Young Hands Club

My old enemy the writing block/spinning/phobia/whatever was back in force this week, and I allowed this to mess up my other plans. In this moment I find myself glum about it: “couldn’t I have picked a path that didn’t need this? How’s the brick-laying profession these days?” I take heart by observing my stack of more prose output in the past three months than the previous however-many years; recalling that good things don’t tend to come easy; that strong help is here for the asking. I keep my faith that the results will be worth it.

As to the snowballing, or more to the point, believing that what Diana Coman said and I picked up about it is as useful as I say, it looks like I’d even have been better off saying “screw it, I’m not writing today” at least in the cases of Thursday and Friday. A less petulant improvement, then, would be more consciously (and publicly) admitting defeat and re-evaluating when time limits hit. Or better still, seeking help when I first get stuck and rescheduling to do something else if no one’s available to talk at the time. Overall, putting pride to the side.

The damage in detail: I got what I think are decent articles out on Tuesday and Saturday, leaving five days high and dry. Today included, yep; after the helpful discussion in channel I managed to soak up some time puttering around avoidantly then oh look, it’s the last chance to get to that review that I’d planned to have done already. For Monday there was mayyybe the excuse that I found more research was needed; though my journal for the day still confesses to some distraction and foot-dragging. On reading catchup, I got only 10 of the planned 25 hours. Preparedness for training sessions suffered too in the form of software/hardware difficulties, and while given my knowledge I was able to employ the class time productively, a result is that we’ve had to extend by one more session to reach the original goal.

I found the journalling helpful and enjoyable, though I didn’t keep it up every day.

I had also undertaken to review the partial week before my holiday, but again haven’t left myself the time. I’m unsure if I should now re-schedule this or write it off. In brief, I’d say I got the critical things done but did miss some plans.

Required tasks

Training development + delivery: 15h (final two sessions of the pilot run).

Catch up on recent logs and blogs + engage as necessary: 25h (2-5h per day).

Continue gbw-node code writeup series: 10h.

Weekly review (which really should also cover the last short week I missed doing one) and plan: 4h, aim to finish by Saturday. I’m thinking to try some end-of-day journalling to see if this makes the end-of-week reviewing less daunting.

Time permitting

Blog topics: vacation photos; thoughts on how V-based OS might work.

gbw signer (offline wallet) development.

This plan is ~20mins late.

Required tasks

1. Prepare IT resources for travel: ensure travel laptop, backups, keys, passwords etc. are in order: 3h, due Wednesday.

2. Finish accounting from Uruguay trip: 0.5h, due Tuesday.

3. Pack for two weeks in the frozen Northlands: 3h, due Wednesday. (I have a feeling my packing tends to take longer than it should, perhaps due to some O(n^2) “have I got everything?” algorithms, so I’d like to pay closer attention this time around.)

4. Issue third keksum genesis for the fixes discussed: 1h, due Wednesday (but Monday for my planning purposes).

5. Answer some mentions in #trilema: 1h, due Monday.

6. Forum reading + interaction: 3h/day.

7. Short week’s review, high-level holiday plan, and post-holiday re-entry plan: 4h, due Wednesday.

8. Daily blogging: 0.5h prep + 1.5h writing + 0.25h reflection + comments, Monday-Wednesday. The main priority I’m seeing is presenting the online wallet part.

9. Offline wallet dev: 12h by Wednesday, schedule update due Monday.

Time permitting

10. TRB research and patch iteration discussed in comments: 1, 2.

I see a number of things to be proud of this week along with some rather more painful to look at. I’ll start by reminding myself that facts are what they are, whether looked at or not, so there’s really nothing to lose from the looking.

There was my trip to Uruguay, which I figure I’ve documented well already. Still, from the reviewing standpoint, two areas occurred to me for improvement. First, staying engaged with the channel; perhaps I just need to stop viewing this as a chore, as after all I do tend to enjoy it – and psychologically, it’s been feeling even more “real” lately, between the trip and seeing others engage with my work. Second is better planning for re-entry to the routine, as in fact I had assigned myself upon having missed the previous weekly plan, but mostly ended up avoiding during the trip itself.

My first substantial day back on Tuesday I got that plan done, then seeing how packed it looked, went to the opposite extreme compared to my lately increasing brevity by carving things up into specific time slots, meals and everything. I’m really not sure one way or the other whether this exercise was useful to me: it may have refined my sense of how long things take or how much productive time fits in a week; it also reinforced my notion that no amount of finagling a schedule will make the tasks go faster. I do think that giving more deadlines was a helpful aspect for getting my priorities in mind each day, but I missed several: genesis regrinds, #trilema log reading (where I see I passively accepted the suggestion to postpone), digesting MP’s comments on my blog (though I checked in with him to acknowledge), and catching up on my remaining feed. Basically, once the schedule started to derail I tended to throw it out and double down on what I saw as most important for the day.

