Index
Blog Cadence
I haven’t been making blog updates as frequently, and likely won’t going forward. Part of this is because the novelty of my blog site has worn off, but within “novelty” there’s something to unpack as to why I started this blog.
7 years into software development and all my work was tied up in companies I didn’t own, and was work within teams, on features within much larger projects. That’s mostly fine. Working as part of a team is fun, and I’ve gotten to work with some wonderful and inspirational people.
However, that sort of team work leaves gaps in one’s skillset that are hard to address (or even identify sometimes) within the scope of team work. Within the scope of this blog site I wanted a space where I was responsible for all the architecture decisions, undertstanding infrastructure costs, choosing between vendors, and delighting in frontend optimizations that I hadn’t had opportunity to handle in my (primarily backend) development roles.
These are all open-ended skillsets where I could spend near-unlimited time honing those skills, but in those areas I’ve now achieved what I wanted to achieve within the scope of this site, at least enough to focus on other endevaours.
Climb for Perspective
One analogy, heard many times across many formats, is that big goals are best tackled in small chunks (or keep the ladder rungs spaced close together, or climb the small stairs rather than the cliff face, or eat the whale one bite at a time).
One thing often missing from this analogy is that as you make progress towards the initial goal, a few important things will likely happen:
- your perspective of the original goal changes
- new goals present themselves
- goals previously discarded as “impossible” can be reconsidered
To combine the “small chunks” analogy with another analogy I like about local maximums, we need to climb the hill one step at a time, and as we’re climbing we need to enjoy the scenery; while we’re looking around we might see another taller hill we’d rather climb.
I’m not abandoning the blog, but my focus has shifted. It’s time for the next step.
Looking forward to sharing it with you here (occasionally)!