Happy New Year!

I think we can all agree that 2020 was one of the most challenging years any of us have experienced. Even though here in Western Australia we have been relatively lucky due to our isolation – we even had our border to the rest of Australia closed, let alone international travel… I’ve had close friends in other countries contract Covid, luckily they are ok.

One thing 2020 has helped me learn is to really try and differentiate between the things I can control and the things I can’t.

If you’ve been a reader of my blog for some time you’ll now I make heavy use of the 3 Wins Technique. I just set my 3 big wins for 2021 and what I realized was that my 2020 wins were, in reality, not things I could  control.

I’m not saying having goals that are not 100% controllable is a bad idea, for example having a general savings/investments/paying off debts goal is fine. However you don’t control interest rates or share prices for example.

I still believe the 3 Wins Technique is a simple and effective tool, this year however I am going to be more conscious of setting goals that are in my control.

As a hypothetical  example, suppose one of your 3 wins is to “get a pay rise”. This is out of your control. I know that sounds negative, but you can’t force your employer to give you a pay rise. A better goal would be something like “I’m going to learn as much as I can this year and add as much value as I can”. This should lead to the opportunity to have a discussion with your employer and show them the extra value you’ve added and talk about a pay rise. Of course the answer could still be “no”, at which point you can control whether or not you apply for jobs elsewhere – you’ll now have more skills to offer a new employer.

As another example: “get 1000 subscribers/followers on [INSERT SOCIAL MEDIA PLATFORM HERE]”. This is also not in your control. A better version: “I’m going to learn everything I can about how [INSERT SOCIAL MEDIA PLATFORM HERE] works, I’m going to learn how to create valuable content, and I’m going to cross-market my content on the other platforms”. Again, it’s about reframing what you can and cannot control.

It’s likely that 2021 will be another challenging year, but if you set your “wins” based on things you can control and work hard to make them happen, you‘re more likely to finish 2021 with a sense of achievement rather than disappointment.

Best wishes,

Jason.

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My latest Pluralsight video training course was just published just in time for some holiday season learning! :)

From the description: “Releasing software to production can be hard, risky, and time-consuming, especially if there is a problem and you need to roll back the deployment. In this course, Feature Flags Fundamentals and Microsoft Feature Management, you’ll gain the ability to effectively and efficiently manage the development and deployment of features. First, you’ll explore how to configure and use feature flags in code. Next, you’ll discover how to control features and HTML rendering using Microsoft feature flags in an ASP.NET Core app. Finally, you’ll learn how to customize Microsoft Feature Management and even manage features from Azure. When you’re finished with this course, you’ll have the skills and knowledge of Microsoft Feature Management needed to effectively deploy and manage features in production.”

You can read more about the course over on the official course homepage. Or start watching with a free trial today.

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I’m currently reading Limitless by Jim Kwik and there’s an excellent  method that he outlines if you struggle with getting stuff done due to procrastination. So I though I’d share.

Generally I am fairly disciplined when it comes to getting stuff done but like most people I can find it easy to fall victim to procrastination.

Procrastination is really deferred progress for no good reason. One cause is that a task seems to big, or you feel like you don’t have the time or energy to complete the task.

Jim Kwik introduces the concept of Small Simple Steps (or S cubed).

The essence of this approach is for any task that you find you are procrastinating on, pick a small part (step) of the task to start on. The key thing is to pick a step that is so small and so simple that you cannot fail at it.

For example the task of losing 50kg of fat could be as simple as putting on your workout shoes.Don’t worry about actually going for a walk/run/workout just do the small simple step of putting your shoes on.

You can also apply this to work, for example if you have a bad quality codebase with no tests and unreadable code it’s easy to put off making it better. One small simple step here could be to add the first unit test. It could be even smaller such as add a unit test project.

I’ve applied this technique a few times since learning about it and even though it seems trivial, it does work.

If you like this technique and use it successfully let know on Twitter :)

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I recently started to adopt a new practice for my personal life in which when I go to bed and my head hits the pillow, I ask myself three question as I fall asleep.

These 3 questions are:

• What’s one thing I could have done better today
• What’s one thing I did well today; and
• What’s one thing I can be grateful for today

I designed and worded these questions to promote continuous improvement without negative self-talk, and to finish the day with gratitude.

Notice that they all say “one thing” – this is deliberate to make the practice easy to adopt and quick to implement. The funny thing is, I usually think of a few answers for each question.

You could use this technique at the end of a work day, for example on the commute home or as you walk out of the building, to reflect on the work day or project you are working on.

Let me know in the comments if you think you’ll give this a go and what you think of the idea (personal and/or work).

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This weekend (Friday 22nd to Sunday 24th of November 2019) you can watch all my Pluralsight courses for free.

