I came to a realization recently in that – I don’t blog as often anymore partly because I need peace and quiet to blog. That’s pretty much the only time I blog, when it’s silent…
And I haven’t had peace and quiet to myself in a while because I’ve been sleeping earlier than usual.

Yes, gone are the days of sleeping at 5am, waking up at 3pm (on the weekend), sleeping at 1-3am and waking up at 9:15am (on the weekday). Nowadays, you’ll find me sleeping between 12 and 1 and waking up between 7:45 and 8:30. And on weekends, sleeping between 12-2 and waking up around 10am.

My schedule has normalized to that of an average person…and it’s different.

I find that I’m more productive in the errands, in the menial tasks accomplished during the day – and that my loss of time in the middle of the night is correlated to a loss of critical thinking. Hence, my lack of blogging, my lack of development (coding), even my lack of ‘productivity’ – ‘Warren productivity’ that is. I have less time to focus and concentrate and the time I do have alone, I tend to squander. You need time to really get into something, after all.

.
.
.

I took a 3-day course on management last week. Specifically, a “leadership development course”. Followed by a 1-day course on “Fundamentals of Customer Experience”. Both were incredibly enlightening and I feel that I learned more in 4 days in some aspects than I’ve learned in 5 years of experience. I learned more about bigger picture and how everything ties together. Maybe I’ll blog about it…later. There was also a substantial amount of self-discovery in these days.

It’s interesting – I find that I’m growing at a fast rate – on all the things I didn’t deem important earlier in my career. All the things I thought trivial due to my development experience and nature, is now my focus. It’s definitely taking some getting used to but it’s great that, overall, I’ll be a much stronger, well-rounded professional.

I found that this blog helped incredibly with my self discovery of things like my mantra (or “brand”) – “Reliable to Succeed. Passionate to Excel. Adaptable to Endure.” and that, without realizing, I’d already started the foundation to my “brand”. Even though I don’t write in my blog as much anymore (Q_Q), I definitely value the skills and realizations that’s come with writing in it. The writing skill/ability increase, the self-reflection and self-discovery, the change in mentality on things, and the transparency. I’m vastly different than I was, 4 years ago. And I’m pleased that this blog has helped chronicle the change. Sure, it may be only useful to me…but that’s someone.

.
.
.

One thing that’s been running through my mind lately is “If I knew then, what I know now”. I really feel that the 4-day course I took helped me in leaps and bounds on the obvious, the common sense – of which I didn’t know. I’m sure there’s less of a “If I knew then, what I know now” due to that course and I can’t measure how important that is. Experience is not easy to obtain and it takes time to learn from experience. But I feel like I’d been given a helping handful of free experience in a short amount of time. And that’s priceless.

Sure, I didn’t figure anything out for myself, but I’d been handed well thought out conclusions. Not trying to reinvent the wheel here – best to learn from the knowledge out there than start fresh.

.
.
.

In the last 6 months I’d been in my manager role, I honestly felt that I’d go back to dev after this role as this manager thing isn’t for me. But after this course, I realize that this manager thing isn’t for me…cuz I’m not great at it…yet. And I love being great at something over failing something. That’s so personally motivating/satisfying – and I take a lot of pride in my work. But I find with my new knowledge, I have the ability to be much better, dare I say – great – at my job. And that challenge is really laying the foundation for this possibly new career. I still love development though…but it’s nice stepping out of my comfort zone, being uncomfortable, but gaining new skills to be comfortable again. That’s a difficult journey and I’m proud to say I’m on it, as opposed to being complacent. Complacent is good…but not long term. “Adaptable to endure” and all that…

.
.
.

That’s it. Going to sleep now. Was nice to write a bit again :)