2018 Life/Work Balance Review Jan-Aug

Three quarters of 2018 is now behind us, so I decided to look back and review where and how my time has been spent so far, looking back from what I last set out to do in January this year, where I reviewed my 2017 time tracking in this post. I wasn't doing a good job this year in reviewing my personal life/work goals, the months flew by - time to re-calibrate.

Changes to my Personal RAGE model

In March 2018, I revisited my personas, see below. The main change to the model was leaving my own consulting company AS3 behind, as I took on a job as a permanent employee. I also decided to focus my values more on family, putting my own individual personal aspirations somewhat at a lower priority. The matrix looked like this:

Reviewing Personal Goals from January

Earlier this year, I noted down the following. Without looking at the data insights, the comments reflected in italics:

1. Find a way to reduce work hours to a point that it is actually sustainable, and not be the only thing that consumes me (even if I'm having a good time at work). Goal is to maintain a consistent level of 168 hours maximum per month on work. Need to do this by building an awesome management team, foster leadership & responsibility downstream. Implement behaviours from "Turn this Ship Around". Goal not met, my work hours are still quite high.
2. Create space for Personal endeavours, focusing on leisure activities as well as health & fitness. 
1. My 3D printing experiments seized in 2017. Start again. Not started
2. Cycling virtually non-existent in 2017. Start again. Only starting now, Sept!
3. I have a boxed Lego Robotics Mindstorm set waiting for me (gifted this toy for my birthday) Still boxed!
4. Five programming books to read and new languages to code - waiting for a year, unopened. Where are these books anyway, out-of-sight, out-of-mind??
5. Read 24 books this year. In 2017 I completed just 9 books of the 38 I'd planned to read! Going okay, 65% there
6. Create the software for my RAGE tracking tool. I wish!
3. Continue to nurture the family time to be as memorable & enjoyable as possible. Looking good!

What's the data showing?

Sometimes the big picture is not always a good thing. When summarising the last 8 months, it seems my Life/Work balance seems pretty normal - good percentage of split between Life/Work, where:

Life >> Work, so all must be good right??

But something feels off...

Why does it feel like I'm spending way too much time doing work? Roughly speaking, employees average monthly hours in South Africa should be around 168 hours per month. So what do my work hours look like?

So it seems my work hours are exceeding normal expected hours - although, now that I'm at executive level, it is expected to put in the extra hours, so I'm still trying to come to terms with this and really need to figure out how to still deliver on the expectations and keep the hours to my own personal target of maximum 168 hours - so with 4 months remaining, I really got to solve this puzzle somehow. When I look back at these numbers, sometimes I can't help but feel I would've been better off financially if I was still consulting and billing-by-the-hour :-)

So what if I'm working way too many hours - as long as my work keeps me happy right?? That I should be having fun, and enjoying it right?? Good thing I'm still keeping track of my daily feelings journal for work - let's see if my overall happiness sentiment is still in check??

Am I enjoying the Work? ...Yes, it seems so!

Looking at my sentiment tracking data, it does seem pretty green, not much red - so that should be a good thing. Although a cause for concern is that recently, the enjoyment in terms of positive feelings is being overtaken by more of an indifferent/neutral sentiment, that is, I can neither say I'm having a really terrible time, nor can I say I'm having an absolutely awesome time either. This could be due to a few factors: organisational transformation, people challenges and pressures of strategy changes &  new delivery challenges hitting all areas of the company - my personal challenge is never to fall into complacency or mediocrity. I'm also challenged with personal leave days, so back when I was consulting, I took some personal time pretty regularly - but from April this year, these personal leave days have drastically reduced compared to previous years. I'm becoming increasingly mindful of this, to the point of potentially taking some unpaid leave... 

