I need to learn to cherish progress. Today I only did two things in my checklist, but it was done. I also took the courage to re-build the small sharing with colleagues which I started to degrade in the past one month. It was much fewer frequency, but with a new commitment to stick to it. I enjoyed the 30-minute discussion.
It was then time for troubleshooting. I didn’t expect my colleague to join in as I felt bad if wasting time. But it was good, because when I started to talk, I can organize my mind better. To formulate the worry or the question and what we can do to confirm the doubt and answer the question. Finally, the problem that has been hold for 2 weeks can be solved. In the afternoon, I spent 1 hour extra alone to understand about the problem. It was too long but I got better understanding to review what was happening in the process of the troubleshooting.
It was good also to have the gathering with colleagues who joined at a similar time and then the group expanded. I can exercise to be relax and not putting too much expectation on what to talk about and then just be honest.
I was not sure whether I could finish the other task as the time was limited. But it was a good thing that there was a push, it was needed by the end of the day. I targeted 15 min but it became 30 min. Also I made mistake, re-sent, then recover another mistake, and then re-sent again. So it is a good reminder that I did a mistake and it was ok, just acknowledge and send it again. In other word, why do I usually worry too much about making mistake. It was also a reminder the importance of a simple random checking on whether the script works. I was almost not trying at all, only to find out the path error and then the typo error of the file name. It didn’t take me much time but it saves some troubleshooting time in the future.
My best friend also reminded me on the slides he sent to me yesterday. I haven’t read it, when I read it, I realized there are so many things that we can learn. So I opened up the coursera about the course on learning how to learn. It gives the concept of focused thinking and diffused thinking. I often used focused thinking, like how I studied last minute but in a very focused situation. This is good for a simpler challenge or problem. But when things get complex, we need to use diffused thinking where we need to relax and slow down before having focused time to integrate all the learning. In other word, because things are complex, we may go back and forth understanding things. Also, a smaller amount in each day is more important just like a regular exercise for those who want to build muscle.
The interesting part is that although I think a lot, it is difficult for me to write a lot. The original duration for writing this is 30 mins. But now it is only 16 mins past but I already feel like stopping. It is just like when we set a target for running and then halfway we feel tired and it seems that we cannot complete it. Sometime it is fine as things are limited and not every time we need to complete our target. At the same time, we need to be careful when we can stop for good reason and when we stop because we do not want to persevere.
A reflection is needed to see the problems we were facing. For instance, for the topic of the bi-weekly discussion I set with few colleagues have two objectives. The first one is problem definition and solving while the second one is learning. Initially I want to put learning as the first objective. But thinking about it again, I think problem solving is more important. Because learning for the sake of learning may be wasted if we do not apply it into some creations or problem solving. Whereas in most of problem solving process, we need to learn something new, but this time the learning has specific goals and it has to be applied instead of being stuck in only understanding the theory.
An example was the foundation where it teaches that business does not need necessarily start from ideas. But it is more on how to find the essence of the problems including which problems matter the most. For example, in my work, which are the irritating problems in running the tests and in measuring the results? Can I formulate the problem statement in terms of what is the problem and when does it happen and what we have tried to solve or perhaps characterize it?
A good friend also shared that usually problems in work come just about when he is going for holiday. So when the problems come again just before holiday, he already expected them and laughed about them. Most of the time, when there is problem, I hate it and keep asking why there is problem and why it has to happen now and not other time. How different it is if I consider having problems as normal just like everyday we may have new additional things to do that is unexpected, like as simple as receiving letters which we require to respond.
So, let’s learn to cherish progress including realizing that progress does not necessarily happen every day. Tomorrow I can be down again especially as there are more challenges these coming few days, but somehow time will past and I can go through all these in God’s grace.
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