Aqui, Agora
Sometimes “the more I see, the less I know” seems to hold more true than ever. Looking back on things, though, I may know a bit more than I did before.
In between the day-to-day, I did get to soak up some wisdoms that my younger self would never have understood, but definitely could have used. So, in the style of a piece of advice to my younger self: a note on urgency.
What breaks when you're gone?
Imagine leaving for two weeks, unannounced. I know that idea scares you.
Setting aside the chat with HR when you return, what has broken? Besides the now one-sided meetings in your work calendar and the static backlog of features that see no progress, the answer is most likely nothing.
For me, I like to think my physical presence would be missed. That the work I deliver does have value and contributes meaningfully to a process of continuous improvement. In that respect, I hope my two-week hiatus would not go unnoticed.
And yet, I'm not a load-bearing structure. This place has existed before me and will continue to exist when I'm gone. Replacing the hole that is left behind by my absence would just be a matter of time, money, and energy. That is to say, with a reasonable amount of resources, I can be replaced.
In fact, I would be incredibly surprised to find an unfilled, me-shaped hole in any of the places that I've been. And that's okay.
“And I want it now”
They say “Saturday night's alright for fighting”. While that may just be personal preference, the golden rule of stable software (“never deploy on a Friday”) should be non-negotiable.
Over the course of my years, I had the privilege of meeting a some remarkable, stable, and grounded people. Despite working different jobs and not knowing one another, they share a particular quality of steadiness. Their work is often quiet, understated, and best done in the background.
Ultimately, what intrigues me about these people is how they are able to constantly re-evaluate their priorities and accept any invitation to change, yet their goals and objectives barely move. Not because they do not want to change, but because they were not presented with a good enough reason to do so.
They understand that what is truly important does not change on a day-by-day basis and choose to stay their course. In this frame of mind, the standard response to a new high-priority idea is to ask what other idea should go on the back-burner. More often than not, this approach reveals that the initial “I want it now” priority is highly overstated.
Warranted urgency
All of this is not to say that nothing is ever urgent. That 3 A.M. phone-call from your child is most likely urgent. What happens five minutes after my morning coffee is definitely urgent.
What drives us up the wall is the lack of distinction. When everything is blaring at you more than ever, how can we possible hope to take the time to think? To process? To prioritize?
We would do well to remind ourselves: very few things are urgent once properly scrutinized. Whether it is a well-meaning request by a colleague, the millionth notification of the day, or the FOMO of not seeing all posts in your feed. More than likely, nothing changes when you step away for a minute.
Remember: It won't break when you're gone.