You could also watch an entire skills path such as C# Unit Testing with xUnit or C# Unit Testing with NUnit.

The free weekend starts November 22nd at 10:00am Mountain Time.

Check this link for the full list of all my courses.

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As the New Year approaches and people start to comment “I can’t believe it’s November”, thoughts start to turn to New Year’s Resolutions and things not accomplished in this year.

Whilst I don’t believe in New Year’s Resolutions per se, rather I try to adopt a mindset of continuous improvement, the end of the year is a great time for reflection.

At the start of each year, I make use of the Three Wins Technique to think about 3 goals (aka “wins”) for the year.

Whether you like to make New Year’s Resolutions, use the 3 Wins or another technique, there’s one thing that a lot of people don’t seem to do…

…and that’s to write them down.

It sounds silly, “I know what I want to do next year”, but for some reason, somehow, writing down your goals gives them power.

You could write them on sticky notes and put them on your bathroom mirror so you see them every day. You could write them on a bit of paper and keep them in your wallet, purse, handbag, backpack, etc. You could (as I do) have a OneNote page for every year with my 3 Wins listed at the top with check boxes next to them.

The important thing is to write them down.

Since I started writing down what I wanted to achieve, I have achieved more. Maybe not everything, but still more.

I’m not saying “write it down and trust in manifestation”, you’ve still got to do the work, but at least start by writing down what you want to achieve.

If you think this sounds silly, why not give it a go anyway? Take your goals, write them down,and see what happens…

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I started using the Three Wins Technique about five years ago. It has proven to be a simple technique to help me focus on, and deliver, what is important.

The Three Wins Technique is very simple to implement, you can do it on paper, sticky notes, OneNote, Evernote or any other tool for that matter. You can read more about it in this 2014 article. I first learned about the concept from Getting Results the Agile Way, and while I don’t use that whole system, I’ve found that using the idea of three wins is beneficial as a standalone technique.

A Quick Overview of the Three Wins Technique

Essentially you define (and actually write down) what three things you want to get done. Sounds simple but it can be incredibly powerful when done properly. The wins should not just be simply tasks to be ticked off, they should be “wins” – things that make you feel a sense of accomplishment and progress when you complete them.

How I Use the Three Wins Technique

Wins can be defined for whatever timeframe you want (weekly, monthly, etc.). I define wins at four levels:

1. What are the 3 wins for this year (I define these in January each year).
2. What are the 3 wins for this month (defined at the start of each month).
3. What are the 3 wins for this week (defined on Monday morning).
4. What are the 3 wins for today.

When defining the daily wins I glance at this week’s wins. When I’m, writing down this week’s 3 wins I glance at this month’s wins. When I’m writing down this month’s wins I glance at this year’s 3 wins.

This method means that the overarching wins for the year are always kept in mind when defining more granular wins. The more granular wins (daily, weekly) should usually contribute to progress on the year’s wins. This isn’t always the case though as other things still need to be done that don’t directly contribute to a yearly win.

If you find that your more granular wins are almost never contributing to the yearly wins then you either have a problem with your focus or incorrect or unrealistic yearly wins. - Tweet This

I use OneNote for most of my note taking/planning/etc. Below is a screenshot mock-up of what my 3 wins page looks like, I create a new page at the start of each year so I can look back at all the wins from the previous years.

Notice in the preceding screenshot, one of the Jan wins is marked with a “!” – I use this when I fail to achieve a win, this helps me to notice failure patterns.

You could have separate 3 wins pages for work life, personal life, fitness/health, etc. or combine categories – whatever works best for you. I tend to use the technique for work-related things, but given the success I’ve had with it I should probably start using it in other areas of my life. I may also start to create 3 wins for the decade to provide some long term perspective.

If you give this technique a try and find it useful, please share this page with your fellow developers, friends, and colleagues.

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Whilst I’m not personally a fan of New Year’s Resolutions, preferring instead to adopt a mindset of continuous improvement, the end of a calendar year is as good a time as any to do a 12 month retrospective and think about the future.

Below are a number of resources you may find helpful to make 2019 your best year yet, along with some of the things I’m currently learning/implementing in my quest for personal development.

2018 Book List

These are some of the books I read in 2018 that I found helpful and that have influenced my thinking and personal growth:

• Discipline Equals Freedom: Field Manual (Jocko Willink). Learn to understand that discipline in the present gives you more freedom in the future.
• The Inner Game of Tennis (W. Timothy Gallwey). More about physical development/performance but the ideas transcend into anything you want to learn.
• Man's Search for Meaning (Viktor E. Frankl). Harrowing account of Nazi concentration camps infused with what it means to have real meaning in your life.
• Principles: Life and Work (Ray Dalio). Ray Dalio is the founder of one of the biggest and highest performing hedge funds in the world, this book shows the life and work principles the author has developed and also introduces the fascinating idea that you can run your life based on a set of your own written down principles.
• Extreme Ownership: How U.S. Navy SEALs Lead and Win (Jocko Willink  & Leif Babin). This should be required reading for anyone managing/leading other people, and for anyone wanting to feel like they are more in control of their life by not making excuses.

