Posts tagged: goals

It's not all about winning

2019-02-02T00:00:00Z

This is my story into data science.

The Journey Begins #

I am addicted to the process of learning and improving my skills nearly to a fault. The reason I say nearly is because my addiction is fueled with results. I crave the output of my work enhance the work of others. I jump with joy as I see users gain insights they could have never imagined before. My mouth starts watering as I see their boring repetitive data mining activites be completed in a matter of seconds, opening up their mind to focus on their expertise. The day I stop learning will be the day that I start looking for another career path.

It’s not all about winning.

~Mom

This happened to me in 2014. I have a mechanical engineering degree and had a really good position at the time. I owned full engineering control of a small subset of engine components. The problem was that Everything is so proprietary and hardly documented the process of learning did not click with me. I felt like I had learned a lot about the product early on, and was stuck without any more resources to learn more. On the side, I had started learning python and data science techniques to enhance my job.

every time I feel like I have reached the peak of anyone topic the fog clears and I can now see a whole new mountain range that I did not know existed.

I was addicted. I felt like there is so much knowledge easily obtained online in my free time, and I was able to take it back to my job and achieve results. Every time I feel like I have reached the peak of anyone’s topic the fog clears and I can now see a whole new mountain range that I did not know existed.

Love the Journey #

By 2017 I was really good at gaining results for our business and decided to make the jump to the data science team. I have achieved great results, and have been recognized as a high contributor to our business. Still, I do not feel like I have won. My goals are always moving and will always be 3-6 months ahead of me. I truly enjoy the process of learning and providing value so much that I will never let myself sit back and think that I have won and its time to reap the rewards of my hard work. I will say that I am winning. Not because of any results, awards, or recognition, but because I am happy. I have found a career path that I really enjoy the journey and I am not just trying to get on the fast track to a destination.

2019 goals

2019-01-12T00:00:00Z

The year of intenionality

This is a follow up to my previous post 2018-retrospective

professional #

This year I will become more productive, by intensionally working on a well thought out plan, learning the right technologies, and leave behind a positive legacy.

Productivity #

Last year I was able to make some great strides in my productivity and focus. This year I want to be able to bring it up a notch. Intentionality plays a big part in this. Taking some time to sit down and think about the tasks you realistically want to complete for the day, then focusing on those tasks one at a time.

I started off the year last year using the pomodoro system to focus on one task and one task only for 25 minutes at a time. This worked really well for me but I quickly fell off of the train and fell into my old trap of reacting to the loudest customer over the items I put intensionally on my todo list.

A kanban system is key to keeping it intentional. I currently use a very simple trello system, with very few cards. This helps to stay on track during those 25 minutes. During the pomodoro session I move an item from todo, to doing, work that item, then move it to done when it is ready. The only other thing that I can do during that time is to add items to the todo list.

pomodoro
- 8 pomodori
Daily session planning
- Back on inbox zero
- todo’s go in kanban not inbox

Leave a Legacy #

I want to leave behind a legacy that I can be proud of. I want to be known for bringing a positive attitude that inspires others to do their best work, enourage others, and work as a team. It is in my blood to help as many people as I can. I am in a unique role and have a unique skill set that allows me to do what would take some hours and days in minutes and hours. I really enjoy helping these folks, but I know many of them are smart enough to do it on their own, they just do not know where to get started. For this reason I really want to amp up my docs this year. I want people to be able to answer 80% of their questions right from the docs before needing to come to me to get started. I want this to be part of the legacy that I leave with my projects for the next person that encounters them.

better docs
- 80% oss questions should be answered
- finish pea course
- all projects have docs page with link by Feb
- consistent docs format
bring positivity to the workplace
blog weekly (52)
- lower barier to entry
- consistently work on writing skills
- 12 Medium/LinkedIn

Educational #

Last year I made monumental improvements to my web development while continuing to hone my backend skills. This year I want to amp up my web front end skills even more. I am finding this to be an area that not very many people in my organization have and I can knock out some simple projects really quick and gain a lot of value. Last year I started using react as a front end framework. I want to double down learning the intricicies of how it works, and how to effectively layout a react project. I also want to keep upping my design skills. As I do more layouts I find that they are easier and easier to layout, and as I am able to get them out faster it give me more time to hone in the design. Lastly I want to continue honing in my backend skills. Working with data pipelines, Linux command line, the cloud, and database architecture.

Advanced React dynamic web applications
Refactoring UI Rethinking how to layout data in logical ways
Service Workies
AWS?? we are moving to the cloud
Continue Leveling up Linux Command Line
Data Pipeline

Personal #

At home I want to continue being a positive person. Home is much harder to keep up a good attitude. Mostly because I care more about my family and its harder to walk away and forget about a bad interaction with them. I want to make sure that we keep up more positive interactions together as that will help everyone keep the positive attitude. Lastly I would like to keep in touch with family better. Rhiannon really loves a nice message to boost her day. I would like to send her a few longer messages per week, and to one other family member at least once per week. This can be in the form of a text, email, or hard copy letter in the mail.

be your best
- +3 positives everyday (300+)
- gratitude daily (300+)
5 languages
letters to family

Bring it on 2019 I am ready to take it on!