Overall Breakdown of Time per Area of Life

It's not all bad - given that I did prioritise my Family-First value ahead of my own Individual needs, the areas are mostly green. However, I do need to move invest more on the personal Health & Fitness areas, and have to think really hard about investing more time and energy into the idea of breaking out as an Entrepreneur. I've got ideas building up on my backlog, with absolutely zero time invested in taking them anywhere...On my individual need for improving my spirituality, 2018 has been a very good year...On the family-side, it is still quite the challenge to dedicate real one on one time with my individual family members, I've got more work to do with 1:1 time with my wife, outside of the family time we spend together with the kids...and I got to get back to more writing time for my blog, although some close friends say I should spend less time blogging about my time tracking and instead use it for 1:1 time with my wife!

Experiments with XL: Extreme Leadership (Paired Management)

I recently (in early June) took some time off from life and work, decided to be completely unplugged for ten full days, with no access to any electronics whatsoever. This break from work coincided with the last 10 days of Ramadan, a practice called Itikaf, which is about secluding (surrendering) one's self to God by living day/night within the precincts of the Masjid boundaries, where one is engaged in various acts of worship, including self reflection, self-awareness & meditation. Itikaf is about leaving it all behind, including your own family.  I had actually made my decision sometime in April, a feeling that suddenly inspired me as something I just needed to do, without too much thought or planning. I immediately fired off an email at 5AM informing by boss (the CEO) of my upcoming intent, not really seeking his approval - I merely informed him that I'll be away from the office, completely unreachable for 10 full days, a personal life quest I needed to fulfil...thankfully, the boss didn't get in my way ;-)

When people, both friends and colleagues included, found out about my leave plans, they immediately enquired how I was going to manage the work topic. I lead a technology team responsible for an online video platform for DStv (providing live/linear streaming channels as well as video-on-demand Catch Up services, we also support a major part of the business with a full digital/web platform infrastructure). Around that time, my teams were working flat out to stabilise & scale the platform for increased load, in preparation for the FIFA world cup. We will only be ready to "freeze" a week before world cup - how could I possibly leave the team at such a critical period??  On top of that, my division was part of an ongoing group-wide organisational restructure, in those two weeks, there was much HR work to do, including rationalising job roles across various technology divisions, job grading, role & people profiling, as well as one-on-one consultations. How could I leave the team leaderless through this period?? And to add a cherry on the top, whilst I would be on leave, the group's yearly Ops Review would've taken place, I would need to input into this stream as well.  As if this wasn't enough, there were concerns that my leadership team was fairly new, people had some doubts...

I wasn't really concerned by these, instead I saw it as the perfect opportunity to test my leadership team. Whilst a fairly new team that's been only recently formally announced, they are still in between the storming/norming phase (even though it's been over a year since they're under my leadership transformation). I wanted to test out a few things:

Update: Reflections on my career in Software Engineering & Management

Two years ago around this time, I explored my progress with respect to my career choices by performing some self-reflection, by asking myself some searching questions. Later I shared my findings on this blog, in this post: Reflections on my career in the hope my story could resonate with people who may be experiencing similar challenges. I'm glad I did so since people did actually reach out, thanking me for the post & providing feedback.

Anyway, two years have since passed since I last shared the cross-road I found myself at, since I'd started my journey with this path in mind...

a) Software Team Lead -> Software Manager -> Senior Manager -> VP -> Director -> CEO

b) Principal Engineer -> Senior Principal -> Technical Director -> CTO -> CEO

b') Principal Engineer -> Architect -> Senior Architect -> Director -> CTO -> CEO

c) Technical Project Manager -> Senior Project Manager -> Program Manager -> Director -> CEO

...but instead found myself being in the technical project management space for too long, that people started naturally profiling me as the "rockstar program manager" (check out my LinkedIn recommendations and you'll immediately see why). Whilst this is a great place to be (don't get me wrong, I think a career in Project Management is one of the most versatile, lucrative and flexible professions out there, I highly encourage the move), for me, I felt I'd learnt and experienced enough, that I didn't see myself doing that for much longer. I did enjoy the project leadership, but I wanted more. Another factor that was causing me anxiety was that my role as a management consultant was getting a bit boring, what I imagined it to be versus the reality were not fully aligned. My time was fully consumed, leaving me little time to explore my own ideas to look at new ideas/products (my own start-up), I might as well have been a permanent employee - I was living an illusion, in reality I was basically a "perm-tractor". I had built up enough personal equity, credibility to enjoy a decent level of referent power to indirectly influence outcomes in my favour, I still wanted more - I wanted to feel more alive than being a neutral facilitator (which in itself I found quite rewarding but also quite energy-draining).

