How is it Thursday already?

Well, first, we had snow, and a weekend, and so I didn’t do these. Then it was Monday, and I snoozed the reminder all day. Then it was Tuesday, and I was still feeling bad about not doing it on Monday, then Wednesday came ‘round, and, well, I was really busy and just didn’t get to it, so here it is Thursday.

Further, since I didn’t bother doing the other think I said I’d do, I don’t have any notes from those days, so I’m going to be doing this from memory.

On Friday, I was surprisingly busy at work, and did a phone screen, which also involved writing feedback about said phone screen after avoiding writing the feedback for a while. There were also various meetings and suchlike, and I had to work on a report that I send out periodically to update mostly uninterested people about the progress that my team has been making. It took enough time that I considered putting an entry on the report saying “Spent 3 hours working on this report.", but I didn’t.

I did not have time to walk on Friday, but I did get lots of important work done, while also fielding questions from my contractor about lots of finish details.

Saturday and Sunday were lost to snow, so I sat inside, snuggled with puppers, and watched personally edifying videos on YouTube (mostly about how to play chess without looking stupid, but also about accents on the North American continent, but also some stuff relating to DIY home remodeling).

Monday was fun. I did make it back to “the office”, but I had to take a different route because my normal route contains a small but steepish hill which was covered in snow, ice, and slush. I did some stuff at work on Monday, mostly by working on a 2021 plan for my team.

Tuesday was one-on-one day; those went well, and I also had some other meetings of varying importance, got clarity with some of the tech leaders in the org about how the team should be thinking about some of the work we’re doing, and worked out what my actual report should look like after having written a draft.

Wednesday , I did a second draft of the report, and sent it off for feedback, then I had to do some reading. We’re reading “The Phoenix Project” (we == my director’s leadership team == me and all the other managers in his org), and since it was at my suggestion, I thought I’d re-read it again so I look like I’ve read the book when we talk about it.

It turned out we did not talk about it, but that’s okay because we talked about a bunch of other good stuff.

Then, I had a session with my counselor wherein I was frustrated that I didn’t successfully and completely instill several new habits into my routine in the two weeks since last we met.

Yes, I understand that expectation is ridiculous now.

I did have a bit of an epiphany, though: apparently, taking a shower at the beginning of my day matters. My completely unscientific experiment wherein I noticed that I seem to do better on days when I start with a shower than on days when I do not shower. Weird.

Anyway, no lists today; I decided to do it in narrative form.

I did take a shower today. :D

I need to remember to take my own advice

Remember yesterday when I said “Maybe I start writing them down at the time…”? I forgot to do it. But, you know, oh well.

Things:

1. I got my project review stuff done before the working meeting instead of doing it during. Cookie for me!

2. I had a very productive 1:1 with the person whose promo I’m working on.

3. I did not eat a lot of everything.

I need to do these earlier in the day

Of course to do them earlier in the day, I need to get to my desk earlier which hasn’t happened this week. The bed is warm and cozy and there are puppers and the world is Out There, and it’s just nice to have a nice snuggle in the morning.

1. I drank two pint glasses of water. Apparently, I need more positive feedback around this than I get with merely the physical effects of being hydrated.

2. I finally had an appointment with my ARNP. (Now I have to go in and do my labs)

3. I did a bunch of work on the promotion stuff for my team member.

In retrospect, it would be easier to do this if I made notes at the time I do the thing. Maybe I start writing them down at the time when I feel the actual dopamine from doing the thing, so that I’ll remember, and maybe get some more dopamine when I read the notes to write it here.

Too Busy Tuesday

So, the deal was, I was supposed to do this every day. I do not seem to be doing it every day.

It’s supposed to be the first thing I do in the morning. I do not seem to be doing that, either. For instance, it is 10:30AM as I write this. I slept in this morning, and had to jump right into meetings and work, and snoozed the task for a while.

However, I still think this has value, so I’m going to keep doing it.

Some quick updates: I walked for three days last week, and then I stopped because I got busy, and then I was off work, and, well, just stopped.

Three things from Monday:

1. I reached out to the QA manager, and offered to assist her with bridging the gap between PM and Dev to get more alignment about how to integrate QA better into our decision making about priorities. We chatted, and she was delighted to have the additional perspective.

2. I was in a review one of my direct reports was conducting. I kept my mouth shut almost the entire time. :)

3. I did lots of chores.

4. Bonus: I took a shower!

On Tuesday, I was kind of a powerhouse. Some highlights:

1. Many many useful 1:1 meetings; got some goals taken care of, and got clarification from my leadership about expectations.

2. I got all of the feedback requests sent out for a promotion I’m working on for one of my direct reports. I also found an assessor for the promotion. Huge!

3. I took a shower! (2 days in a row!)

I took Friday off

So, I took a day off on Friday; and ignored this over the weekend. So, it’s working out well, so far.

Much of last Thursday, I bounced around from meeting to helping Scott figure things out to another meeting and so forth.

I don’t feel like I did anything particularly useful, helpful, or positive on Thursday; I was just really busy. Not a good sign that.

On Friday, though, I did do a couple things:

• I got my old MacBook Pro upgraded to Catalina, something I’ve been trying to find time to do for a while, and it was blocking me from getting that laptop functional and useful.

• I helped Ryan (my GC’s helper) figure out what moulding we needed to finish off the project. If we hadn’t had to change plans a bit here and there, I had the moulding order spot on. But, plans change, so we had to do a supplemental moulding order. That’s sorted now.

