Two short stories about passion, focus, eating my own dogfood & having valuable connections
The last couple of days I stumbled over starting (or dealing) with what I have in its best sense and in multiple variations. Today I share two of these little stories:
Passion for work
The first story on starting with what you have is about my new job as a Scrum Master. In our company we are not working “just” as a Scrum Master for a team but do also agile coaching working within the organisation. This is truly exciting and I already enjoy my job to the fullest; but as you can imagine there is a lot to learn, many people to get to know and things to explore.
I noticed that very evening when I leave the office, my brain seems to get another power boost and keeps sorting stuff, thinking & incubating new ideas, asking questions, etc.
To be able to leverage that I already tried several options: blogging/writing on my private laptop when I come home, type on my mobile on the ferry, take company laptop with me and start writing on the ferry, using a mindmapping tool. Nothing really made me content. Interestingly I always had a post-it and pencil with me while walking on the ferry crossing the lake… and I used it anyways… and brain kept working at home… .
Finally my thoughts were: Why not eating my own dogfood? I already inspected and adapted my behaviour in some ways. Now it’s time to adapt once again and start with what I have and use: pencil & paper.
Why not taking paper notes every evening?
“… but I want (to be able) to share my thoughts!” a voice yelled in me.
and more:
“I need something I can keep!”
Ok, so here’s my tuned approach which actually works since one week:
- have draft-paper with me on the ferry boat & start writing there (10min)
- take maximum 2 timeboxes (15min each) at home for further writing (30min)
- decide on the stuff to keep (and write/mindmap on a fresh piece of paper) on the next morning’s ferry ride (20min)
What I found really impressive: once I finally decided on doing so, it was soooo easy.
I take my needs serious. I honor the day. I ‘incubate’ new ideas. I started with what I have – instead of big upfront planning, putting stuff in digital form like mindmaps, blogposts, etc.
And maybe I’ll share some ideas out of the hand-written mindmaps within the next posts. Would you be interested?
Motivation
The second one is about running and sharing things you may not consider worth sharing. The story is narrated quickly:
Easter Saturday it was rainy outside. My motivation to go out for running was unusually loooooow – anyway I wanted to go running. Actually I would have needed my friend & training partner pushing me a bit on that day (but she wasn’t available for a tour today).
Long story short: I went out for a run after a little mental pushing of twitter folks (sidenote: it is always a good idea to ask other runners, dog owners and friendly folks for help).
What a fun it was running a new tour… rain stopped and I even took some photos because it was so beautiful outside. When returning home, I shared some photos on twitter… and some wonderful people I meet on unconferences were just happy about that – because they needn’t go out for nice spring pictures. 🙂
What a success for all! (and a big thank you to Sabine, Waltraud, Werner, Thilo and Robert)
