Accidentally in Code

Tag: goals

  • Planning 2011: Kiva Challenge, and Post-Grad-Rehab

    This time last year, I made a list of what I wanted to happen in 2010. The goals I set were helpful and I met (or nearly met) most of them but next year everything is changing – I don’t know what goals I should be setting. How do I set professional goals for a job I’ve yet to start? Do I need to set personal fitness goals – because that just seems to fall in to place when I have structure.

    be good do good wonder
    Credit: http://laurelines.typepad.com/my_weblog/2010/07/be-good-do-good-wonder.html

    I think instead I’m going to have two different themes. The first is giving back – Girl Geek Dinners KW is on the agenda, as is an Awesome Foundation KW. As part of that, I’m planning something that I’m calling The Kiva Challenge. The second theme is about reclaiming my life after Grad School. I’m calling that Post Grad Rehab.

    The Kiva Challenge

    I’ve been making loans on Kiva for a while, and it’s got to the point where I’ve been making 1-3 loans a month just out of repaid funds, which is pretty cool. Now I have a real job, I want to do more. That’s what the Kiva challenge is about – it’s a X number of new loans every month. I’m choosing 4, so $100 new dollars a month loaned on Kiva so I’ll then be making 5-7 loans a month. Over the year, that will be $1200 more in the system.

    Join me!

    Post Grad Rehab

    Last week, I read The Happiness Project (Amazon). I was skeptical, because what does a wealthy white New York woman with her 2.4 children have to say about finding happiness? I still don’t know about that – but I did enjoy the book. What I am getting from it, though, is that if you want to change, you have to start now. The idea that in the future we’ll be skinnier, or happier, or more successful, is nothing unless we start working on it today.

    feb 4 07 - 26/365
    Credit: flickr / erin is a star

    Because graduation is close, I’ve been thinking – when I graduate, I’ll do this. I’ll be able to afford to do this. I’ll have time to do this. It’s clear how much of living I’ve put on hold for the sake of grad school. Well, grad school is done. It’s time for real life. I don’t know if this is my own happiness project, I see it more as taking time to reclaim my life. My themes are different. So far, I have:

    • Work – what are my professional goals, and how do I achieve them? How do I maximize my effectiveness? How do I navigate the company?
    • Relax – do things just because. Read novels. Watch TV. Just be.
    • Feel beautiful – go shopping and buy nice clothes. Have a mudwrap and a facial because I want to, not because I think I’m having a nervous breakdown.
    • Explore my local area – weekend mini-breaks! Hiking!
    • Create – set time aside to work on those artsy projects that I’ve been wanting to do.
    • Write – set time aside for ebook projects. Work on writing better, more concisely.
    • Culture – go to the theatre, the museum. Watch “classic” movies and read “classic” books.
    • Try the unexpected – take a cookery class. Drink coffee. Learn to make a mean martini.
    • Be ridiculous – dress more Harajuku. Experiment with color. Watch children’s movies.
    • Physical challenge – maybe running?

    Any suggestions? The first three probably map to January/February/March but thereafter I’m undecided. I might combine, replace, and I’ll need at least two more themes. But at the end of it hopefully I’ll feel like I’m back to living, not putting my life on hold.

    dancer blurry
    Credit: James Wm. Dawson / http://jamesdawson.blogspot.com/2010/05/im-older-now-and-still-runnin-against.html

  • Giving Up On Goals

    Post-it Monsters
    Credit: flickr / zarprey

    I’m not doing my weekly review at the moment. At first it was in part because I was ashamed to admit that I hadn’t yet unpacked my apartment (it’s done now). But also, I showed up to the coffee shop to work with my mentee and something exciting had happened to her, and she said, “I just had this feeling, when I woke up, that I should get here as soon as possible”. So she did. And she was there in time to make a great connection with someone.

    That exchange inspired me to go with my feeling of leaving the week open to see what happened. In fact, a meeting came up and Ali (my TA who is taking over) and I ended up writing a proposal for a conference on my workshop. It was good – I had a productive week.

    I’m using Health Month to track my health and fitness goals, and what I’m realizing is that I used to use my weekly plan to balance the different areas of my life. Volunteering, work, studying. At the moment, I have no different areas of my life. It’s pretty much the gym, my thesis, and hanging out.

    This is pretty nice – and probably very necessary at this stage in my masters. And it makes goal setting in that way overkill. There’s something freeing about deciding the day before what my one important thing is, and then working on that.

