Ready to return to work

It's been a period of great change, but I have settled properly into the house with my beloved, and my study is finally in good shape.

I have long since learned the importance of putting one's working space in order, and as you can see, everything has a place.

Getting Better At This Coding Thing

Day 4 and 36 pomodoros in. I got stuck on writing Rspec tests, so I purchased an Rspec manual, studied it for precisely three pomodoros (black cells) and found I could write the tests I need. I have spent so far 3 x 20 minutes on study and 33 x 20 minutes on planning, writing, and coding for this exercise. The brevity of the study break excites me, because it is tangible, documented evidence that I have the intelligence, self awareness, and discipline to take a break from the main project, learn what I need, and then get back to work without wasting time.

100 Pomodoros for the Month of February

This cycle was dominated by study (black) -- Toy Robot, Ruby documentation, 'Rails 4 in Action' -- and job seeking (red) -- lots of calls, emails, and networking at the Ruby Conference (2017) in Melbourne, Australia.

Let's see if we can make it two hundred pomodoros for the month of February.

At any rate, it's been a very productive one hundred pomodoros so far.

Progress Chart With A Twist (Or Pattern!)

My beloved helped me to create a handy stencil for my white board, with which I make a chart like this:

The chart works like this:
Black = Study, i.e reading about Ruby, learning the concepts.
Green = Code, i.e. working on code that goes to Github.
Blue = Blogging.
Red = Job search, i.e. applying for jobs, calling recruiters, etc.

This is literally a progress chart, in the sense that it represents my progress, rather than how much of a goal I have completed.

The twist of setting up the 10x10 table with a repeating pattern of four colours, instead of a neater set of coloured columns, is that gaps are unsightly.  Each of these four aspects of my mission is equally important, and the discomfort of seeing an uneven distribution of filled cells induces me to turn my attention to activities I have been neglecting.

To be honest, I do not enjoy looking for work, and would much rather be busy coding and studying.  Blogging isn't too bad, but coding is more fun.

Nevertheless, until I get my first gig, my job is looking for work, and so the red cells have to be filled in first.

So far, so good.

Kanban Ticket Layout

Living a Kanban Life

I live a Kanban life.  Every morning, I consult my Kanban whiteboard to plan my tasks for the day, and get better every day at converting what needs to be done into tasks, and working through those tasks methodically.

The major drawback of this excellent tool is that one can lose sight of the big picture.
That's where my second whiteboard comes in.  I can use it for any kind of brainstorming.

As you can see, these two boards work hand in hand.

At the end of a week, I take all the DONE tasks and put them up on the brainstorming board, to take stock of my work, and to give myself a wee pat on the back.












Every week I find an appreciable improvement in my use of the Kanban system.

Returning to my routine

I have been using my Kanban board to get back into my routine after an exciting trip to America.
The key for me is to have in "Doing" only that which I am actively working on. This takes practice.