Work Progress

Last week went by in a blur – I spent several days sanity checking the systmed tooling I had worked on prior. I forgot that I needed to integrate this with another service I had been writing. Now that the services are complete, integrated, and tested, I can focus on doing some UI development this week.

The UI feature isn’t “critical” but its main purpose is to ensure my customers can see or understand that work on the server is being performed when they interact with the UI feature that launches the aforementioned EC2 workflow.

In the coming weeks, I’ll be working on a plan to reactivate those early beta users, working on a deployment model for the application, and also figuring out a payment system (Stripe, etc…).

Once this scope of work is done – I’ll be assembling a launch checklist and making the actual product live. The work doesn’t stop there though.

In parallel, I’ll have to work on marketing and selling the product, while determining which set of features to tackle next (the list I have written down is quite large)…

Writing it Down

This past week, I had a wonderful conversation with my manager surrounding quarterly goals and I was reminded the impact of simply writing things down (big and small, simple tasks or complex).

Someone once told me, “Writing things down gives you the privilege of forgetting.” This reigns true for lots things like notes, to-do’s, grocery lists, or ideas that need to be revisited. But I’ve found that writing something down is often (for me) the first piece of tangible action of executing that goal or task.

We all know that writing down your grocery list is simple and easy to do, and mitigates the risk of us forgetting that awesome snack or beverage while shopping. I’m guilty of thinking I should write a list down and inevitably going shopping without one. I end up forgetting all sorts of groceries (essential and non-essential). It’s almost inconsequential if I forgot that ingredient or bag of potato chips.

In life however, writing down those big goals carries a bit more weight. I’m referring to the ones like “Save money for a new car.” or “Move to SOME-CITY to pursue a new opportunity.” As I said above, writing things down is often the first piece of action you can take towards that goal.

Once committed to paper, my brain starts working its way backward, solving for how to accomplish the task. Writing lets me sort and organize my ideas, visualize the information that’s been rolling around in my head all day, and gives me an idea of scope.

I start creating milestones, going over key facets worth exploring, gaps in knowledge/experience, and perhaps adding in timelines so those goals don’t collide with other parts of life (thank you Google calendar!). A plan of execution usually materializes and “suddenly” I have a path forward.

With that process quasi-completed, it’s a matter of execution (and sometimes adjusting) those plans.

I’ve found, often in my life, that writing down a seemingly large goal, tremendously helps with getting there. I’ve ran dozens of half marathons because my best friend and I sat down one evening to plan an entire year’s worth of running events (and then some). I’ve built big and small projects at work and at home, I’ve even become healthier by writing down fitness goals.

This is probably one of the main reasons why I’ve begun writing about building my startup – I’m letting the process take hold and following through. I’m excited about the work and I really can’t wait for all the good things to come.

Have a nice week!

• Jonathan