Personal Growth Podcasts

My 4 go-to podcasts (in no particular order) for physical, mental, and career growth:

• Jocko Podcast. Leadership, discipline, inspiration, service.
• Mind Pump Media Podcast. Fitness, health, weight lifting, entertainment.
• Ben Greenfield Fitness Podcast. Health, wellness, spirituality, self quantification, living your best life.
• The Tim Ferriss Show. Interviews with world class performers

Don’t Code Tired Articles

The following are articles on this blog:

• Investing In You
• Discipline Equals Freedom
• Starting Where You're At

What I’m Working On Implementing At the Moment

These are things I’m trialling, working on implementing, working on improving, or plan to implement in the near future:

• Regular daily meditation (I’m currently trying the Mindvalley 6 Phase Meditation Quest)
• Early to bed, early to rise (somewhere between 4:30 AM and 6AM – not sure yet) Effectively swapping some mindless TV/YouTube/XBox gaming at night for productive time in the morning.
• Learning to deadlift and working on flexibility to allow my to do this
• Generally: reducing waste, simplification, balanced minimalism in regards to ownership of things, saving/investing more money, reading more, learning more.

Living Your Best Life

I hope the preceding things prove to be useful, inspirational, or interesting to you.

I wish you all the best for the coming year and hope that your 2019 brings you closer to being able to live your best life.

Best wishes, Jason.

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Someone says to you: "you must be doing agile, continuous integration, continuous deployment, automated testing, test driven development, etc. etc. etc. or you're doing it wrong".

For any sufficiently complex application you’re building it's likely that the above things, and more, will be beneficial.

The problem is if you’re not doing any of these things and you feel overwhelmed where do you start?

You start where you're at.

build on each success with subsequent success

I remember watching Ray Mears on TV once and he used the acronym STOP to remember what to do if you get lost or stranded:

• (S)top
• (T)hink
• (O)rient
• (P)lan

If you feel overwhelmed this may be a useful acronym to help you start where you're at.

Accepting where you are now and starting where you're at can help remove negative feelings and the feeling of being overwhelmed and not being "good enough" at your job.

This of course doesn't mean that you should accept unprofessional practices and not try to improve things, it simply means acknowledging without judgement where you are now and then moving forward to improve things for the future.

You can start with the "big rocks", the more important or foundational things such as making sure you're using adequate source control. Maybe then move to implementing a basic continuous integration build. Maybe then start to add some automated tests, etc. etc.

Do things incrementally and build on each success with subsequent success.

To create the change you desire, you may have to invest in you along the way, develop an understanding that discipline equal freedom, and also ask yourself the question “what would easy be like?”.

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One of the books I read this year was Discipline Equals Freedom: Field Manual by Jocko Willink.

The overarching concept in the book is that if you have discipline now, in the present, this will result in greater freedom in the future.

This could be having the discipline to work out/lift weights; in the future this will most likely result in the freedom to move more with less pain/lift heavy things/go trekking/kayaking on holiday, etc.

This could be having the financial discipline to regularly save/invest money rather that spend everything you earn; in the future this will most likely result in having the freedom to (semi)retire early, not have to work in a job you don't like, etc.

I think the reason this book resonated with me personally is that it helped focus the outlook I already had on investing in the future/thinking longer term.

This concept can also be applied to software development. Disciplined software development now, will most probably lead to greater freedom in the future to make changes or add new features.

As an example, having the discipline to create automated tests can help give you the freedom in the future to make changes without having to perform a load of manual testing or worry about what may have broken unknowingly.

Another example: having the discipline to refactor code as you are working on the current feature/bug to keep the code as clean as possible will most probably give you the freedom to change it more easily in the future.

If you are a manager: having the discipline to allocate time for you team to train/learn/get better even when faced with pressure to deliver will most probably result in the freedom to deliver more in the future.

The concept can also be applied to non-coding practices such as having the discipline to hold a stand up meeting every day, engage business/users/stakeholders regularly, etc.

You can also flip this concept on its head and instead ask: in the future, what aspects would I like more freedom in: in one month, in one year, in 10 years? Let the answers to this question guide you when deciding on what it is you need to be more disciplined on today or this week to make manifest those desired freedoms in the future.

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