Weeknotes 0 - Why now?
(1 minute reading time)
I’ve been tech leading full time for over 6 months now. I was pretty sure my Github graph had deteriorated. Turns out the graph doesn’t look that different, but it was never a good picture. What it doesn’t show is the activity I undertake as a tech-lead that isn’t coding.
I’ve been praised for being good at tech leading, with my general instincts and soft skills. A People Person. These are never quantifiable, so it’s invisible. It’s notional and subjective really that I’m doing ok. This causes me anxiety.
I keep a log of all the stuff I’ve learned (this has lapsed a lot) since I joined GDS. It’s a Trello board with a list called Things I know now. Essentially a log of techniques, tricks and coding concepts that I had not known before. When I’m having a bout of Imposter Syndrome (a big, bad SYNDROME) I look over this and remind myself that there will always be people who are better than me, but what matters is that I learn from them and improve myself.
I don’t have anything like that for the “soft” stuff.
A good friend of mine was asking me the other day over lunch what Weeknotes was all about. I showed her Steve Messer’s. And she then asked “what’s the point?”. As I was explaining, I realised that I don’t have a log of what I have experienced as a tech lead.
I told her “I’m going to start writing Weeknotes”