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I had a good, if unpleasant, talk with my wife yesterday. I need more of those. I need to meet with her on a regular basis to answer a basic question: how do we improve our relationship. We have to figure out the little things that can make it better. The little things that can make us happier.

I am now fully committed. I cut off a branch that was distracting me. I cut it off and it’s not going to regrow.

I committed to a few things. And because I did, I am not going to relent. I will try all I can.

What are some of the things I will be doing?

Not fooling around with other girls. No cheap tricks. I’m over it.

Noticing that my wife is at a party. She needs to know she’s there for me and I’m there for her.

Putting “love roadblocks.” Those will be things that will strengthen our love. 

More to come.

I have not been committed 100% to my wife.  Was it 80%, 90%? It does not matter at this point.

I have crossed the line and have been “caught.” I should be ashamed of myself. But I’m not. Because I had been doing those little things, thinking about those little things. Those things were accepted. Those things were my little secrets. 

Secrets no more.

It’s time to change. I have caused some pain for my wife. It’s time to repay.

I think I”m ready to change as well. Those things provide no real benefit for me. 

So let’s cut to the chase. What will I change?

1. No more of those things. Those things can be done to my wife only.

2. No more fooling around.

3. No more hiding my family life, my kids, my wife. All of that I need to be proud of.

4. I will limit my habit to 1-ce a week. No more. Ever. If I want more, I will ask my wife. 

I know I will get tested. I will get tested on vacations, get togethers, etc. I will be challenged. I have to grow my inner self. It needs to get stronger. But I know what I want. I know how I want to look on the inside. I know how to look on the outside. 

Aug 31st is the death of a new Stas. Sept 1st is the birth of a new one. I am looking forward towards it. I really am.

I am going to propose some changes to the way our team works. I am going to propose that we switch to Kanban, with a few twists.

First, I think we should hold a weekly review meeting. In it, we’d present the finished PBIs.

What about the unfinished ones? One idea that I have is that we still put them in “In Progress” on the wiki page. And list days taken and days remaining. This could be manual or driven via jira.

We have a board split into phases

Backlog

Selected

Ongoing

Done

Deploy

Live!

I think I will build up a case and try to invite Yuva to our team meeting.

How to be an effective manager? It’s a learning process. I do feel that it comes naturally for me. But it’s not easy. Most people don’t know how to do it. I make mistakes as well.

But there are some very important things to focus on: feedback, honesty and challenge.

I need to listen. I need to give objective feedback so my guys can improve. It has to be honest and what I believe in. It’s dealing with personal feelings, so being careful also helps.

In our line of work, people want to be challenged. I like to see extra things being performed. I like to see people delivering more than asked. I subscribe to underpromise, overdeliver thinking.

I also value leadership. I feel my job is to make all of you leaders.

You were born with 2 ears and 1 mouth for a reason. Use it accordingly. I think that is a good message that stands out. Listen for feedback. Listen to complaints. And then act on it, don’t just talk. Think of a nose as the doer / director. 

I know people where that’s not the case. I know people where they do a lot of talking. Sometimes, talking for the sake of it. I don’t want to be that guy.

Even if I wanted to be the talker, I can’t. I don’t have those capabilities. And I wouldn’t want that.

Listening seems like a trivial thing. It’s not. It’s much harder to do. Because listening is also inquiring about it. It’s following up on what you hear. It’s acting on what you listen.

Another great quarter for A1. That is amazing, to be honest. I’ve made a few changes in the way we run. I listen to my guys more. I think it’s working out. 

But why? I think the primary reason is that I am setting expectations and having the guys meet them. They’re challenging. People want to get challenged. I do. I know others as well.

And the third thing is trust. I am almost letting those guys loose. Do your thing and come back when you’re done.

Am I ready to move on from dstillery? My pendulum is moving towards “yes, you should start exploring.” But I think I want to wait till 2015 at least. Why force it? I should get ready. I want to start learning algorithms more. I want to take a class on the subject perhaps. Something. Read a book. More of them. I need to start preparing if I want to join Google or some other top candidates.

I hope my sentiment changes. But I don’t want to lose that advantage. I want to feel confident again. I am losing that a bit. Time to change that trend.

Perhaps I am waking up too late. Maybe instead of 5:30 I should wake up at 5 or 5:15. I will consider that. But I can still accomplish a lot if the first thing I do every day is head straight down. No checking email. No opening up the phone. Straight down. Can I do that? I think I can.

Than what am I waiting for?

It’s really easy to become complacent. But it’s the strong that survive. I want to get back to writing and rewriting goals. Hmm, perhaps I should read the book that Thomas recommended. I think I should. Let me check Amazon.

However, as I have been observing, I should write my goals before 10pm. After that, there is really no point as I’m too tired.