It’s the end of June, which means we’re about the pass the first half of the year. Crazy, huh? I thought this would be a good time to do a mid-year review to sum up how things are going so far!
In the beginning of the year, I made a big deal of how I want to simplify things in my life. I have made some strides towards that! For example, I did clean up my work and personal desks (though my personal one is getting cluttered again and needs another clean), and I’ve tidied up other parts of the house.
Simplifying the amount of things I own will always be a continual process, but I’ve already made a big donation of clothing and kitchen supplies. My husband and I are working on another pile of clothing to donate, and I also found out about a clothing recycling service. That will be great for clothing that are too worn down to donate. I’ve been making progress on clearing out one of our storage rooms as well and have thrown away or recycled many things in there.
Simplifying my workload and delegating more responsibilities to others was a big deal to me and is probably the biggest change. I went from managing two teams of 7 developers each (14 direct reports), down to one larger team of 10 developers. I rebalanced the teams (one didn’t need as many resources), and I promoted one of my developers to manage the smaller of the two teams. I also promoted another to a senior position, so he can help with code reviews and mentoring, and another developer started leading a couple of my projects. I’m still really busy, but going down to a single team and having a couple developers help out with responsibilities has helped immensely.
I’ve also made a bit of progress towards simplifying my hobbies but not much. I finally expired one of my old Anime domains, and I’ve been talking to my dad about my photography equipment. After he retires, he wants better photography equipment, so a few of my unused lenses may go to him. There’s still more to be done!
