Winging it

Written Jul 4, 2023, tagged under post,knowledge,learning,affirmations,jest,AeroPress

Today has been all over the place. Some definite pros, but quite a few cons too.

The good bits

I've been working in London today, and have very much enjoyed the fact that networking has been completely reliable. No Zoom calls dropped, no Citrix losing contact, no ... anything really, just everything working as it should.

The journey in was pretty straightforward too - and gave me the time to get search working on this site as well, which I'm pleased about. One day soon I'll write a post about how this works, but in general I was able to take what I set up for the previous incarnation of this site and just tweak it a bit to make it run even better. Nice!

There's great coffee in the office. In the same vein, I also had a nice quick chat with a guy who brought his AeroPress and hand coffee grinder in and made his own coffee on the spot. I appreciated the ritual of that.

Not so good

My dad is not in a good way.

This business with a OnePlus update breaking my phone has been REALLY ANNOYING. Apart from when I'm actually in the office, I'm pretty well disconnected.

The trains heading home have been pretty disrupted - although, on the other hand, it's given me time to write this post.

While I feel like I've been building up some great knowledge around my job, there are some definite areas of work where I have knowledge gaps. In these areas, I feel like I'm rather too much "winging it". I'm looking at you, Jest.

What am I going to do about it?

To get past the "winging it" feeling, I'm going to have to really get my head down and learn what's going on, in detail - that's DETAIL - around Jest. There's an awful lot of magic behind the scenes, and my knowledge in this area just isn't strong enough to really be able to bring it all together. This should hopefully take me a bit past the point where I'm just copying existing examples and trying things I read on Stack Exchange.

Has anyone got any good recommendations in this area? I'd love to hear them if you do...

Affirmations update

Ellie agreed with me that affirmations are a bit like sankulpas - they're both about giving your subconscious something to take hold of, steering attention. I've come up with three that are relevant to my situation, around eating, time usage and sleep.

It is interesting how, after repeating a statement of intention, it comes to mind when taking decisions that have a bearing on it. For instance, when I was out picking my lunch option today, the wording of my affirmation in that area came to mind and influenced my decision as to what to eat.

Let's see if it makes a difference tonight when it's time for bed.