From Saturday morning until a few hours ago I’ve been, as my wife would describe it, in my cave. I was a little grumpy, not very communicative, wanting to get off by myself to ‘work.’ I came out of the cave as I realized more clearly what I can do and what I can’t do as I go forward. For one thing, I’ve realized that I can only work on one programming project at a time. If I’m in the middle of a project in my job, then there’s no room for a side-project. I may want there to be, but I have needs in other areas of my life that require attention each week. So as of today, there’s a single programming project I can work on and no more!
Another realization I came to was that it is not enough to just dream about what I want to do with regard to helping non-profits, being a social entrepreneur and/or working for myself. I’ve always been scared of talking too much about these desires because of the security of my full-time job. So, as of today, I’m no longer just dreaming, I’m going to work on a goal and make my dreams a reality!
Two positive things I did this weekend are (1) serendipitously meet with Canyon Russell and talk about GTD, and (2) make progress on the silent auction for the Sound of Hope banquet. Canyon is the IT Manager at Vidoop and since he was looking for a good coffee shop to work at, I recommended Vivace, where I also frequently work. He was writing a draft of a blog post on his implementation of GTD and I was mostly a sounding board for his ideas. The discussion gave me motivation to pay attention to how I implement GTD, which is not very well right now. It also helped me to realize that I need to have my own tasks flow from my projects which should flow ultimately from my goals for myself. Thanks for that, Canyon!
On the second positive thing I did, working on the silent auction, I was able to really put into practice some of the GTD thinking about projects and tasks, where you ‘capture’ ideas and setting aside time to ‘organize.’ And the acts of carrying out the tasks for the auction were great for giving me a connection with the children and women in Rwanda who were are ultimately helping, and with my daughter who is teaching those children right now.
Today I spent a part of the early afternoon getting organized. I also finished off some tasks on my to-do list. One thing I remember from reading some career resource a couple of years ago is that you need to just try new things, not plan everything in your life based on what you think you want. By doing something different, trying a new task, you will learn more about yourself and what works for you, what you like and what you don’t like. When I decided to try computer programming back in 1983 or 1984, it was because I was good at and like math and because a good friend thought I would like it. It was clear after taking some courses that I was good at it and that I liked it. So I had learned something about myself and applied myself to a software engineering career. Twenty-five-odd years later, I am realizing that it is not all that I want to do. I still love the technology, enjoy figuring things out and writing programs, but I need more in my professional life.
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