I interviewed only three people this quarter and gave up on the idea that I'd be able to interview 52 people. I explained it in depth here In short, I didn't enjoy hassling people to interview them, and I wanted to spend more time deliberately meeting new people by going on dates and writing more songs. So I reformulated the goal to allow those activities to count.
Still on track! We just released our second album "Afternoon" (https://open.spotify.com/album/0PFrF51AG99NffATqCJNZR). We had a friend of the band do the cover, and it looks professional!
This past album had many challenges, and we tried to solve them as best we could in the little time we had to work on it.
It has a lot of variety on it. It terms of style there's everything from punk to country, and whatever you call "John Dickey" or "Hey G-Man." These songs were written in different eras also; some were written a few weeks/months ago, some a few years ago, and some a few decades ago.
Overall the album making process is fun. There are times when we have disagreements on how an instrument should sound or a song should be structured, but we usually come to an agreement that works for everyone. We also all go in spurts of working hard such that it feels like the ball is continually rolling.
Still on track!
Again, still on track! I stopped tracking smaller activities that take under 2 minutes (like brushing teeth or most bathroom visits), but besides that, I'm still happy tracking my time.
I'm not sure where I stand on this and am actively trying to work on my time tracking software to get this information as soon as possible.
It's been better recently but overall not that strong. I had planned on hitting the ground running once it got warm enough to ride my bike to work. However, in the first part of the quarter, it seemingly rained every day for two months. It's miserable riding in the rain, and it could be potentially dangerous for the equipment I have in my backpack, so I try to avoid it. Aside from that, it's mostly about waking up early enough to do it.
I got this one down.
This past quarter has been a bunch of ups and downs. I got bored with Carfax, applied somewhere else, but didn't get that gig ultimately. Then Carfax became exciting and challenging once again. However, out of nowhere, I met a startup owner at the bar while coding. He asked me to apply there. I did and eventually got an offer, but as of now, it's unlikely to be optimal enough for me to justify leaving Carfax.
Also, for the past few weeks, I've been dealing with a bit of burn out. I find myself not wanting to work on coding-related personal projects often. The time tracking software rewrite that will allow me to get feedback on how I'm spending my time is arduous and currently not that inspiring. Giving up on the interviews is something I feel needed to happen but still feels a bit wrong. Finally, I've probably been hanging out with other people more than my goals "will allow" As of now it's a zero-sum game and is causing me to feel distressed, but I don't want to deprive myself in that way.
There are some positives, however.
I feel like my coding style has drastically improved in the last few months. I'm finally designing and writing code that I'm proud of at Carfax. I feel competent and confident in my ability to make responsible and well-engineered products. Also, having been a part of a group conducting interviews for our team's openings and having interviewed at two other places myself, I feel like I have a much better sense of my strengths and how other companies can use those.
The stuff I do with Sizable is empowering. I feel confident and secure about our ability to make stuff that we are proud of. As I said, we all have our fair share of creative differences, but we're all committed to coming together to make this goal happen.
And that makes me feel good.