Work

Even coming out of a three day weekend I spent the week with a massive underlying sense of tiredness. Being up most of Saturday night lingered over the week and played havoc with my ability to concentrate. It was my ADHD at its worst, when my structure went to pot a bit. This spilled into tired eating shit food, in that way tired eating shit food somehow feels gratifying when you’re not really with it.

Still, lots to do and done, mainly little bits and bats. Spent some time with Andre (bright, great taste in music, always has super hair) and then the team working through the last details on some iterations to the product based on usage feedback. Less we’ve held our hands up and said “that’s in the wrong place”, more “we designed that with what we knew at the time and know we understand more what would make it work better”. It’s satisfying the product crosses some organisational silos and everyone is working together to make it smoother. Very satisfying.

Have several regular feedback sessions in my diary, had one this week. I’m the person who looks for the nitpicking feedback. One of the challenges of the product providing a service for out of hours staff was not adding to staff’s workload when they are on call. Help the staff record just enough when they’re on call, help them not have to navigate through numerous systems, make it as straightforward as it can be (“easy” never seems appropriate on any internal products, as a lot of the stuff I’ve worked on isn’t about easy decisions). That we’re getting positive feedback from those staff is… not gratifying but… maybe more indicative of what those staff were actually expecting? I joked maybe I’ll go back to full time service designing after this — but then sometimes being alright at service design helps be a good product manager.

The business lead and I did some prep on Thursday for what we feel will be our last run through/demo of the service now in place for staff. We have a stack of slides and demos we dip into. It’s not that the way we go through the service is ever perfect. It always needs tailoring to the audience, we always refine what we say to make it as clear as it can be, but you reach a point where you gonna tell it as best you can. How many times do we rattle out a last minute set of slides and not have the chance to at least run through them, make sure they make sense? A good story well told is worth the time for your team, your product/service and the people giving up time to be with you.

Work adjacent

If I ever get a full time job somewhere I want a clause in my contract saying my employer won’t publish pictures of me on their social media feeds to “celebrate” my work anniversary.

Friday’s Agile in the Ether was a fun lunchtime. Sign up for the next one (they’re remote).

Promised Marianne I’d make the next Service Design Morning in early June. Don’t think I’ve been to one since… the days of Covid?

Had to call Virgin Media. “Hi Simon, thank you for calling Virgin Media, you spoke with MILIE. Based on this interaction how likely are you to recommend Virgin Media? Please reply with a score from 0 (Not Likely) to 10 (Very Likely).” Recommend Virgin Media off the back of a call to arrange an engineer to pop round feels… a leap. And an obvious vanity metric. Somebody somewhere will have a spreadsheet of those replies though. The question should be more How was the person you spoke to?.

Fomo at (choosing to) missing out on Camp Digital, but there was enough after the event posts to get a feel for the vibes.

General life notes

That lingering feeling of tiredness all week wasn’t just in work life.

Reflected a little on the passing of the kids’ granddad. He was inherently the closest I had to a dad for the best part of 20 years, from 2000 when Sonya and I got together in 2000 to when we separated in September 2021. I don’t think I ever had a “this will be the last time I see him” moment. Seen him twice since the separation: That year’s Christmas picking the lad up, a quick “hi Si!” through the back door; Another in Sheffield watching the lad in a climbing competition. And that was it. No chance for one last thank you for everything he did.

Friends have all been super supportive the last week while I’ve been trying to make sure I am extra supportive of/for my kids. Thank you if you are one of those. Kristin in particular has been amazing. She is the most supportive person in my life in so many ways.

Gave blood on Tuesday. 5 minutes and 37 seconds. Apparently this is fast “but the record is something like 3 minutes and 40 seconds; they were in their 60s”. (Need to book in next appointment.)

That culture

Continued watching X-Men 97. It’s good innit. And the episodes are a full fat 30 minutes.

The Steve Albini news sucked. Rewatched the episode of Anthony Bourdain’s Parts Unknown in Chicago, where Albini and Bourdain meet. Forgot all the other stuff around their chat, which is very much the minor moment in that episode. Also notable how quick people were to jump on the socials to point out Albini’s views on things earlier in his life — and skip he was very reflective of his youth in his older years. Also reminded I really want to go to Chicago.

New Doctor Who: I guess it was no dafter than some of the Tennant era Who. Not sure if the supernatural (which is what Maestro’s powers felt they were) is where my head expects Doctor Who to go — I think of it more as science fiction rather than fantasy fiction — but here we are.

Running and fitness

🏃🏻‍♂️ 1 run, totally 9.3km 👎🏼
🚶🏻‍♂️ Tracked 34.9km of walking 👍🏼👍🏼
🧗‍♂️ No climbs 👎🏼
🏋️‍♂️ No weights or aerobics.

Race/organised runs plan. I track most activities on Strava.

Home improvements

Got the keys to the new house on 27 October 2023. Four months of renovation. Moved in start of March. Lots of things left to do.

Over these last week:

Back yard now clear of rubble and dirt. 💪🏼
Kitchen cupboards now have floor kick boards attached.
Half of the crap in the back gutter removed (after the careful deployment of a step ladder to get to the longer ladder on the outhouse).
Kristin hung some of our many pictures. The walls looked great and look even better now.

Interesting links (some of them)

Looking forwards

Work / work adjacent

Hopefully the head fog has passed a lot so I can focus on clearing out some smaller things.
Three weeks at HMPPS to go.
Find something else for June onwards.
Try and start one of those blog posts I keep hinting at.
Keeping popping up in community sessions (it’s good to be back) and put in some overdue catch ups with friends.

Life

Need to plan a longer break.
Still (still) need to try and read some of those 400-odd browser tabs in my phone.
Final stretch of accounts / taxes.

Health and fitness goals

Run at least 25km.
Weight down to 88kg. 🙏🏼
One weights/aerobic session.

Home improvement

Fix the sideboards on by the oven.
Finish replacing the inside door locks.
Find and replace indoor door handles.
Touch up the walls in bedroom 2.
Hang some more pictures.

The full home improvement log (needs the tasks sizing and prioritising)

Diary management

Say hi if you’re going to be at any of these/are at one of these.

Wednesday 15 May 2024
- Interesting 24, London
Wednesday 29 May 2024
- Product in the (A)ether
Tuesday 4 June 2024
- Service Design Mornings (If you’re interested join the Slack channel or/and email Marianne: marianne@dxw.com)
Thursday 13 June 2024
- Product for the People, Leeds
Friday 21 June 2024 to Sunday 23 June 2024
- Dublin
Monday 24 June 2024
- CSS, The Brude, Leeds
Sunday 14 July
- Ilkley half marathon
Saturday 24 August 2024
- Field Day, Victoria Park, London
Sunday 15th September 2024
- Pudsey 10k
Monday 28 October 2024
- Fran Lebowitz, Barbican, London

Weeknote for 6 May to 12 May 2024