My blog articles all came in over time and over the assigned length. I’m not even sure if I should count this a bad thing, as I’m pleased both with the results and with having got the intended topics covered this week. I can certainly feed this continued conundrum into processing MP’s take on it.

On this morning’s patch review article, the obvious mistake in hindsight was thinking I was already set to write something, whereas understanding the patch required research in the codebase that really amounted to unplanned wallet dev time. The work on the online part ended up taking about double what I’d planned, as I had to revisit previous work to make some changes, clean things up, and correct mistakes. On the bright side, the named address set capability is a major improvement from the original spec. I didn’t manage the intended 8 hours on the offline part, which puts me behind on even being able to answer Robinson about an updated schedule for it.

For deadlines, I’ll use the convention that a given day means the end of that day in local time.

Required tasks

0. Derive daily schedule from this plan to see if it actually fits and with enough openings for the unplanned; update if needed. Due Tuesday (though probably should have been done already).

1. Issue WoT ratings: 1h. Due Tuesday.

2. Re-genesis yrc and keksum to include patch name prefix: 0.5h. Due Tuesday.

3. Finish accounting from Uruguay trip: 0.5h. Due Friday.

4. Catch up on #ossasepia log (6th-9th): 1h. Due Tuesday. (So far I’ve just skimmed).

5. Catch up on #trilema log. It’s looking to be on the heavy side; I’m thinking to skim and focus just on parts that seem relevant to me, understanding that this isn’t ideal. 6h as a wild guess. Due Thursday Friday.

6. Digest the extensive comments MP gave on my blog, at least for a first pass: 2h. Due Thursday Wednesday.

7. Catch up on remaining feeds: 4h as a wild guess.

8. Wallet: finish online component’s commands: 5h, due Wednesday Friday.

9. Wallet: start work on offline component: 8h.

11. Take delivery of FG parts shipped from USA (should be quick but hard to predict timing).

12. Daily blogging: 0.5h prep + 1.5h daily. Initial topics to include: reflections and photos from Uruguay trip; preliminary analysis of the polarbeard “sendrawtransaction” patch.

13. Forum reading + interaction: 3h/day.

14. Next weekly review + plan: 4h, due Sunday but preferably Saturday.

15. Training session: 2h, 21:00 UTC Wednesday.

Time permitting

15 16. Test newly acquired iron: 2h.

3 17. Finish accounting from Uruguay trip: 0.5h. Needs done next week for sure.

My main theme in this shortened week was captured nicely by my Master in a single line:

diana_coman: jfw: anyways, now you basically give people a lot of work to do to catch up with your code that’s finally published; I suppose that balances at least the writing-pain of sorts but I still feel like poking you in the eye for keeping silent for so long.

The feedback from my thus-burdened readers so far has been positive (even tentatively from Diana Coman!) and productive (especially from her). I’ll admit it felt great to start seeing some wider praise on the topics I’d originally envisioned myself writing about. Still, while celebrating the wins, I intend to keep my feet planted on the ground and remember that there’s a long way to go, in personal growth not to mention technology. Certainly it would be hard for me not to notice how much time the writing is still eating from my schedule, and all the more so on these technical topics where I’m often finding a drive to push on and add substance beyond the minimum. Some casualties of this overflow have been timely and attentive reading of others’ output, my wallet project, and timely travel prep:

diana_coman: kind of weird the sort of uncertainties you choose to live with :P

I owe better, both to myself and my colleagues old and new, and look forward to improving both in regards to achievable scheduling and productivity. At least on the wallet work I’m pleased with how much I’ve been able to get done given the limited time; it’s probable that the ongoing efforts at formalizing it in writing played a strong role here.

Required tasks

1. Blogging, 0.5h prep + 1.5h writing/day

2. IRC + blogs reading + participation: 3h/day

3. Wallet development: 5h

4. Training prep + delivery: 16h

I depart for Montevideo on Friday the 6th, returning Monday the 9th. I plan to take notes and photos for future material but not blog during the trip as I’ll be trying to make the most of the time on the ground. I’m uncertain when I should do the corresponding review and plan.

This week was a change of pace in several ways. My plan was packed (no change there!), Robinson and our main clients were out, and coding work had shaped up as the priority. Compared to my past intervals of heavy solitary work, this one had much more time in reading and writing human text relative to code. The TMSR-OS project came front and center as MP timed out on waiting for Trinque and offered Robinson the management role. On my end this meant expediting publication of my own work in the space as well as my other technical items. I set about finishing my ongoing article series and digging into the rest with vigor, and also boosted my forum reading and discussion time. It’s unclear if I’ve as yet absorbed the lessons of Kafka’s mouse, though I had fun attempting the translation.

