The weather is unpredictable this time of year. Last Saturday, however, it was quite certain: rain all day. So, naturally, I went for a long gravel bike ride. I’ve never been this soaked and dirty for this long. Here’s what my (black) shoes looked like:
I thought I learned my lesson, but then on Monday I decided to take advantage of a meeting-free afternoon and a two-hour rain-free window on the forecast to go for a run. Ten minutes in there wasn’t a dry fiber on me. Well played, spring.
A pattern I’ve noticed: I play more video games when the rest of my life gets less certain or less enjoyable. The housing situation dragging for 2.5 months is a contributor to the uncertainty, and my current work to the lack of enjoyment. For the latter, it’s always a challenge balancing my focus between things I should be doing, which typically support others, and things I probably should delegate, which support me. I’ve learned that I do need to do that second type of work at least sometimes, despite it essentially being a snack, as it actually gives me fuel to do better on the other kind of work. I’m constantly getting this balance wrong and prioritizing others over myself, which results in a general lack of satisfaction at the end of the workweek. Combined with the fact that at my seniority level seeing the impact of my primary work can take months (if it’s even possible to clearly connect it to what I’ve done), many days feel like I’m expending a lot of effort for no payoff. This is where video games come in with their short feedback cycles and quick dopamine hits.
Anyway, I’m like 30 runs into Hades.
(Perhaps related to above) I remembered about the BICEPS model of core needs. Based on two minutes of thinking, I believe these are my priorities:
- Choice
- Improvement
- Equality
- Significance
- Predictability
- Belonging
These are all important to me, but the “distance” between each isn’t the same. While the top two are a toss up, the third isn’t in competition with them. Third to fifth are close to each other and, depending on the context, could swap spots. I put Belonging last, but I wonder if I’m fooling myself. This site is partially for that purpose, and I do generally feel happier within a community. But I also eschew anything that feels culty and am quite happy to do my own little thing in a corner for long stretches of time.
I wonder if the order of these will change in a year?
Watched:
- [finished] Dancing for the Devil. I thought I was done with cult shows, but apparently not. This was pretty good! The last episode is strong despite not providing closure. Priscylla took us on a journey and dropped some truth bombs.
- [finished] The Veil. This, on the other hand, was disappointing. No payoff whatsoever.
- Constellation S1E5.
- The Fall Guy. Yes.
- We Are Lady Parts S1E1-2. So good! This just jumped the priority queue on everything else.
Reading:
- Finished Kill it with Fire. This was great. The writing style makes it a bit difficult to have contiguous highlights (I used Readwise’s concatenation feature quite a bit), but the insights are worth it. The theme emerging in my work lately is the same as in this book: avoiding all kinds of traps that add risk to projects and companies in general.
- I’ve gotta brush up on some architecture fundamentals now, so I picked up a few books, which I’m skimming and bouncing between to avoid getting bored or overwhelmed (I don’t expect to read these cover to cover):
> it’s always a challenge balancing my focus between things I should be doing, which typically support others, and things I probably should delegate, which support me. I’ve learned that I do need to do that second type of work at least sometimes, despite it essentially being a snack, as it actually gives me fuel to do better on the other kind of work. I’m constantly getting this balance wrong and prioritizing others over myself, which results in a general lack of satisfaction at the end of the workweek.
Oh man I relate to this so hard, this is a constant challenge! I mostly go too far in the direction of doing things I should probably delegate, which isn’t great either 😬
Agree about Kill It With Fire, that book is great! More process-oriented than I expected, but I guess ultimately that’s always where the problems are.
> I mostly go too far in the direction of doing things I should probably delegate
I’m glad you’re doing that! It sorta balances out the overall system, since you’re definitely doing more than one engineer’s worth of that ‘delegatable’ work! 😄
Re: Kill it with Fire. I totally expected more tactical tips on how to migrate or retire systems, but I think other books like Working with Legacy Code kinda have that somewhat covered, and I had no regrets about learning the more process-y things indeed.
btw, had no idea you were following this blog! 😅 Welcome, and thx for stopping by.