So what did I do? I went back to my RAGE model, here's what I had for my persona as a professional:

• As a software professional, I would like to learn & grow, seek out individuals, companies and interactions, to reach heights of excellence, so that I can not only enjoy the profession, but take me to new opportunities & experiences. I want to surround myself with people that motivate me, journey together to grow to the next level.
• Want to work with inspiring, motivated leaders that I can learn from. Want to surround myself with deeply technical, bright people. Want to work with people who know what they're doing or unafraid to take chances. Want to work with disruptors, people unafraid to push boundaries, challenging status quo. Want to work with people who are equally, if not, more motivated than me. Want to learn from people so that I can grow and do my own thing one day. Want to be with fellow professionals that will help take me to the next level. Want to work on projects and products that are interesting and cutting edge, not "me-too, copy-cat products. Want to stay at the cutting edge of software, be involved in the next wave like cloud services, mobile app development, car infotainment / self-driving cars, drone software, cloud, etc. Want a chance to start-up my own business in ideas in product development, services-space like crowd-based testing, etc.
• As a professional, I want to run a company, lead my own division. I believe the experiences and skills acquired over the years puts me a good position to do this, regardless of technology stack. I haven't been successful in launching my own start-up, so the best place would be to go back to corporate, be part of story much bigger than myself, and get the experience I need.

I also came to the conclusion that being a specialist is not a bad thing, so I'm now settled with the fact that I'm a Digital TV Technology Specialist, so I should just focus my energy in this area. I can still keep abreast of new technologies, but the road to my continued success is to build upon this experience - the rest is noise - if an opportunity comes my way for investing or if there is something truly exciting with a lot of upside, then I still might consider it ;-)

So what's happened in the last two years?
I made a decision to leave project leadership behind. I explored opportunities that aligned with my aspiration of running my own division. I took a chance by breaking the perception that I'm the guy to call in to rescue failing projects - landing an engagement as interim GM/CTO. A year later, I decided to leave consulting (248 weeks consulting) altogether and enter the corporate world as a permanent employee, taking on a CTO/Head of Technology role :-)

So my path has indeed played out a little different but now seems to be back on track:
Software Engineer > Senior Engineer > Technical Project Manager > Senior Project/Program Manager > Principal Engineer > Program Manager > Management Consultant > CTO (now) > CEO (next)

Lessons learnt / myths busted?

Who says you can't change tracks in between (especially switch to project management) and switch back to technology leadership? It can definitely be done!

Be prepared to Leave it All Behind as long as you believe you're heading in the general direction you seek (maintain your guiding compass always).

Take time to process your situation with Life/Work by investing the time in self-reflection & planning. I found my RAGE model to be a constant source of guidance. It does take some self-control, but it will be worth it in the end, just keep at it...

It is indeed possible to start from humble beginnings and change your life for a better outcome...

2017 Life/Work Balance Review

2017 was a year that went by lightning fast. It seems like not so long ago I was reflecting on 2016 when I did the write up of 80/20 rule on my life/work balance timing review around this time last year. Now a year later, I'm reflecting on how my time was spent in 2017. Interestingly enough the overall profile of my life/work balance hasn't changed drastically if you look at the summaries, but once I dive a bit more into the detail it becomes evident that my time did take a knock in some areas.

