This Week
I’ve been surprised by enjoying the slower pace of things. Like I said last week, onboarding to a new company can be a slow process. It can take a minute for internal ducks to line up in order for the fast pace of consultancy to kick in. As it stands, I’m enjoying the calm before the (potential) storm of project life, daily stand-ups, ceremonies and the like. It’s nice to book in chats with teammates and use this time to get to know my new colleagues. In a remote-first world, creating “spontaneous” coffee break chats has to be intentional and pre-booked. One of the reasons I moved away from contracting and freelancing was to benefit from having a team around me, so using this slower period to forge relationships has been good for me.
One thought
I’ve spent some time this week thinking on this blog, and more specifically week notes. As I’ve gone through my week, I’ve been reflecting on the go. Throughout the ups and downs of routine, surprises and life, I have been unexpectedly slowing to process what I’ve been up to. It’s a common refrain across design practice that constraints make you a better designer. Having the dedicated This Week/One thought/Up Next format in the back of my mind has given me a surprising anchor as I go about my week. To be clear, I don’t mean in the sense that I’m some great philosopher and everything I do and think is so profound they merit individual essays, in-depth study, and multipage blogs. But more in the sense of:
“Have I done something worthwhile to talk about?” ”Have I thought about crunchy problems or concepts that I can share?” ”Have I planned the next few weeks?”
Going into this practice of week notes, I knew it would involve reflection but, I didn’t anticipate that it would develop into continuous reflection and so early into starting these notes.
There is of course the possibility that the answer to any of these questions is “no”. And without guardrails a “no” here could feed into hustle and grind culture. I could easily fall into the trap of doing things for content so I have something to write about. But I am comfortable with any of those questions leading to a “no”. There will be quiet weeks, weeks where I’ve been too busy or tired to contemplate what’s been going on.
Up Next
I’m sitting comfortably in the quiet. I’m sure in a few weeks time I’ll be missing days that can be spent focusing on upskilling and virtual coffees. So while the water is calm around me, I’m quite happy to sit and enjoy that. Anyone that has ever worked in client facing roles knows that these periods don’t last long.