Retrospecting…

After a period of hard work (whether successful or not) it is powerful to take a few minutes to reflect. This time of retrospective should include activities like reflecting on what went well, what didn’t go well, and what changes you are going to make based on this new information.

Retrospectives should be run at regular intervals during projects and at the end of bigger milestones. If you are doing some kind of time boxed development (e.g. sprints) then it is natural to hold a retrospective at the end of each time box. After a major release or a major problem you should hold one also. A major problem’s retrospective should add root cause analysis to the meeting.

Retrospecting on Blogging

This is my 25th blog post within 90 days and I wanted to take this time to retrospect on the experience.

Why did I do this?

I joined a program called 52 Weeks of Momentum put on by Benjamin Hardy. He asked everyone to pick a 90 day challenge from a list of challenges. I chose the writing challenge and as part of that goal I committed to writing 25 posts during those 90 days. I joined the course a few weeks late and I didn’t write on the weekends, so all of these posts were written over a possible 56 days. During those days I missed a few for various reasons, but I only had writer’s block 2 of those days (which surprised me because I thought my episodes of writer’s block would be more frequent).

What Went Well

I mainly wrote what I already knew. Although I did research to make sure my facts were straight, I did not research new topics for the sake of writing a blog post. This was absolutely surprising that I had that much to talk about because previous attempts to blog found me stuck and feeling like I had nothing to add.

By giving myself relatively short deadlines for each article I forced myself to hit the publish button even if I didn’t know if it was ready. I also couldn’t obsess over having the perfect post (if that is even possible) because I didn’t have time to make it perfect.

I am surprised that I actually finished this goal. I had to tell myself that I was going to finish this so I didn’t get overwhelmed and quit, but in the deepest parts of my conciousness I don’t know if I actually believed it. I have embarked on other failed goals that were less ambitious. Something was different this time.

I credit this success to setting up environment triggers that made writing easy. This is pure Benjamin Hardy and I talked about this concept in my book report of his book Willpower Doesn’t Work. I setup a morning routine that included exercise, planning, and spiritual activities. After that I did personal hygiene and hopped on the train to get to work. I did 95% of my writing on the train. It was automatic, I got on the train, opened my laptop, and started to write. Get on the train, start to write. It became easy because I just knew that was what happened.

What Didn’t Go Well

I think that it is ironic that this goal that I set both propelled me to do something that used to be impossible but at the same time it limited me. I fit the posts to the time. If I had put the goal at 30 posts I think I would have hit the goal. There would be some point which would make this goal actually impossible but it was above 25. This isn’t a regret, it is a recognition that even though this goal stretched me incredible, it did not take me anywhere near a breaking point.

Not everything I wrote got published. I wrote probably 6–7 partial posts that I just couldn’t bring together. I either started writing things I didn’t really believe, or I found my thoughts were fuzzy and I didn’t have anything clear that I wanted to say. I didn’t publish or pursue those because I wanted to publish 25 things I could be proud of publishing and I didn’t want to dip into click bait or trendy topics for the sake of being trendy.

The second and third to last posts were the hardest to write. I had shiny object syndrome and started to get excited about my open source project committed. I also wanted to keep the quality high in the home stretch and so I threw away a few posts at the end. I think there was an element of self sabotage as I was getting really close, but I persevered and did it!

What I am Going to Change

For my next 90 day challenge I am going to be a bit more ambitious. I will also double down on environment triggers.

Take Aways

• I can do hard things — I did this and I am confident that when I set my next 90 day challenge I will accomplish it also.
• Environment triggers were hugely successful for me (YMMV)
• Writing happens when you write. I got more inspiration while writing then when I was thinking about what to write.
• Short deadlines made it more likely that I would hit them and created a sense of urgency in myself.
• I can push myself harder because I had additional capacity when I was done.

Conclusion

Retrospecting is important part of iteratively improving your activities. Thinking about what went well, what didn’t go well, and what you are going to do about it is a simple format for running retrospectives.