Weeknotes: S2 E13

I’m feeling the effects of the winter and the pre-holiday-break race to get things done. I have so much a lot on my plate already, and on top of it I’ve volunteered to be on a big interview panel which will take up a big chunk of time. I’m working through it one step at a time and counting down til the days I will have space and time to focus again. But I will admit, I’m having a hard time with this change of seasons.

Four things that went well:

• I wrapped a big meaty piece of research that I’ve been plugging away at since early October. It’s something that has a lot of impact for how we do things so I am trying to be very thorough in how I communicate and move it forward
• I spent half a day working in our new Exchange lab office last week. I’ve been dreading going back to an office, but actually I really loved it. It felt energizing and productive, and I’m looking forward to going back one day a week eventually. I don’t want to get back into a life of long commutes and feeling like I live at the office, but having the choice to go when it works for me feels really positive.
• I’ve been giving some spicy opinions lately, respectfully but clearly challenging the status quo. It feels good to have confidence in my opinions, as this is not always the case for me.
• My 6yo got her first jab!!!! 🎉

Four things that aren’t going well

• It’s been two years of feeling like the world is on fire and everything is out of my control and now this:

(We’re fine, we’re very lucky we weren’t affected by the floods in our province, staying home is a small inconvenience but … just … sigh.)

• As I come up on my 1-year anniversary at the BC gov, I’ve been questioning what I’ve been doing and how effective I’ve been in my job, and I can’t shake this sinking feeling that I’ve not done much. I mean, we don’t have a proper website yet, our docs are still a mess, I’ve done a bit of research but not as much design as I would have liked, etc. Basically I feel like I’ve fallen short of the baseline I had for myself in my other jobs.
  But then I remind myself: All my previous teams had at least one designer, research and content person working together. In this role, I am doing all three of those full-time jobs. While looking after children, a busy house and a busy life.
• Finally, I am worried about the meaty research I did being too negative, or too challenging, or too much what my team doesn’t want to hear. Although they are lovely and receptive to my work, there’s sometimes a dismissive edge to it — “They just don’t get what we’re doing here.” I’m nervous about it but I’ve been here before and I know it’s part of the job.
• Oh, and my airpods stopped working 😭

Three things that inspired me

• Absolutely loved Sam’s weeknotes from last week, particularly the advice on communicating and sharing blogs/writing/stories.
• I listened to a panel discussion from the Canadian School of Public Service on “Creating a Human Centred Government” — it was very thought provoking and inspiring.
• There was something else I wanted to share here but I can’t find it anywhere now. So this has inspired me to be more vigilant about documenting/bookmarking when I find something I really want to share

Reading watching listening

• I just listening to this Episode — “How Wintering Replenishes” — from On Being. Please, please listen if you’re struggling with the changing seasons too.
• I just started All the Light We Cannot See — I am late to this party, or maybe I was very early to it because I have a feeling I’ve read it before but if I did it must’ve been in 2014 before I started tracking all the books I read. Anyway, it’s really well written and worth the hype.
• I couldn’t get into The Great last year (it felt too, idk, ridiculous?) but I started again and now the storyline has picked up a bit so I’m enjoying it.

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