Summer Ends
This is a beautiful song because summer really has ended.
Throughout this year, I have written less and read less, and I don’t feel good about it. Before this, during my free time, I was both productive and efficient, feeling in the flow. So, I started to think about why and tried to return to that state.
In April, I went to China for work and met an IT professional. The CTO told me that maybe I was experiencing a bottleneck period.
But now it’s already September, summer is over, and I have spent the most part of the year in Beijing, still trapped in this mainstream state.
I want to figure it out.
Model
Firstly, the lifestyle (contract for survival) here is different from Hangzhou. When I was in Hangzhou, I could rent a place near my office and walk to work. I had my own bathroom in my room, which was very convenient. However, in Beijing, if I use the same approach, I would have to live in an old unit, a building even older than me! Worse still, I would have to share everything, including the bathroom and kitchen, with the neighbors. So, you have to hope that your neighbors are nice.
As an introverted person, I just want to live alone.
Once I adjust the scale of my career, I will immediately rent a new place. I will move out at the end of this month, and I won’t be coming back after one year.
English
Before, I used to read at least 10 books per month. However, recently I have restricted myself to reading only English books, and the number has significantly dropped. I can hardly finish one book in a month.
Without books, I feel uneasy. Without input, there is no output. This is also why I haven’t been blogging or continuing the “Little Master” series. Needless to say, I am forcing myself to write all new blog posts in English.
Procrastination
This seems to be a common problem. But after studying GTD extensively, I found a healthy circle based on polyphasic sleep. I can complete more than 16 pomodoros a day.
Once I returned to work, I only focused on doing the tasks I wanted to do. I still believe that my efficiency is quite high.
Although I have outsourced some tasks instead of doing them myself, preparing for the IELTS exam and working hard are still big challenges for me. Not only because I don’t know the start date, but also because my colleagues don’t understand. I have to write about 70% of the code in the main project and even rewrite some features. I want to find a way to manage our new team (currently I’m considering a TL assistant).
Therefore, I have tried all the apps that were recommended, and I feel that they have really improved my situation.
Slack
I’m not talking about Slack, although I plan to write some code for our CI based on its API.
I have found some solutions for the problems I encountered, but I will have to work harder to overcome them in the future. For example, I hope my colleagues will write more, read translated versions of books, quit certain habits, and so on.
So, I dare not expect too much.
That’s it, winter is coming.
Translated by gpt-3.5-turbo