Two Week Streak. (Too weak streak?)
Hells bells. I’ve only gone and published a weeknote early! I’ve no hope of maintaining these lofty standards.
What did I learn?
This week I learned how to string an electric guitar and how to adjust the action.
I like having side-projects. I like learning new things. I like doing stuff with that newly acquired learning.
Often that learning has taken me down routes that are semi-related to my day job. Sometimes that’s good because it makes me better at the thing I get paid for. Sometimes that’s bad because it feels like I work a 60 hour week. So I’ve been trying out side projects that are totally unrelated to anything else I do.. like learning to play guitar.*
*I use the word ‘play’ in the loosest sense possible. But my 7 year said I look cool and should have a star painted on my eye. So there’s that.
What held me back?
Multi-tasking! I’m still perfecting the art of not undertaking too many things simultaneously.
About two weeks ago we decided to do a bit of an experiment of moving the team’s workflow over to Trello. When you sit down and map it out (as I did recently for a new joiner), we cover quite a lot of different service areas and systems. Trying to manage those competing demands can be serious head work without some sort of structure and visibility in one place. Enter Kanban + Trello.
As a long time semi-amateur Kanban enthusiast, I am aware of the dangers of too much ‘work in progress’. AND YET.. I still get caught in the trap of pulling too much work in the quiet moments and then getting buried in an avalanche during the busy times. Essentially I need to do better on smoothing these peaks and troughs out.
As for the Trello + Kanban experiment, next week we’ll review as a team whether this is delivering value or holding others back!
What surprised me?
This tweet (by own modest standards) proved to be quite popular.
We’ve had a flexible working policy in place for a while. I think it’s one of those massively positive benefits that is sometimes taken for granted when it becomes the norm.
Which is sort of what prompted this tweet by way of gratitude for having a degree of flexibility to fit around family life. I was quite surprised it garnered so much attention, which perhaps tells you about the depth of feeling people have for being able to make work harmonious with the rest of their lives.