2018 Retrospective

2019-01-05T00:00:00Z

2018 was a year of many ups and downs, and learning to deal with a whole new set of problems professionally and at home. In 2018 I logged in to my first Linux system, setup my own webserver, data pipelines, database. I learned to use react and d3. Stepped up my python, javascript, and sql.

At home the doctor appointments keep piling in. While I am learning to deal with it all there were several times throughout the year that I was very overwhelmed with everything and broke down.

Here are the goals I had listed out for 2018 and how I faired at completing them.

Positivity #

The Good #

Continue “Favorite Things” with family at dinner time
Take 2 10min breaks per day clear the mind

I can say that the kids are fully on board with favorite things and love to tell everyone about how their day went. This is a time that they are very positive and generally give praise to another family member for helping them through their day.

To Be Improved #

Gratitude journaling every day
Snooze Less be productive

I hit 61 gratitude journals in 2018. I would not say that I met my goal, but I would definitely say that it’s a great start and is something that I plan on improving next year. I really like how it helps me focus on the positive things that happened throughout the day to find the best gratitude journal subject. I do think the quick five minute deadline helps in that I have to be semi-prepared, which forces me to think about gratitude throughout the day.

Focus #

Mediocore performance??

8 pomodoro
up to date kanban
daily/weekly planning session

In 2018 I wanted to set out some goals to be more focused with the time that I do have at work. I did quite a bit of research for the best techniques throughout December, and found a system that works well for me. I did keep up with the kanban system througout the year with trello. I did not live by the board, but i did put things on there and move them. The big thing that I found with this system is that it really made me feel productive, and gave me motivation to keep going. While tracking my tasks throughout the day I was able to really see progress at the end of the day, and go home knowing I did some good work rather than feeling “Where did this day go?”.

I am putting this back in for 2019, and I will learn to concur them.

I completely fell off of the pomodoro system. I really feel like this system works for me and keeps me on task, I really have issues with task jumping. It is really hard to keep on it when there are so many distractions throughout the day. I am putting this back in for 2019, and I will learn to concur them. The biggest challenge is people. I have a lot of people stop by for a quick answer or to chat about a project. I really need to set strong boundaries and tell them in X minutes I can talk, right now I am busy.

Physical Health #

active 3 days a week… 🤔
eat better 👍

I will admit that I was not very measurable with “eat better”, but I would say that I have done well. I have really incorporated quite a few more vegetables into my diet, even when everyone else at the table isn’t. I throw some frozen brocoli in the microwave. I have even started choosing vegan options at restaurants occasionally.

As different things started taking over my time I was back off the wagon.

I started running in the March timeframe, and really enjoyed it. As different things started taking over my time I was back off the wagon. Overall I would say that I am still active 3 or so days of the week with the kids.

Educational #

Continuous Learning is something that I am really passionate for. I truly believe in always learning from experiences, taking classes, watching conferences, listening to podcasts and reading blogs

The Good 👍 #

4 official courses completed

d3 in 5 days
flexbox zombies
https://cssgrid.io
datacamp sql
linux command line (many blogs/youtube… not a course)

I really stepped up my front end web skills this past year. I have started using es6, react, and building interactive web visualizations, laid out with native modern css. These are things that I loosely understood in the past and really relied on libraries like bokeh or dash to get them to work right.

I can also say that I have stopped google searching for every simple sql query that I write, Goal Complete. I would say that I went beyond my sql goal in that I have learned to do far more than I realized was possible in the database, dramatically improving performance of my products. I have also become the go to guy for reading/writing more complex queries.

Before 2018 I had never experienced the glory of the linux command line.

Before 2018 I had never experienced the glory of the linux command line. Around May I was graced with a small on premis red hat virtual machine and my mind was quickly blown. Many things that I have struggled to get up and working on windows simply worked right out of the box. Webserver, task scheduling, 100% availability, and a great command line. By the end of the year I installed Debian (wsl) on my windows machine and have converted all of my command line applications/languages to run from there, as there are far fewer compatability issues..

The flop #

planned coursed not completed

R
Machine Learning

Honestly I am not really hurt by not completing this one. I really feel like I learned a ton of useful skills this year and I feel like neither of these two would have helped me progress. R is too close to python to need both in my toolbelt without a specific project/need for it. I did not have any projects with a dire need for ML. I really hope to start getting some experience with it so I can have a better understanding when I should use it, but it was not a big need in any of my projects this year.

Overall I am really happy with the progress from this year, and can’t wait to get started next year. Having the past few weeks off has really given me time for a reset that I didn’t realize I needed. Looking at these goals reminds me of the things that had started slipping towards the end during that last hard push to the end.

🎉🎉 Hapy New Year 🎉🎉