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Right approach, kind words, not getting mad is what I need to show when I’m interacting with my wife and my kids.

I might be tired. I might be in a bad mood. But under no circumstances I can show off anger. Under no circumstances I can yell at them. In those situations, it’s better to be quiet. It’s better not to say anything. That’s how I can control the situation.

I have to show love for my wife and family. I don’t want to blame anybody. I want to blame myself. I know I am a leader and I can be a leader. In this situation, it’s a loss-loss situation. In that case, I want to put a blame on myself. I did save the leadership article in my evernote. I should probably reread that. But that’s how I want to react when something goes wrong. And I should probably be explicit about it.

It’s a good thing that I am waking up early again. But I’ll have to be more disciplined about what I do when I wake up. I need to get into a habit of going straight to the shower without opening my phone first.

Time to adjust how I work. It’s about time. They have been gone for more than a month. And only yesterday I set my clock to original wake up time, 5:15.

Starting from today, I will write my goals before I go to sleep. Could be right after I brush my teeth. Then early in the morning I will spend 5 minutes or more writing out what I have learned. It doesn’t have to be technical. It can be family oriented. But I owe it to myself. I owe it to my family.

My wife has been complaining about me lately. I am not taking it lighly. I refuse to accept what she says. I need to take blame on my shoulder and admit that it’s my fault. It’s very hard to do. But on the other hand, that’s the only way of dealing with my wife, I think. PLus, that’s the leader’s way. On top of that, I need to argue and discuss but don’t raise my voice. I really need to calm down. 

It’s been a long time. I am a bit out of touch. Things are not as they should be. Things can be better. I can make them better!

I also need to be more disciplined. When I’m tired, I need to go to sleep. I need to wake up at 6am on the weekend. If my wife asks me to stay, then I shall accomodate her. That’s why we are together. To be here for ourselves, to help each other.

I am big on learnng. I’m learning a lot in my new role. Learning about leadership. Learning abot how to be a better programmer, beteter manager. To that end, I”m going to implement a  few things.

Official learning program

I am going to ask that guys read 1 book every quarter that I pick, and 1-2 that they pick on their own. I want them to review what they learned from the book, or a section of the book if someone already reviewed it. I think this is going to force guys into thinking that learning is required.

Yearly goals

I am going to ask my guys to come up with yearly goals. What do you want to be known as at m6d? What kind of developer you want to be? What reputation do you want to have?

That said, this is also going to affect me. It’s going to affect how I work, but it fits nicely to what we do, how we work, what we want to be known as.

goals and learning: remember, my goal is to write everyday, and ideally both, goals and learnings

I have a good interview question that seems to be getting a lot of candidates caught. It’s very simple function to find common elements in 2 arrays. So far, 2 out of 2 candidates got “caught” by it. Too bad, but also good that we’re able to reject them.

My UML learning is not going so well. I read, read, read… and don’t practice. I need to change that. UML is all about practice, about getting comfortable with the diagrams, so when the time comes, I will be able to step it up and do a drawing on the board. That’s the end goal. That’s what I want to be able to do comfortably. Lots of learning to do to accomplish that. But this UML book is very good. I learned a bit about class diagrams and also about state diagrams, which are useful as well. So for into my UML learning, I discovered the state diagrams and time diagrams, which might come useful some day.

Should I do something about my memory and ability to concentrate? I don’t know. I don’t think so. I’ve been like that every since I can remember. I have some deficiency that I have to learn how to live with. I think one of the things that can help me is to take better notes. Just the other day, as I was reading the WSJ, I came across an interesting fact about retirement savings. I re-read it and created a note about it. That puts in the the longer-term memore of my brain. That will help me remember things. I should do that more often.

I am getting back to the basics. I am trying to write my goals before I go to sleep. I am writing this journal pretty much every day. On my way to work, I focus on reading tech material. I spend a bit of time at work to better myself. It’s all coming together. All forming a road for improvement. My current topmost goal is to improve my diagraming skills as well as domain knowledge at work. I learn by reading code. Hmm. I should do more of that. Just a week ago, I did that and the results were good: I got to understand the sgd model builder. Wow. I think that’s what I should do more! That will also allow me to see more code.

Yesterday my son was playing with a dial on a stove. I came up to him and told him very sternly that I don’t want him to play with that. It’s not a toy. I made that with a high voice, almost screaming, and perhaps I pulled his hand hard, according to mommy. She got upset and since then she’s not talking.

Did I do something wrong? 

Or should I have done it differently? Perhaps. I think so. I don’t have to yell, that’s one — making a stern statement does not have to require screaming. And also, I should be more gentle with him, as it really does not warrant that type of behaviour from my side. I will try to refrain from that type of behaviour.

Something related, am I spending enough of quality time with my kids. I would have to say no, I’m not. I’m more interested in doing my own stuff, reading my own stuff, rather than spending time with my kids. Is it too much to ask to spend a good hour with them every day? I don’t think so. And in fact, there is really no reason of why I should not be doing that. Be sill, be fun, enjoy it with them! Time flies and I will regret it. I think the problem is that I don’t know how. But that should not matter. As long as put in the effort, I think the results will come.

What do I want to be known as? What do I want to accomplish as a developer? Which direction do I want to go?

I think there are a few areas where I need to focus on.

I need to be more comfortable in the domain knowledge. I need to keep learning. I need to keep digging. I need to get more comfortable with the systems. I noticed yesterday that after I go through code,  I understand more. So all I need to do to really understand the systems is to step through and see how they work. After I do that, I think I can have a lot of input.

Yes, I am not a quick thinker. Yes, my memory is bad. But it is good when I put things into context. So it’s good if I put enough effert to it. And that’s what I want to do. 

Yesterday I was stepping through the sgd model builder, and it suddenly occurred to me that the process is not that complicated. It’s actually pretty simple.

To answer my original questions, I want to put focus on testing and test-driven development. I want to push people in that direction. I think I have enough knowledge and enough motivation to do so.

My goal now is to collect 2 pomos every morning and at least 1 on a weekend. I need to start feeling that I am doing all that I can. I also keep forgetting about setting goals every night before I go to sleep. That helps me stay motivated. And it only takes a minute or two.

I am learning the systems that we have at m6d. But I still need to learn more. My goal is to spend some time every day, even 5 to 10 minutes and learn something that I am not sure about. That’s going to help me gain knowledge, gain experience.

I am also learning UML. It’s something that I need to do well in order to be succesful. And I need to be comfortable with that. I almost finished the UML book. I have another one to read. Then I will want to re-read some of the material and make some practice graphs. I need to learn to remember.