kevinsuner

I always start my workday by looking at the tasks that have been assigned to me, looking at their priority, and making a list with the ones that I want to complete. This routine that I follow, clears my mind and allows me to go from task to task without losing focus-and has worked in all the companies that I worked for.

Not all companies are the same, which is a thing I knew, and experienced, but in terms of work organization, each had a similar approach, and deviating from the assigned task, was the exception. The occasional hotfix¹ would popup from time to time, as well as changes on the priority of some tasks, it was expected, and an acceptable thing in all the teams I worked in.

Fast forward to today, and I'm facing the complete opposite-it's a common occurrence in my workday, to have a list of prioritized tasks to complete, and ending up having done one or none. Such problem happens by various reasons, the ones that I have identified are-having each stakeholder of the project pushing their own agendas and ideas, driving the product into multiple and often incoherent directions, and having an amount of tech debt so high, and a level of confidence in the code so low, that almost every deployment comes with its many issues that need to be quickly fixed.

The second is solvable, the first is pure drama, project managers do many things to keep the train from derailing, but when tasks are imposed by the ones that provide money to keep things rolling, and each has its own vision of what the project should be, everything becomes a priority, and nothing ends up being one.

¹ A hotfix is a software update that is released outside the normal update cycle or intended to be applied to a live system; often to fix a bug. Wikipedia

It is a known fact that many people derive meaning to their lives through work, doing something that is useful to others, or has a purpose higher than oneself, provides us with sentiments like pride and usefulness; take a brief look through human history and see how far people were willing to go to achieve this feelings, it speaks to us, and tells us that contrary to the popular belief that work is just work, it has been one of the strongest driving forces that has led humanity to where it is today, and that denying the need for a purposeful job is dangerous, as it can lead many to live unfulfilling lives, or worse.

But, I need to bring money to the table. I do too, and also know that the probabilities of me landing a job at a company that has a purpose higher than myself, like for example SpaceX are slim to none; reality is that most if not every job that you will have now or in the future, serves a superfluous purpose, and has no real meaning. Faced with this hell-on-earth type of scenario, the only thing I've found useful is, to start thinking about my job as a temporal enabler for the thing that contributes a great deal of purpose and meaning to my life.

New problems require us to step into the unknown, gather knowledge and rebuild our mental models, the approach I decided to follow is by no stretch of the imagination an optimal one, but, if you find yourself wrestling with a job that subtracts purpose and meaning from your life, reframe how you think about it, aim at the highest thing that is within your scope, and use it as a force to help you get there.

I work from home and live in a not so tiny apartment, it has sufficient space to allow me to have a dedicated office space, in which I spend roughly 8 to 10 hours working for company X, and another 2 to 3 hours working on my own projects, totaling 10 to 13 hours per day. This configuration seemed reasonable to me, I thought that after finishing my obligations, I could go for a walk, or do some other activity and comeback to work on my own ideas, and I wouldn't be affected by the fact that I've already been in that room for many hours, I was naive.

It has had notable effects on my mental health, some of which include feeling physical pain when turning on my work laptop, or my personal computer, hearing the sound of a Microsoft Teams notification when the laptop is turned off, and an obnoxious neck pain shortly after sitting in my chair.

To get out of this pit I bought a laptop, since I didn't have one, and has been my “sanctuary” since then, as it allows me to work on my ideas from anywhere, be it the couch, my kitchen table or a coffee shop that is close by, providing an almost immediate improvement to my health, which I'm grateful for.

I undervalued the importance of having a clear separation, and paid the price, lesson learnt. Now I have to change things up in my office, because at the moment I don't feel right physically and mentally while I'm there.