I found Robinson even more tied up than anticipated, and I was surprised by his request for a third wallet article in addition to the time estimates already owed. In my mind, time was already tight, the tasks were as clear as they could be at that stage, and I just needed to get in the focused time on the coding. What ultimately unblocked me was setting the requested writing aside and just proceeding as if to code; this ended up stimulating the lines of thought necessary to clarify the spec and I was then able to write it. I think it ended up for the best to have taken the time, especially given the thought-provoking comment thread with MP that followed.

I managed to attend everything in my plan at least to a substantial degree, and some past debts I just couldn’t stand anymore such as my blog theme. I made heavier use of detailed schedules to get through each day, including ending them in time to ease myself into an earlier sleep cycle — with a big exception of today, what can I say. In several instances I found myself at least somewhat deliberately choosing to disregard the planned time blocks and push ahead with the task I was engaged in.

The work and discussion time ended up at 74.6 hours; still, morale stayed high, I got in at least some of my evening walks, ate simple but hearty meals, and managed some meatspace social time. Unfortunately I didn’t manage my proposed wallet milestone; I’ve been updating Robinson about the work but haven’t heard much back as yet. And this review is late; I’d scheduled it to be started earlier, but I still struggle to find the necessary pressure internally without an external deadline looming.

Required tasks

1. Blogging, 0.5h prep + *strictly* 1.5h writing/day = 14h

2. IRC + blogs reading + participation: 2h/day = 14h

3. Wallet development: 5h/day x 5 days for 25h total

4. Training delivery: 3h (the twice-weekly folks are off this week so this will be mostly existing material)

Time permitting

5. Head start on training prep for next week (the last for the year): 2h

Coming to 58 hours.

My subjective experience of this week, the first of my third decade and fifth of this new adventure, was of one heavy on the communications, especially in the longer written form, both with Robinson due to needing to move forward on work planning while he traveled, and with my Master through coaching on that process and a number of older topics returning to the foreground. Major threads included:

• Last week’s review;
• Hiking La India Dormida comments, where I crack one puzzle, fail another (which rather seems like it should have been obvious from the previous day’s thread), and provoke a dig in the archives (which unfortunately I’ve only skimmed so far but looks like it will be instructive);
• Decision making, roles of tech and management and communication between them;
• Initial analysis of my analysis, touching on proper handling of niggling thoughts, passivity, limits to considering things, getting out of a snippy phase quickly, and re-committing to reach and maintain a natural sleep schedule;
• More wallet planning and coaching thereon.

A recurring theme was my aversion to and lack of motivation in writing on the particular subject of myself. I’ve continued asking myself – “why?” Am I afraid of something? At this point I can’t see what that might be. Ashamed of something? Could be; I find some hesitation even in going to re-read things I wrote just a week ago. I remind myself that it’s a good thing to see flaws in my past: provided I see them specifically, it suggests I’m improving; but if I just look away, I clearly won’t learn much from them.

On communications, a small but important reminder was the basic courtesy of active acknowledgement, and of individual points for that matter. I’m noticing that this not only serves to put the other party at ease but can stimulate deeper consideration of the points yourself and further discussion.

In concrete outcomes, based on my plan I published five blog articles and installments; spent substantial time on discussion, though not as much as I’d have liked on background reading; worked out the pingback rescue ritual (though will need to re-run with sleeps because Trilema initially swatted some of the pingbacks for posting too fast); advanced the wallet discussion; and got in another two training sessions. Besides the plan, I confirmed my hotel booking in Uruguay as I hadn’t received the promised email; got my deedbot payments moving after a somewhat frustrating amount of back-and-forth; attended the Junto, made my requests for next year to my landlord and scheduled a visit for some minor work; and got a rather overdue (by my own tastes) haircut.

I noted at one point an interesting sensation of time having slowed down a bit: perhaps I’m managing to fit more in to the days, or the improved structuring and reflection on them is making them more individually noticeable.

As a closing anecdote that may shed light on the recovery from snippy-phase, I’ve started taking somewhat regular evening walks around the neighborhood, in part as a way to let off some steam when I might otherwise be tempted to lay about the apartment spinning. I’m quite enjoying it and a bit ashamed that I didn’t already have this habit, especially as a city dweller with so many potential spots to discover through exploration. On Wednesday or thereabouts, this brought out a particularly heated inner dialog:

“Huh, this is the first time in quite a while someone’s been on my case about quite so many things and on quite such a regular basis.”
“I don’t like it! I KNEW I wouldn’t!”
“Yet that’s why I needed it, and it’s exactly what I signed up for…”

At this point, I happened upon a leaky fire hydrant. Not gushing or anything, but sputtering vigorously. I wondered how long this had been ongoing. Had nobody noticed? Did nobody care? Intricately sourced, treated and delivered, drinkable water, ((it occurs to me I’m not certain if hydrant water comes from the same pipes…)) disappearing back into the earth without a trace. However small a sign (on a street that had been recently renovated even), the decay thread came instantly into focus.