Today’s post is going to be a bit different. I could tell you I designed a new, amazing app, but that would be a bald-faced lie. I actually have not done much coding in the past few days. Instead, my focus has been on creating a structure for my day now that I’m an official Flatiron School graduate.
You see, I know myself. I am an excellent student. I thrive on routine, high expectations, and accountability. My inner goodie-two-shoes comes out and absolutely slays.
When I’m on my own? My inner three-toed sloth comes out and naps. I struggle to make goals. I can’t stay motivated. A lack of structure turns me into a smart but ultimately useless pile of blankets and pillows.
To combat what I consider to be my greatest weakness, I have devised a two-pronged attack. First, I will create a Master Plan to structure and document my daily work activities. Second, I will reconfigure my working environment to set me up for success. To support my fellow Secret Sloths, let me show you what I’ve come up with:
The Master Plan
When designing my Master Plan, I first had to consider my end goal. In a nutshell, I want to land my dream job. Along the way, I want to keep learning and honing my dev skills. To do this successfully, I knew I needed an actual schedule. If I chose to work on whatever my heart desired each day, I would probably complete my Pokedex, but I would definitely fail to meet Flatiron’s job search requirements. So instead of leaving my time up to fate, I took a note from my teaching days and mapped out my hours.
I tend to use Google Suite for everything (I’m using Docs to write this right now), so I made my schedule in Calendar. I’m sure you could do the same in Outlook or whatever other calendar apps you prefer.
I broke down all the tasks I needed to complete on a weekly basis in order to comply with Flatiron’s requirements and penciled them in. I am pretty good about taking short breaks every hour or so, but I am terrible at remembering to eat, so I deliberately scheduled an hour-long lunch break each day.
I color-coded my events to better visualize how much time I’m spending in four main areas: job searching, writing, learning, and project development. I also set reminders so I switch gears on time and scheduled these events to repeat weekly. In the end, my schedule looks like this:
I am a sucker for lists. I have notebooks full of them. I get such a sense of accomplishment each time I cross something off. The problem with paper lists, however, is I never seem to have said list right when I need it, meaning I have to write a new list. Things get muddled and fall through the cracks. It’s time for me, a software engineer, to go digital. Crazy, right?
I looked at a few powerful apps like Trello and Todoist, but I ultimately decided to stay with good ole Google and try out Keep. I created a few pinned lists with these adorable headers from SlidesMania and stuck to the same color-coding as my calendar. Here’s what it looks like so far:
The notes on the second row are resources or ideas I have for this week. By the end of Friday, that row should be empty and ready for the next week’s activities.
I also added the Chrome extension and downloaded the Android app so I could make notes and add to my lists on the fly. I’m loving Keep so far.
A Cleansing Breath
It may be only January, but both my physical and digital workspaces are in need of some serious spring cleaning. Having worked from home for the past few years, I have the luxury of a nice home office. After the holidays, however, my office has become cluttered by leftover craft supplies, puppy toys (Baby Juju always wants to play), and the random odds and ends I shoved in here just before guests arrived. In short, it’s a disaster zone.
Step one, then, is to make it “Mom clean.” “Audrea clean” just won’t cut it. Step two will be to declutter my shelves, and step three is to hang up a sheet so I have a plain backdrop for video interviews.
In tandem with my office, I also need to clean up my digital space. I cleared out my overflowing inbox, added labels, and now am firmly resolved to have an empty inbox at the end of each day. I am also smacking that “Unsubscribe” button like it’s a spider creeping across my lap. Down with the junk mail!
I am slowly but surely working through the giant “Sort Me” folder on my desktop, and I’m curating my Google Drive files as well. When I apply for a job, I want all my resources to be organized and easy to access.
Going Forward
Now that I have my Plan in place and a strategy to get my office back in working order, I feel much better about the coming weeks. I know I will be able to remain focused and diligent in my job search because this strategy has helped me in the past. My inner goodie-two-shoes is bouncing with excitement and eager to further refine my process. My inner sloth… is fast asleep on a couch in the corner of my brain.
TL;DR
I’m an unorganized mess who spent the week getting organized so I can find that dream job!