Learning About Myself

Two years ago I was hiking with two friends in the pouring rain on the side of a mountain in New Hampshire. We were a few hours into a two night backpacking trip and we were soaked through. For many people this experience would be hellish. It wasn’t for me. I knew we were well prepared and we were doing something that I love. It was the start of a great trip.

 
I spend a lot of time reflecting. I do this to work towards being my best self. I structure my life based on these learnings, making sure I satisfy my basic needs, do more of the things that give me energy, and limit my exposure to the things that steal my energy. Today, I would like to share what I have learned about myself. Maybe it will help you understand me a little bit better. Maybe it will inspire you to reflect on how to work towards your best self.

Our view from Zealand Cliff in the White Mountains, several hours after hiking in the rain. Photo by Jay Doyle.

Why I Write

Sitting at my computer recently, I read the following message:

I'm halfway through your "Peer Groups in the Workplace" post… It's awesome. In the past I've [started to create] a Slack group with a bunch [of my] peers … and eventually hit cancel. I'm going to finish your post, and then create that group later today. Thank you for the push I needed!

Receiving and reading that message made my day. 

My last post described a number of changes I am making to my blog. I offered two reasons for those changes: making my writing more accessible and practicing writing with constraints. This post dives into the motivations (both selfish and selfless) underlying those reasons that ultimately keep me writing every morning. These motivations are the real driving forces behind the changes in my writing. 

My desk, ready for writing 

Learning and Growing in Tech

Photo by Julie Kertesz

Welcome! Come Learn and Grow with me.

Today I am re-introducing my blog and what you can expect from it going forward. It will primarily focus on my experiences learning and growing in tech. It is aimed at anyone (new grad through distinguished engineer) who might benefit from my experiences and what I have learned along the way. Each post should take no more than 5 minutes to read. With the exception of length (earlier posts are longer), this is a refinement of focus, not a change in direction.

Let me also re-introduce myself to you: Hello, I’m David. I am currently a staff engineer at MongoDB, focused on server performance. Previously, I was a lead engineer (manager) for 2.5 years (it didn’t agree with me). In addition to my technical focus, I help build communities and find writing incredibly valuable.

The rest of this post goes into more detail on the changes to this blog and who I am. If you are interested in my theme, but not the details of these changes, please take a look at my blog archive instead. Also feel free to subscribe to my feed.

Writing and Labelling in a Journal

I have a monthly gathering at work with other bakers. We each bake something at home and bring it in to share. I unequivocally know this is one of the most important parts of my job. I know this because I told myself – in my journal.

Journaling is conceptually very simple: write things down. It doesn’t need to be much more complicated than that. However, there are some points to keep in mind to make the most of your journaling, ranging from how you take the notes to what you do with them once you have them. If you do it well you will be more present in your day, remember more details from your day, be more creative (with more and better ideas), and be happier. And all of that is before you ever even read your journal. Reading your journal can take those to the next level, helping you better understand the big picture of your life and improve it. 

This is the second of a two part series on journaling. This post focuses on the power of writing things down in a journal and how to do that well. The previous part focused on making the most of your journal after you have written things down, including the end to end value of journaling and reviewing your journal.

You only need a pad of paper and a pen to get started journaling.

 

The Power of Journaling

I have a monthly gathering at work with other bakers. We each bake something at home and bring it in to share. I unequivocally know this is one of the most important parts of my job. I know this because I told myself – in my journal.

Journaling is conceptually very simple: write things down, and look at it later. It doesn’t need to be much more complicated than that. However, there are some points to keep in mind to make the most of your journaling, ranging from how you take the notes, to what you do with them once you have them. If you do it well you will be more creative (with more and better ideas), be happier, and have a better understanding of and control of the big picture of your life.

This is the first of a two part series on journaling, covering how to journal and how to review your journal. We start in this post on the latter point: making the most of your journal after you have written things down. The second post returns to the writing, focusing on the power of writing things down in a journal and how to do that well.

Journaling is valuable in and off itself – you should do it. For this post, I assume you are already writing things down. Reviewing your journal enables three other useful things: seeing (and changing) the big picture of our lives, improving the important things in our lives, and making ourselves feel better. I’ll discuss each item in turn, but it starts with reviewing your journal.

Special Places

At the Café by Edouard Manet from the Google Arts & Culture via Wikipedia

Los Alamos, SRI’s Augmentation Research Center (ARC), Café Guerbois at the beginning of Impressionism. For the right person, each was a special place. What must it have been like to be at Los Alamos with Fermi, Feynman, and others for the Manhattan Project? Or to be at the Augmentation Research Center for the development of the future of personal computing including the mouse, the graphical user interface, and video conferencing (culminating in the Mother of All Demos)? Or to be in the Café Guerbois with Manet, Degas, Monet, Renoir, and others for the birth of Impressionism? Just imagine the ideas and excitement that must have been in the air in each place.

You cannot go to any of those places today. Sure, there’s still a research lab at Los Alamos and the ideas of ARC are everywhere. But those exciting, special times are in the past. Special places don’t just exist in a place, they also exist in a time. It is easy to mourn that these special places no longer exist. I think this is misguided. Instead, we should celebrate that they ever existed!