The past week has been a great one - Robyn turned five, FIVE - how this happened is so crazy, it’s been an interesting journey being a father.
I’ve learned so much from her, and my wife - learning to be patient, learning to coach my daughter to make her own way in life, giving her confidence, an opinion, and control… I’ve enjoyed it so much I’ve got a second one on the way! Keep an eye out for how tired I look in March…

Monday
This morning I was welcomed by 16 emails from over the weekend, all with deadlines - not the best way to start your Monday morning but it’s becoming a habit. I’ve learned to start working out what is actually urgent and more of panic by the person writing it, of which I then discuss this with them and it becomes a lot easier and clearer and calmer to work on.

Home update: the house has become good, really good - we have done a complete empty of every room (and trust me… when you have a 5-year-old running around who is a toy tester (don’t ask), a self-employed business (bobbin and bumble) and working from home full time it suddenly starts to add up. BUT, we’ve done things over the past month to really make it homely again, and also ready for a baby in advance! Who’d of thought you can sort yourself out 3 months early and feel pretty ready for the baby?

Tuesday
Morning stand up, so glad I write notes from the day before to discuss as mornings as sometimes a rush due to doing the school run.

Later on, we discussed a change in our working process, co-working with another team - I always find discussions around things like this interesting and incredibly valuable learning tools, hearing opinions from developers, BA’s to PM’s. It’s an interesting time for our team, and having this external help from another team is invaluable to deliver something even better.

The afternoon meeting was brilliant - regrouping with Leeds based Interaction designers for a catch-up, really good chance to moan, cheer, and share work which I love doing! A lot of us thrive on the communities we have, but also some slip through the gaps so it’s a timely reminder that often some designers do not have designers in their area of work due to (especially at current) the way it’s all set up. Time to support our colleagues and fix this!

Wednesday
School day (every day but Monday), I still wonder why the school sometimes insists on masks and social spacing in the morning, then other mornings don’t. BUT I will say - Robyn’s school has been amazing, they have really changed Robyn in a good way, during lockdown she was fine and fun etc, but I know her learning was stalling - I can only do what I can do, but since school she now reads, writes, adds and now I know what to do from her telling me. Schools are possibly one of the most unappreciated and unspoken about heroes during this time.

Today we had an important ways of working meeting, I love these type of conversations as it leads to fixes but also airing of “why it doesnt feel so smooth” chats. We discussed design not getting in to the ticket early enough and why we need to be in these chats sooner.

Thursday

After our ways of working chat, today was a new day, and starting to fix processes, we all attended the road mapping session. This is the first time I’ve seen the vision and future of the product I am on, whilst it looks heavy - it provides me with an overview of what’s coming, and also anything I can task myself or the design team with prep.

The ultimate moment happened… I realised this team is missing an updated user journey map and we need one pretty sharpish as it’s getting out of control to keep track. In my true style of anti-gatekeeper, I’m going to start it all off using Mural and motivate and engage the team to keep it a living project to show off when/if needed.

Friday
A strange day of catch-ups before everyone goes off on leave during Christmas time, on and off time to work but plenty of work to keep me busy during the week before the break.

A great way to end the week, a show and tell with the wider team of my “area of work”, with a huge show of thank you from those on the frontline of the “thing we’ve built”.

Well earned weekend again!

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