slack

There was some discussion here about the book Slack.  For months I have haven't had any time to participate, or even observe in such discussions.  But this discussion appeared a few days after the Beta 2 work dropped off.  I was spending 4+ hours each day in meetings to discuss Beta 2 bugs; it was hard to do anything else.  It worked out well, that my first slack in months & the discussion about Slack appeared at the same time.

In the last two weeks I've been practicing slack.  I've been going through my backlog of stuff. 

The first few days I told myself that I really needed the break, just to see what email I hadn't read.

Then I got to the point where all the "urgent" stuff was taken care of, and I took a couple days to relax, do non-urgent (but still important) work, enjoy the beautiful weather, and see my family in the evenings.

Pretty soon I started feeling uncomfortable.  I was worried that I was underperforming, that I had lost my motivation, that I was not doing a good job, that I was just coasting.

I reimaged my dev machine.  I cleaned & organized my office.  I looked through all my old mail that I had never responded to.  The oldest was a year old, and I finally gave it a response.

Then I made the connection.  This stuff is important, even though it isn't urgent.  I should arrange my life & my schedule so that I usually have time to do these things. 

I still have a lot to learn about doing this.  I haven't managed to get into any exercise habit yet, like yoga or bicycling.  I haven't managed to actually take off from work to go sailing.