I’m back, again, some shitty news meant my brain and body needed to be elsewhere. I’m now slowly getting back into the swing of normality. I know – what even is “normal”?
So here’s a fast reflection on the week just past…
1. What happened?
Biggest win:
Completing a mid-year review for a team member. It takes a lot of time to do these, but they’re so important. I had a deadline of today and submitted it on Wednesday.
Biggest challenge:
My own brain. Even knowing I had to a lot work to do for the above review, I went into paralysis at the sight of a blank page. I tried to acknowledge that, and embrace that daily progress was way forward. Progress over procrastination.
One thing that surprised me:
This isn’t really a surprise as such, but I’ve become more aware that I’m guilty of creating my own stress. I’m trying to be remember this so I can minimise it. It’s taking practice.
2. Decisions
One good decision I made:
I helped a team improve emails for our direct customers. I tweaked them from a simple “your account has expired/your free trial has ended” message to including the benefits to encourage users to stay with us.
Why it worked: I also proposed we see if there are existing emails we can use and there were. I also suggested we optimise these further by adjusting the casing from titlecase to sentence case. This means they’re more on brand, resulting in a more trustworthy and consistent experience for users.
One decision I’d rethink:
I was a bit over keen to attend a meeting and it turned out it wasn’t the best use of my time. While it was great to hear an update on how the project was progressing, it was time I could have conserved.
What I’d do differently: not got to the meeting.
3. Customer & Product
Where did I create real customer value?
In the emails for our direct customers. They were one-liner emails saying “your account has expired”. That leaves our users in a bit of a crappy place. What do they do next? Why should they care? What if they want to continue using our software? I know the tweaks I’ve made have answered these questions so it’ll be good to see if they move the metrics needle.
Where did I miss, delay, or compromise?
I didn’t build out our content roadmap as much as I hoped. But that’s okay. Progress over procrastination.
4. Team & Leadership
One thing I did that helped the team:
I created a copy fix request log for our Payments project. We did this before for high impact projects and it was helpful so I created another.
One thing I could do better as a leader:
Just one thing? I know there’s loads of room for growth. One thing I’ve already drafted is a plan for the next 3 months for working towards a promotion.
5. Focus & Energy
What gave me energy this week?
Stopping. Ironic, but giving myself permission not to do all the things.
What drained my energy?
Guess what: trying to do all the things.
6. Looking ahead
One priority for the next week:
Get the content roadmap in Jira and socialise it.
One leadership habit I’ll focus on:
Active listening. I’m going to look for resources on our learning portal.
One lesson I want to carry forward:
Try to stress less. Wish me luck.
Tinker-Tailor-Soldier-Sailor 
Leave a comment