    I still believe in goals. I still believe in structure. But – if there is only one significant thing to work on, arbitrary goals can be a distraction. It’s actually about progress. I don’t know what I will get done on my thesis next week, but I do know what my next task will be.

    Meanwhile, I’m just going to keep ticking along, carving out my space and routine in this new place. AY has this idea called “restful acceptance” – I love it. She says, your todo list will still be there tomorrow. I just think, I can make a new list, tomorrow, if I need to. But when what I need to do is this clear, and I don’t. Why bother?

  • Planning 2010

    I saw in 2009 with my boyfriend. It was just the two of us. We were just moving in together “officially” (yes, I had been in Canada a really short amount of time for that to happen – long story) and we were sorting out the apartment. We drank some champagne and went swimming. It was nice.

    Fast forward  a year – last night we threw a huge party, over 40 people came. When it turned midnight I was jumping up and down on the roof with a big group of people. It was awesome.

    A lot can change in a year. At the start of 2009 I was, in many ways, going back to the beginning – the two girls I’d been spending time with had left Ottawa. I didn’t really know that many other people – perhaps a result of taking three courses and working, and falling in love.

    I didn’t know a bunch of people at last night’s party before they came. Those I did know, the vast majority I met in the last year. I’m sure with this is a sign of more great people entering my life in 2010. I’m excited about it.

    What did I Achieve in 2009?

    2009 was quite a year for me, personally it was the year I settled in and felt at home in Canada. It’s brought a ton of great people into my life. I’m very thankful for that. I also:

    • Worked in Shanghai
    • Had a curriculum I developed taught across the US and in China
    • Figured out what I’m researching, and did the bulk of the work for my first paper (to be submitted in January, hopefully)
    • Had something I made go viral (over 100 tweets) – with my conversation networks!
    • Stretched myself by TA-ing in French
    • Gave the Holiday Science Lecture
    • Started using Twitter and blogging, finally built my website (now I typically get over 200 hits a week – this is awesome!)
    • Became President of WISE, and was part of the team that got it moving
    • Has 6 posts featured on Brazen Careerist
    • Went to Japan, Berlin and Boston
    • Started going to tech events and meeting new people outside university
    • Ran introductory Java and Processing Workshops in Wave (more to come in the new year)

    Planning 2010

    I don’t really go with resolutions. I think clearly defining goals and planning to meet them is more effective. So I’ve drawn up some goals that I’d like to achieve this year and defined some of the steps that I think will help me meet them.

    Goals

    Get a Great Job

    • Get an appointment at the careers service to go over my CV
    • Send it out to tech people I know and respect and ask for feedback
    • Ask people I’ve worked with to recommend me on LinkedIn (if they’re comfortable with that)
    • Ask people for recommendations for companies to apply to, and referrals where possible (already started on this)

    Get a Paper Published

    • Meet with supervisors to talk about what I have so far
    • Incorporate suggestions
    • Submit paper, and hope it gets accepted

    Graduate

    • Determine how much more work I need to do.
    • Do it.

    Create More Stuff

    • Get together with other people, Processing Jam next week is a good start
    • Make time for the things that are would-like-to rather than must do.

    Be in Better Shape

    • Go back to kickboxing
    • Work up to 3 times a week
    • Organize transport, and take ski instructor job
    • Cross-country ski
    • On days I haven’t exercised, force myself to put on my swimsuit and walk to the pool before I go to bed (inspired by this post by Penelope Trunk)

    Be More Balanced

    • End my week on Friday, so I don’t frantically try and complete things over the weekend.
    • Ski at least one day at the weekend (during the season)
    • No working after dinner, use that time to stay current (blogs, twitter), exercise, play wii fit, spend time with friends, or relax.

    Make More Time for my Boyfriend

    • Regular date night
    • Watch movies that he wants to see
    • Hug him more

    Random Aspirations

    • Be More Awesome
    • Write an e-book
    • Go somewhere new
    • Do things that scare me (previous things – TA-ing in French, Holiday Science Lecture, moving to Canada)
    • Do something awesome (previous things – working in Shanghai, moving to Canada, qualifing as ski instructor, training in martial arts in China)
    • Take every opportunity
    • Learn, every day
    The Start of 2010
    The Start of 2010

  • Week in Brief

    Last week was a bit of a disaster:

    For this week:

    • Minor website edits
    • Read 8 papers – was never going to happen
    • Clear email… it’s got completely out of hand (worse than ever before) – made a lot of progress on this, but still lots left
    • Social Capital, Trust Agents and the New Tribe event
    • Students and Startups
    • An Introduction to Processing – make slide-deck.
    • Marking (again)
    • Gym 4 times
    • Recreate conversational graphs from re-factored code – Nearly done
    • Implement clique-finding algorithm for Twitter Conversation Graphs
    • Re-read 7 Habits – Got started, part way through
    • Get started on giant pile of papers.