On Saturday, I did another useful thing:

• Finally got my old laptop back to where it was: triple-booting MacOS, Windows 10, and Linux Mint. But, it’s now upgraded to Catalina from High Sierra, Windows has all of its updates applied, and I upgraded from Mint 18.3 (which loses support in April of this year) to 19.3 (which is good for a few years).

On Sunday, well, it was Sunday, so what I did was unload the dishwasher, and watch the Super Bowl (which was just awful; really, KC? No touchdowns at all?)

The last time I walked was Wednesday. It’s really hard to care about that right now. I’m working on it.

Is it Friday yet?

Nope, it was Wednesday. However, this week, Thursday is my Friday, so I got that goin’ for me, which is nice.

I did a bunch of stuff, but it’s getting difficult to remember when I put off writing these until another full day has passed.

Note to self: write the damn things in the morning; the original purpose here was to get a jumpstart on the day , not to be drudgery I do at the end of the day.

On to the things:

1. I’ve got another new person joining the team, and I got the ball rolling on getting them an offer.

2. I took another lunch walk, 1.3 miles this time. My legs still hate it, although I did notice that around 3/4 mile, the kinks started working themselves out. I need to find my good shoes, though; they’re hidden somewhere and my current shoes are pretty broken down.

3. Two of the members of my team presented design documents today, and the most important thing I did regarding those reviews was to mostly keep my mouth shut and let them talk it through, and then privately tell them they did a good job on their docs and their reviews.

Four in a row; good, right?

Okay, yesterday was a day, but I won’t dwell on that because this is for affirmations, self-positive-feedback, whatever you want to call it.

1. Tuesday is 1:1 day, I have 3 or 4 schedule 1:1s every Tuesday, and yesterday I had 3 scheduled, and 1 ad hoc. I found out that my manager satisfaction rating is high, and is pulling up the average for my reporting chain, which is nice. I talked with the new Sr. PM in charge of DEI for our org, and built a good rapport with her. I talked about career growth with two of my direct reports, and gave them some ideas to think about. 1:1s were a net positive today. :)

2. I went for another lunchtime walk, this time for a bit more than a mile. Still hate it, which means I have to give myself positive reinforcement.

3. I led a discussion about a book my leadership team is reading (which I suggested), and we had a great discussion around team & org culture.

I’m writing this in the morning (which was always the plan), and that makes it a lot easier to remember the good things from yesterday.

Also, a bonus item: I cooked dinner last night; filet mignons, perfectly medium rare, and broiled asparagus. It was pronounced “tasty” by the Sweetheart.

Mondays Are Hard

Almost forgot to do this today. Gonna be a short entry, I guess, and because I put it off today (more on that in tomorrow’s entry), I’m having trouble remembering three things.

1. Well, probably the most important and useful thing I did yesterday was to actually take my lunchtime walk. I’ve been out of the habit for some time now (because Reasons), and didn’t really want to, but I decided it was February 1st, and I promised myself I’d begin walking again on 2/1, so I did. It was almost a mile. I didn’t like it.

2. I didn’t work late. As a matter of fact, I worked just the right amount of time. And I spent it working on Career Goal Planning.

3. I didn’t forget to put the trash out; I remembered, and I did it.

How many times does it take to instill a new habit?

All right, so, I had planned on doing this on weekday mornings, and talking about things from the previous workday. Then, I sort of decided to do it every day, and then I didn’t do it over the weekend. So, I’m going to start with Friday, and talk about the weekend. Here’s Friday:

1. I got the biweekly projects review spreadsheet filled out and was able to talk about my team’s projects at the meeting. That was nice.

2. I helped my contractor solve a problem; I do that more often than one might seem, and it always feels good when I can help fix a construction problem.

3. I was out of energy when I got home from work and instead of just curling up in the fetal position and alarming Sweetheart, I talked about my feelings, and let her help me solve the dinner problem. This sounds small, but I need to reinforce this behavior.

So, over the weekend, I Had Plans. And I’m sad to say, I didn’t accomplish any of those plans because I was still worn out from the week. So, instead, I tried that “human being instead of human doing” thing and just rested, hung out with my sister, and watched terrible TV on Saturday. I did take time out to do one good thing: I played instructional chess over a board with Monkey, my daughter. In the game where we were talking through our moves, she beat me. I made one mistake (hung a knight), and she saw the rest of the game pretty well. I think all of that counts.

On Sunday, we slept late, and snuggled with puppers who were very snuggly. I procured breakfast for us, then we watched some documentaries about WWI, particularly a couple about the Battle of the Somme. I got some rest, and learned some stuff I didn’t know, and that was cool. We ate leftovers (instead of ordering food, also a good thing).

More tomorrow.

Intro to Three Things

So, I was talking with my therapist, or counselor, or person who knows me better than I do, whatever you want to call them, and we collaboratively discovered that, like many other humans, I require positive feedback. Who knew? I get plenty of positive feedback from other people about the things I do, but it turns out that I rarely give myself positive feedback about anything. So, this is my attempt to remember, each work day, three things I did the day before that was useful, helpful, positive, good… well, you get the idea. So this is the inaugural entry of my daily affirmations.

No, I’m not going to read these to myself while looking in a mirror.

1. I got my team’s roadmap and “big rocks” reporting structure in place and ready to keep up to date

2. I spoke with two (2) managers, with whom I was not previously acquainted, about performance and career development of their employees, both of which are interested in transferring to my team.

3. I helped my contractor fix a problem with his laptop; the effort involved there was very small in proportion to the gratitude he expressed to me.

That third thing there highlights to me how small actions on my part can make a big impact on other people.