Arbitrary Targets and Perfectionism
Where I share some of the things I've been thinking about, learning about, and exploring across work, tech, wellness, and life.
Hey Friends,
I started this substack back in December as an experiment to see what benefits I might reap by developing a writing habit. I set an arbitrary target to write at least twice a month. I thought anything more might be too hard and I would drop the experiment all together, and anything less wouldn’t be enough to develop a habit. I’ve hit my target in 6 of 9 months and I do feel as though a habit is starting to take hold. But 2 of the 3 months where I missed my target were the past two months and I’m not liking that trend!
I’m reminding myself of two important things:
I’m writing to write, not for an audience.
Consistency is more important than quality.
This is not to say I don’t value my audience - I genuinely enjoy sharing my writing with the world and I love making human connections through these mediums. And it’s not to say I don’t care about quality in general. It’s just that I’m reminding myself the best way to increase quality is to have a lot of output, and the best way to have a lot of output is to not worry about being perfect.
And thus, welcome to the 19th edition of Some of the Things, where I share some of the things I have going on in my life.
I hope you find at least a few incomplete thoughts and typos today, for it means I’m successfully overcoming my fear of failure and perfectionism.
Work
How to Talk Business: A Guide for Tech Leaders - A paper I coauthored was just published this past week. The paper is based on a belief that the most effective technology leaders in large enterprises aren’t just good at technology - they have strong business skills as well. It’s a practical guide for technology leaders who want to improve their business skills.
Heading to Las Vegas this week for the DevOps Enterprise Summit.
This month marks the one year anniversary of landing our first client and incorporating Tenger Ways as an LLC. I’m working on a longer blog with reflections which I hope to share next time.
Next week I’ll be visiting a client in Rochester NY for a workshop about data stewardship.
Passion Projects
GM Farcaster - A live-streamed 21 minute morning show with co-hosts Nounish Prof and Galazio where we have a cup of coffee and talk about the happenings across Farcaster. We had almost a comical number of technical difficulties during our first two weeks of broadcasting but we’re starting to get into a smoother rhythm. Nounish Prof is doing most of the heavy lifting on the tech stack - hosting the show on google meet, live streaming using OBS, streaming to Unlonely.app, and then making the recordings available as NFTs.
FarcastHER - 2 weeks ago the founder of Farcaster announced he wanted to run an experiment where he’d appoint a lead to each of about 20 channels, and he’d work with them over ~6 weeks to try to increase quality engagement. I’ve been enthusiastic about Farcaster since joining last November and had been open to finding ways to get more involved in helping it succeed as an alternative to centralized social media. I threw my hat in the ring and was selected to lead the FarcastHER channel, which was formed just a few weeks earlier as a place for womxn on farcaster to find, connect and engage with each other.
Children’s book - I’ve made progress on the children’s book I’m working on with my sister. The story is now complete and we’re moving on to the illustrations.
Episode 2 of Four Old College Friends, the podcast I started with some old college friends is out.
Other Things
One of the early pieces of feedback we got from the GM Farcaster show was from teleyinex.eth remarking how nice it was to see the real human beings behind the avatars and PFPs he had gotten to know so well, which prompted a discussion around digital identity. One of the reasons I’ve loved my experience on apps like Farcaster, where most people have graphic PFPs, is the ability to get to know people first by their thoughts and ideas, and only later by their faces. It’s a different way of getting to know people’s souls without any bias.
I first learned of the concept of pseudo-anonymity, where we can get to know each other intimately without knowing our true identities from Balajis Srinivasan, author of The Network State. After listening to Balajis on MOZ podcast, I got together to discuss our thoughts about the tribal lens (video).
25 page guides to writing a resume and how to negotiate comp written by Samantha, a tech recruiter and friend.
The obstacles aren’t in the path, they are the path - This common refrain I had always attributed to zen, but I enjoyed this blog that gives similar advice from the viewpoint of Marcus Aurelius and stoic philosophy.
The happiest job in the world is construction. Lots of reasons why this may or may not be true, but I like to think that the short feedback loop between an action you take and the ability to see the result is one of the contributing factors.
A note to my subscribers:
I started this substack in December 2022 as an experiment to see if developing a writing a habit would help clarify my thinking and/or provide any other benefits. You can read about my original intentions in my first post here.
I plan to continue to write about twice a month and will be sharing musings, meditations, and links to things I’m finding interesting as I build out my consulting company, raise my kids, and have fun creating and learning in the worlds of crypto, tech, finance, science and wellness.
Thank you for supporting my writing and journey. If you’d like to get in touch you can reply to me here, or find me on twitter and farcaster.
Until next time, keep putting good into the world. —adrienne🌏❤️