I've been tracking my time on how I spend my life for three years and counting. I've still not developed an automated system yet for tracking, need to write an app that simplifies all this manual work, however I need to find the time to do this :-) Part of my personal projects which had taken a knock last year. Once I've automated this through an app, it should make Life/Work goals tracking much simpler, lets see what 2018 brings!

My Personal Value System - Personas

At the turn of 2017, I'd optimised my value system to the following elements, split between Personal & Professional lives:

This was supposed to reflect the priorities in my overall life, with the view that when it comes to time management, how I consume time should be relative to these priorities. In hindsight, this is more difficult to achieve in reality.

What happened in 2017?

Overall, the data for 2017 is shown below:

Putting this in pictures, it looks like this:

Comparing this to 2016, it looks pretty much similar at the high level:

Quick Analysis

2017 compared to 2016, the data shows roughly a balanced life/work split, although in reality I don't feel like it was balanced at all. In May 2017 I started a new job, which had me focused on work more than anything else. If I ignore the hard reality constraints, which is something I define as unavoidable, must-happen activities like Rest/Sleep, Driving-Car and Household maintenance, the picture looks a little different:

In 2017, I worked a total of 2383 hours.

The income-generating portion was spent working as a consultant, totals 2339 hours.

Accounting for 168 hours as the legal working hours per month, this works out to 13.33 months.

Assuming a full calendar month for leave & public holidays (11 working months), I've worked an extra 2.33 months in 2017!

Whilst time spent with Family exceeded Work time, my personal time for my own individual interests took a knock. I've hardly spent time on hobbies, pet projects as well as general health/fitness/well-being.

2017 Lessons Learnt

I worked more in 2017 than 2016, in 2018 I need to reduce work-time, to focus more on personal time. If Personal time invested as an Individual is prioritised higher than Work then I need to figure out a way of allocating more time in this area. I can't compromise on the Family aspect so the time has to come from somewhere else.  Even if I leave consulting and enter full-time employment, I need to create space to value my personal endeavours. Pet projects and new ideas have had a dismal focus in 2017, making me wonder if it's worth any focus at all - the reality is quite different from aspirations or expectations. General Health & Well-being took big hits as well. Becoming an entrepreneur is hard, running a consulting company is also hard - are these just dreams, or am I serious about these? It maybe enough just to have three major focus areas: Family, Life & Work, unless Work converts to Entrepreneur / Running my own business - need to ask myself some serious questions here. Career-wise, my trajectory is looking promising but I don't know if I should resign to the notion of just spending the rest of my years working in a corporate and just settle...

Tracking 1:1 time with each child is also very challenging, with three kids where the age gaps are not that huge. The numbers do reflect quite poorly, what I've found though is that the interactions are captured as Family time - so it might not make sense anymore to focus on sole 1:1 time with each child. I still think this quite important, and need to figure out a way of creating these 1:1 times more frequently. I may have to kick-off the weekly family retrospectives to get this going again.

How did I enjoy Work in 2017?

So if I feel I'm working more than anything else, and the data shows a major part of my life is spent in the office, am I having a good time? Am I enjoying the work? Am I spending my valuable life-hours just to get by as a matter-of-fact, or am I actually enjoying the gig, and getting some fulfilment out of it? I've been tracking my level of enjoyment at work for the last few years - here's what the data shows.

I track feelings as: 

Enjoyed - Good! When I had a good productive day, relationships good, achieved something, good flow-state.

Bad When I feel I should really be doing something else, had a bad encounter, things pear-shaped.

Indifferent / Neutral Neither good nor bad, just another day-at-the-office, uneventful.

Personal Time Time off to focus on personal topics: Leave, Family-Time or Personal Time Out

The theory is that if the number of Bad days increases to a level of causing alarm, then this signals an event for me to start reconsidering my options - like just leave the work and find something better. Looking at the data, there is still far greater upside than downside - 2017 has been a year of increased enjoyment at work, so there is really no reason for me to look elsewhere...unless the level of uncertainty in employment is increasing - which as I write this, might just be the case. I've learnt through the years never to be complacent, no matter how "secure" you might feel...so as I start 2018, I must still keep my options open.

