I am in the Pacific time zone (UTC -8/-7). Typically, I work from 9:00am - 6pm after waking up at about 5:30am, hopefully with a brief walk around the block, and getting the kids started with their day. I try to take a lunch anywhere between 11:30am and 2pm. Sometimes I'll step away for a short sanity break. Other than that, I'm usually at my desk. At the very least, I have my phone with me.
All that being said, I try my best to stay mindful, wherever I am. When I'm at work, my priority is work. When I'm with family, however, work becomes a close second.
I work from my home office in Anaheim Hills, California.
Typically, I start my day out about 5-10 minutes early, just so I can prepare for the first meeting(s) of the day, get a sense of my priorities and determine what will get done.
My primary development machine is a Mac. I currently use https://github.com/ and Jira for source control and ticket tracking. For JavaScript-based work, I use VSCode. For PHP-based work, I prefer PHPStorm, though I also hold a special place in my heart for Vim.
When receiving a ticket, I am looking for a solid description of what's expected and a clear set of acceptance criteria. If I'm not clear on any of this, I'll do my best to get the information I need to continue before starting. Often, I'll directly take the acceptance criteria and stick them into the description of a Pull Request as a checklist, so that I can go down the list as I commit things; I find this helps me stay focused and it communicates my actual progress to anyone following along. Once I've completed the acceptance criteria for a given ticket, I then aim to get that code reviewed by at least one other set of eyes, and make any changes needed before running over it with Quality Assurance (QA). For QA, I prefer to work directly with QA to ensure any questions are answered along the way, any small changes are addressed quickly and that way, acceptance criteria are met as expected and little time is wasted in getting changes production-ready.
In order for me to be successful in my work and my life, I must aim for excellence in communication. Where it's lacking, I am open to feedback. That being said, I must also prioritize communication along with other things that demand my attention on any given day: work, family, personal needs. Given items competing for priority, I aim to schedule communication in between blocks of focus time.
For scheduled communication, I am generally open to all forms of communication. For meetings, I prefer quality over quantity. Too many meetings impede my ability to work efficiently.
For unscheduled communication, I prefer Slack/Hangouts and then Email after that. I maintain inbox zero, which means any item remaining in my inbox is an action item.
Though I try to stay vigilant in terms of getting back to people when they ask me for anything, should you feel I am taking too long, feel free to send me a message to remind me!
Likewise, if I send you a message, I generally do not expect an instant response. I do my best to respect Do Not Disturb settings unless there's something emergent unfolding.
I sometimes get hyper-focused on a problem and have to remind myself to take a step back and look at the bigger picture.
There are times where I become self-critical and, like many people, feel like an impostor about to be discovered. This creates a downward spiral that can knock out my confidence for a while. To battle this, I keep a developer log that I check in every so often, which reminds me that I've accomplished a lot and that the feeling is fleeting. More than anything, it's a signal that I need to be honest about what's giving me anxiety, so that I can move forward.
When I have a lot on my plate, I struggle with my executive functioning, which means I need to limit distractions. To combat this, I use noise-cancelling headphones and try to mute all notifications for periods of time.
- My family
- Making useful things (online and offline)
- Work done well and on time
- Reading and writing
- Philosophy and logic
- Humor
Honest and constructive feedback is something I really value. If you feel like there's something I could improve on, I'd definitely like to know! Also, if you feel like this document (which is my personal view on the way I work) does not match reality, that would be great to know so that I can adjust.
I prefer feedback to be done privately (ideally one-on-one).
I aim for objective consistency with who I am in the world, which means I change my mind from time to time and outside perspectives are a huge help to that end.