Achievement Unlocked: Figure out what to do (Sabbatical #2)

Having time in abundance is a funny thing. It made me come clean with a lot of illusions I cherished about myself. Instead of “put your money where your mouth is” it’s “put your time where your mouth is”.

Moment of truth: I invested my time differently from how I thought I would. And I didn’t always welcome the realization of who I truly am because it clashes with how I would like to be. Some things I realized about myself during the last 10 weeks (in chronological order):

There’s no “Team” in “I”

Many topics I’m interested in – communication, collaboration, leadership – only work with other people. There’s a whole lot of stuff I can’t work on alone. Including making someone else’s life better. Bummer.

I’m only self-disciplined at work but not on my own behalf

I wasted about 3 weeks sitting down each day to write a book chapter and invariably failing and clicking on every link in my Twitter stream. After I gave up on trying I spend very happy days coding away.

I don’t have time, I take time. Truly.

All those things I thought I’d do, if only I had more time – eat healthier, do more sports, write a book, put more care into presents for my loved ones – I don’t do them now, either. I’ve had a 40-45h week and no children. If I didn’t do stuff it was because other things were more important to me. And they still are, even now that I have time in abundance.

Sadly “I don’t want to” is not nearly as acceptable and non-hurting as “I don’t have time (because of my stressful job)” to most people.

I’m reconciled with being employed and working in an office

All those days sitting in a grey office, watching the sunlit trees outside, thinking how I could work in the park if I was self-employed? Humbug! I don’t go out and work in the park anyway. I sit at home, coding.

I’d make a happy hermit

As long as I have great internet connectivity, I’d be happy to not leave my flat at all. Maybe take part in one meetup per week.

(This is strange inspected together with realization #1. My takeaway is that I’m an enthusiastic team member but working alone is okay, too.)

I want to (web) develop much more

My main goal was to figure out what I want to do professionally. Project manager was not fulfilling to me. For a variety of reasons – mainly variations of “practise what you preach” – I think I will be most happy by going back to developing. (That’s not necessarily the end goal, I can think of a few nice activities after that, but for now and the coming 3-5 years it is.)

Quite the challenge after 10 years of not developing full time. So I’ve got a little long list of stuff I need to know and skills to pick up, before I go back.

If you know a nice company I’m available from January 2014 🙂