2018 Key Goals/Objectives

In 2018 I need to get back to re-evaluating my state every three months. The themes to focus on for now:

1. Find a way to reduce work hours to a point that it is actually sustainable, and not be the only thing that consumes me (even if I'm having a good time at work). Goal is to maintain a consistent level of 168 hours maximum per month on work. Need to do this by building an awesome management team, foster leadership & responsibility downstream. Implement behaviours from "Turn this Ship Around".
2. Create space for Personal endeavours, focusing on leisure activities as well as health & fitness. 
1. My 3D printing experiments seized in 2017. Start again.
2. Cycling virtually non-existent in 2017. Start again.
3. I have a boxed Lego Robotics Mindstorm set waiting for me (gifted this toy for my birthday)
4. Five programming books to read and new languages to code - waiting for a year, unopened. 
5. Read 24 books this year. In 2017 I completed just 9 books of the 38 I'd planned to read!
6. Create the software for my RAGE tracking tool.
3. Continue to nurture the family time to be as memorable & enjoyable as possible.

On Managing Change: Damped Sine Wave

I recently read a piece from the June edition of ACM, Q&A with Erik Meijer, which I found quite apt as it speaks to my current situation at work. Whilst Meijer talks specifically to software projects, we can apply this to any kind of topic, be it personal or professional, work & life - everything we encounter when it comes to dealing with change & uncertainty (career, new teams, family, new projects, etc.).

This is especially relevant to the period I'm in now, a leader driving change - i.e. changes to the way we working, kicking-off a focused management war room, and the recent announcements around delivery priorities for the next three months. This is a large corporate, multi-million dollar industry, the amazing part is that things are so fast-paced and always changing that one can argue that the only constant in this company is one that of Change!

So we need to deal with this reality, it's not going to go away anytime soon. My experience is pretty much aligned to Meijer: try to manage the level of uncertainty (balanced by one's appetite for risk) as quickly as possible through communication & stakeholder engagement, converge on well-bounded known-knowns based on the information we receive, agree to execute & deliver within the binding time constraints. Add to this is a sense of measured calm and patience, start practising ways to control your default responses too...

Courtesy: ACM

Below is the excerpt of the Q&A:

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What is your team process? How does work get done? How do you communicate status? 

A lot of what you read about process and agile has very little evidence behind it. I don't believe a lot of process is scientific. Instead, I define general guidelines about what I want to see happen, and within those I don't care how things happen.

My thinking has two main sources of inspiration: the military and the hacker way.

Over thousands of years, armies have figured out how to get things done and achieve their goals in an environment that is really chaotic and unpredictable. That is the environment we live in as developers as well. If you read the U.S. Marine Corps Warfighting manual, and replace the word war with software, everything in there holds true.

So how do you deal with uncertainty? When people attempt to solve with process, they are trying to fight or control uncertainty. For example, someone can say just adopt zero inbox and your life will be awesome. In reality though, that isn't really the case.

One of the things I like about Facebook is "the hacker way". It is an approach to creating software that involves continuous improvement and feedback. It is about computational thinking: how do you program the system, and how do you make the system do things that no one thought possible?

Being agile is about communication.

The process needs to change with the situation. You have a big picture of where you want to go, but any plan or process will shatter immediately when you hit your first bug or something happens out of your control.

In most projects there are two phases: an exploratory phase and an execution phase. Your project should progress like a damped sine wave, where the amplitude gets smaller over time (see picture above). You have to figure out what to build, and figure out what question you are trying to answer. In the beginning you want to increase the vertical velocity to get the uncertainty under control, and then you want horizontal velocity to increase when you get into execution.

With prescriptive processes. people are looking for a silver bullet to solve problems, but it doesn't exist...the world is super-confusing, and you have to embrace it and work with it.

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