Days 60-69: Coping with limited time
Emotions
It’s been a couple weeks since I last posted, I needed a weekend off from thinking so deeply about work. The past two weeks have been stressful but mostly stressful in a good way! Every single day was a challenge but in hindsight, I’m thankful for all the difficulty. I’ve also had some happy moments and frustrating moments. My sleep was much better overall these past two weeks, even with the increased stress during work days. I’m finding myself creating better separation between work and life as well as finding hobbies to keep myself occupied.
Tasks
Meetings galore for the past two weeks! My schedule has been absolutely packed Monday - Friday morning with my Friday afternoons being “me” time. There have been design discussions, planning meetings, standups, 1:1s, mentoring, trainings, and customer meetings. You name the meeting, I’ve probably had something along those lines. As a result, it’s been extremely difficult to find time to get any IC work done myself. Before I was squeezing in 30 minutes here and there but now my calendar simply doesn’t allow it. I’ve spent some days working earlier mornings or later evenings (or both) so I can play a bit of catch up. In the past, I would typically be annoyed by this because I’ve always pushed to have great work-life balance. I’ve found that this extra time before or after days full of meetings allows me to focus in on a few key tasks and I feel more fulfilled overall. Surprisingly, it hasn’t been having that much impact on my work life balance.
Learnings
I’m still enjoying the feeling of being involved in a lot of things. It’s definitely fueling me throughout the day because having 7-8 hours of meetings in a row is mentally taxing and difficult. I find myself thriving more and more in the context switching of different meetings and digging into some of the design details for some features. It feels like I’m learning how to “go with the flow” a bit more and understanding that things change (sometimes very quickly) and that’s okay, I just need to learn the best way to react to these changes.
The feeling of being overwhelmed is starting to lessen as I realize more and more what my role really entails. I’m trying to enable the individuals on my team and others around me to be their best every day. I’m learning to push away my work concerns during evenings and weekends to keep myself more sane. I’ve been reading and exercising more and that’s been helping with my overall balance.
This past week, I had a few moments of doubt where I asked myself if this was truly the role I wanted. The more I thought about it, the more I understood that it’s exactly what I want. I was letting the craziness of each day push me towards this doubt when in reality, all the challenges are what I need in order to grow. One of the reasons I was working towards becoming a manager was because I was tired of my daily routine as an IC. I wanted a change of pace. It’s been a long time since I felt like work was so difficult but this means that my growth is only going to accelerate from here on out and that is extremely exciting.
