. On the weakness side, I do find it difficult to maintain my focus on one thing. I've not seen my projects through from start to completion but I'm hoping to change that this year.
So what does the next five years hold?
Who knows. I certainly know that on the home front, I'm as content as a I'll ever be. I can't wait for the new addition to our family to arrive in August. Our son will be so pleased to have a younger brother or sister who could share in his love of golf!
On the career front though that's a different thing. I've started work on a small micro-product that I am hoping to launch in the spring. It's a helper for those who like keeping a plain text journal. The idea for the journalling product came after I wanted to continue writing everyday but on a smaller volume than doing my three pages of writing every day. Also I wanted a plain text archive that was in the easiest format to slice and dice as I needed. I've tried many note-taking applications in the past, but none offered the simplicity of plain text. More on that later though.
After that I have my eyes set on a second product that I hope will help people make with their decision making. These might never take off, who knows.
At least I know that I will have tried.
The world is full of ideas that can be executed with 10 to 20 hours per week, let alone 40
— All or Something by 37 Signals
Not big words, but it's sort of the same thing I've been telling myself for the last couple of weeks. Even if I only get a 5 hours a week to work on something, it's 5 hours towards the end goal.
Once my son is in bed and my stuff is organised for the next day, once all the little chores are done, once my world is in order again, I open my laptop and put in an hour or two.
It might seem that I am not making much progress, but those hours are adding up and my micro-product is taking shape. I've still got loads to do, but I know that with every hour I'm making a step towards getting this idea executed and launched.
And yes we do need another word for startups.
I wish I'd had the courage to live a life true to myself, not the life others expected of me.
I wish I hadn't worked so hard.
I wish I'd had the courage to express my feelings.
I wish I had stayed in touch with my friends.
I wish that I had let myself be happier.
— Five Regrets of the Dying With Tangents by Buster Benson
Wouldn't it be nice if you could live your life with no regrets? I already have a couple of regrets at the moment on this list, but I'm still young enough to turn these around.
I wonder if Nicholas Bate know's about this? It would tie in nicely with his Be Bold 101 book.
Productive Brainstorming Requires that you Separate Creative Thinking from Critical Thinking
I had first hand experience of this productive brainstorming at the weekend when I was collecting some ideas for a journalling application. The problem was that each idea I had was quickly followed through by my more critical side asking "How would that work?". As soon as I had an idea I would quickly invalidate it by thinking that it would be too difficult to implement. You're not going to get any ideas by doing this.
Looking back I should have simply put my ideas down first without giving them a second thought about how they would be implemented and then let them incubate.I do this quite a lot with a blog on mind mapping, but it's something that I had forgotten about at the weekend when I was trying to be creative and generate some ideas.Let your ideas grow in your mind for a while before applying the critical thinking to them.
I would recommend at least a few hours or even a couple of days between creative thinking and critical thinking.The time when your ideas are in an incubation period can give you a chance to reflect on your ideas. This isn't time when you should be thinking about the critical aspect of your ideas, instead it's just a time for the ideas you have, to sit and do nothing.While they're doing nothing you might trigger a thought to a more refined idea. Then again you might not.
You don't lose anything here but it does mean that when it comes to the critical evaluation of your ideas, you'll be familiar with each of the ideas you originally had and you'll be ready to apply some critical thinking to them.
