This week has overall been a pretty good week, the weather has been great. I feel like I’ve got a lot of tasks closed off and I’ve spent time in the office.

What I’ve been doing

This week has been about scaling and automation. Working with different team from portfolio, delivery and managed services to work through the details of some small adjustments to improve how we can deliver more to customers faster aka scale. I’ve also been going into more depth on our levels of automation, especially in the dark corners when automation is not systems but scripts. Trying to pull it all together into one solution.

I’ve also spent some good face-to-face time with the internal development team. I’ve worked with these guys longer than most folks in the company and yet I’ve not actually seen them face to face in several years. It’s been great to spend time in the office with them discussing the roadmap for a internal product.

What I’ve been thinking about

I’m been thinking a lot this week about what what helps get me into a flow state. You’d think at my age and stage of career I might have this topic nailed, but I actually think that is this something that evolves over time and occasionally needs a revisit. While I still find for the mundane tasks that music & movement or tv-in-the-background works, I’ve increasingly found that my best work (which is mostly writing these days) is done in silence. I have earplugs for that too which really helps. Over the past few months, I’ve found my best work is done in a comfortable location, well hydrated and with my earplugs in. Certainly not created flow for the 20-year old self.

What I’ve been watching

Well, with lots of things happening over the past few weeks I’ve actually built up quite the backlog.

This week, I managed to finish Doctor Who - Series 14 and all the various companion shows. I have also started watching The Boys - Season 2 - probably more on that next week.

What I’ve been listening to

I’m going to be a bit sneaky on this one this week. I’ve not been listening to anything specific, just lots of random things from Spotify playlists. Given that my Spotify profile doesn’t yet appear on my About page, consider this soft-launch until I update that page.

What I’ve been doing in the real world

Well, nothing out of the ordinary - but hasn’t it been wonderful to be out in the sun this week.