    For next week, I fly back to the UK on Sunday so I’m going to have to focus on the stuff that must be done by then and not crowd my task list with things that are important, but can wait until I’m there/get back.

    • Recreate conversational graphs from re-factored code
    • Implement clique finding algorithm for Twitter Conversation Graphs
    • Visualize results of clique finding
    • Create presentation for class on Cliques/Conversation Graphs
    • Marking
    • Re-marking previous assignment
    • Girl Geek Dinner
    • Gym 4 times
    • Keep it together

  • Week in Brief: a Celebration

    Goals for this week were:

    • Finish putting together presentation, record and upload it. See it here.
    • Put together loop exercises for extra session with my DGD group.
    • Start CA Assignment 3 (this one will apparently be shorter) – aim for half done.
    • Marking.
    • Read 5 papers.
    • Join gym (physio says yoga and body pump allowed – finally!!) attended a body pump class, and it hurts… in a good way though, which is a nice change after weeks of injury pain!
    • Clear new email mountain.
    • Code new viz idea. Read about it here.
    • Ignite! Read about it here.

    Crikey! I checked off everything. This never happens! I also:

    • Spent time with the people behind Betidings, working on their color-scheme (hopefully you’ll see some improvement to that soon).
    • Planned an introductory online Java/Processing workshop – you can read about it here and let me know if you want to participate.

    Thanks to everyone who made this week so awesome / productive!

    For next week:

    • Finish CA Assignment 3
    • Recreate conversational graphs from re-factored code
    • Create slide deck for introductory Java workshop
    • Read 5 papers
    • Go to the gym 3 times
    • Rename blog (taking suggestions!)
    • WISE coffee social
    • WECS meeting (Women in Engineering and Computer Science)
    • Work on website

  • When 1 Week = 7 Steps Back

    on the infinite staircase
    Credit: flickr / Random Tony

    Last week, and at the start of this week I was feeling really worn out and disillusioned. Things were taking longer than they should, and despite working a lot and effectively I really wasn’t making the progress I wanted to be. I felt like I wasn’t achieving anything. What this really means, is that on Monday I worked from around 8 in the morning to 11pm at night (- perhaps 2 hours) and yet didn’t cross anything off The List. Tuesday I started a little later, but ultimately didn’t cross anything off the list either. Or Wednesday.

    I feel this real need to make progress, achieve something concrete, day in, day out. I’m aware that as a grad student there’s a risk of ending up at this place where you show up but nothing concrete happens, and this continues until you’ve been there for several years and people joke about whether you’re ever going to graduate.

    I don’t want to be that person.

    My far off goal, is finishing my thesis. It’s impossibly far away, and too large to conceptualize, so I have to break it into smaller, manageable tasks that mean I’ll make it, in increments. Like reading a paper a day. Coding a new visualization. Writing up all the papers I’ve read that are covered in notes into my work-in-progress. But then sometimes I end up spending a week on stuff that doesn’t help achieve these goals – like marking, or a ridiculously large assignment for the course I have to take. And then at the end of the week I look back and think, well I worked really hard, and I got this done, but in a months time (or even just another week) will anyone care? Will I care?

    It’s frustrating. And so every day, I set myself an unrealistic list of tasks. If something (for example, the presentation we made this week) takes longer than expected and I don’t achieve them, the following day’s list is even more unmanageable. And it continues. This is why the “Week in Brief” and my “Goals” list are so helpful, because when I’m trying to do 10+ high level tasks in a week I have to give myself a reality check and admit, that’s never going to happen.

    Setting goals that push me but don’t overwhelm me is something I’m working on. Because when I’m overwhelmed I’m not effective, I’m just overwhelmed. I’m not getting stuff done, I’m not motivated, I’m contemplating hiding from the world and wondering if everything would be OK if there were just 30 hours in the day. Panicking because I think I’ve missed an important appointment when I’ve in fact just misread my calendar.

    The irony here? After all that stressing at the start of the week, there’s a chance I might just cross everything off the list this week.

    Lesson? Start big tasks at the start of the week. Postpone smaller ones to the end of the week. Achieving large tasks motivates and inspires me to achieve the smaller ones. Vice versa does not work so well. Spend more time doing and less time scheduling.

  • Week in Brief

    For last week:

    • Finish CA Assignment 2
    • Read 5 papers
    • Code more on Viz
    • Write more on Thesis
    • Get SVN working fully
    • More on website
    • Clear giant e-mail mountain
    • Start tracking morning mood and exercise on Mycrocosm
    • Go to my first hockey game!

    Also:

    • Cleaned out fridge
    • Swam butterfly again for the first time since I injured my knee (super happy about this!)
    • Spent a lot of time debugging other people’s code!
    • Met with the girls from WISE, hopefully we can get some stuff moving.

    Another week where things took longer than they should have (CA Assignment), and plans were derailed (4 hour lab). I’m frustrated at how much I’m getting distracted by this kind of thing, and how it’s cutting into my quiet-focus-time which I need to work on big tasks. I haven’t had a completely clear day since last Monday, and won’t have another until next Monday. This is a problem.

    For this week:

    • Finish putting together presentation, record and upload it.
    • Put together loop exercises for extra session with my DGD group.
    • Start CA Assignment 3 (this one will apparently be shorter) – aim for half done.
    • Marking.
    • Read 5 papers.
    • Join gym (physio says yoga and body pump allowed – finally!!)
    • Clear new email mountain.
    • Code new viz idea.
    • Ignite!

  • Do Something Every Day That Scares You

    I wonder about this advice. Are there enough scary things out there? Would you not spend so much time scaring yourself that the necessary, but non-scary things, would get left behind?

    Perhaps I shouldn’t be taking it literally.

    Maybe, it means… push yourself – harder. Aim – higher. Dream. Aspire. Create.

    Achieve more than you knew you were capable of.

    Fail

    Be OK with failing, because if you’re not failing, you’re sat in your comfort zone.

    So perhaps better advice is – fail every day. Because, as someone said to me recently, only stupid people go home and pat themselves on the back for what they’ve achieved. If you’re smart, you’re looking at what’s still to be done / improved / created.

    I linked before to this talk by Randy Pausch’s, it’s his last lecture on Achieving your Childhood Dreams. It’s wonderful – watch it. Anyway, he talks about the dreams that he had as a child, and how he achieved them. Some of them, people said were ridiculous, and some of them seemed impossible – but he went for it anyway. When there were setbacks, he overcame them. I cried, watching this talk, it was amazing, moving, inspirational…

    At the end of it, he says that it’s not really about how to achieve your dreams – it’s about how to live your life.

    I think he’s right. If I stop dreaming, even about stuff that’s impossible or that people think is stupid. I may as well give up on everything.

  • Week in Brief

    Goals for this week:

    • Read 8 papers
    • Create diagram in Visio see it here
    • Turn plan into slides for presentation put them up on this post
    • Get started with CA Assignment 2 Would have liked to get more done, but have answer for one question – 2 to go!
    • Deal with final issues from marking fiasco
    • Read 2 chapters of CA book
    • Set up new laptop and get important stuff syncing Nearly there, iDrive is in use, SVN set up, just need to work out how to access it.
    • Code more on my viz stuff – nothing coded but had important epiphany. Really need to get more done on this, this week.
    • Write more on thesis
    • More on website
    • Move to Google Calendar
    • Clear up apartment
    • Finish reading Tribes (Amazon)

    I also:

    • Saw a lot of friends I hadn’t seen in a while
    • Met some new people!
    • Watched The Best Man (IMDb) – I rarely seem to find time to watch movies any more, I found this one pretty funny though. Only thing was, the main character had an Irish accent, and his best friend from childhood had a lousy American-doing-British-accent. Then the guy who lived in New York had a posh British accent and the women who he was marrying (who lived in London) had an American accent. So, that kinda distracted me!
    • Picked up some iKlean at the apple store.
    • Got my project proposal back with some helpful suggestions and positive comments.

    For this week:

    • Finish CA Assignment 2
    • Read 5 papers
    • Code more on Viz
    • Write more on Thesis
    • Get SVN working fully
    • More on website.
    • Clear giant e-mail mountain.
    • Start tracking morning mood and exercise on Mycrocosm
    • Go to my first hockey game!

    For November:

    I’ve noticed that I tend to create my “Week in Brief” early in the week and keep track of what I want to achieve – I’m finding it helpful for my high-level goals, whereas I find my ToDo list more helpful for low level goals. So – I’ve decided to make my progress more public as well and created a new page on my blog called Goals which contains my list for the week and the month and I can cross things off as I go along. I’m hoping that by adding what I want to achieve this month I can stop putting the same tasks on my list each week and then pushing them back when more pressing things occur.