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Monthly review: April 2012

Sacha Chua — Mon, 07 May 2012 01:30:00 +0000

Business: April was my second full month as an independent business owner. It’s awesome having a flexible schedule, especially as the weather warms up. Instead of laying the groundwork for another consulting engagement or other active income gig for September, I’ve been focusing on developing skills and content instead – writing, drawing, things like that. I think that will work out better for me with our plans for this year. In May, I look forward to doing consulting 3-4 days a week and using the other days to improve my system and learn more about drawing.

Drawing: I’ve been working on more visual metaphors and book reviews, and general drawing practice as well. Tracing pictures is easy, and it’s pretty fun too. In May, I’m looking forward to drawing more book reviews and meetup notes, and testing if I can review the images easily on my phone.

Life: Warmer weather is biking weather, hooray! I biked to work throughout April, except for two rainy days. I look forward to biking almost all the time in May as well. I enjoy the bike ride downtown, and it’s good exercise.

Time reviews: Did lots of things, yay!

Tracking focus: In May, I want to analyze the season’s output for the Cooper’s Farm community supported agriculture program. I also want to start tracking grocery receipts at the line-item level, which I might do with Lemon or with a virtual assistant. I’m curious about whether we can shift towards buying more vegetables this season.

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Monthly review: March 2012

Sacha Chua — Sun, 22 Apr 2012 12:00:16 +0000

By golly, I’ve been remiss with monthly reviews. None since November – can that be right? Back to writing these!

March was my first full month as a business owner. Consulting is solid and good. I’ve also started doing illustration.

I like this. There are tons of things to learn, and it’s good.

I’m already most of the ways through April. I plan to bike to work all throughout the month, if I can help it. So far, so good! I want to spend April experimenting with more ideas. I like drawing, and I’m getting the hang of the tools I’ve added to my kit.

Sketchnotes:

Business:

Miscellaneous:

Weekly reviews:

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Monthly review: November 2011

Sacha Chua — Sun, 18 Dec 2011 13:00:00 +0000

Halfway through December, I know, but things got busy with two launches and home improvements. =)

From my plans for November:

… I’m going to focus on having a place for everything and everything
in its place. I’m experimenting with the stuff-tracking I’ve added to
my personal dashboard. Looking forward to sharing screenshots and
experiences, and maybe even opening it up so that other people can
track their things too. I’d like to see if I can complete a month of
tracking stuff, and what I find myself needing to add to it. Let’s see
how that works out!

I built a simple stuff tracker, and it’s up there now. My stuff use has stabilized – all the locations for my frequently-moved things are in the system, and contexts make it easy enough to update. I don’t update it as often as I could, probably because the web pages are somewhat slow to load and use on my laptop. Better mobile stylesheets or a native Android app can take care of that. I’ve used it to take notes on things I’m likely to forget, and I hope that will pay off.

I’ve misplaced my keys twice after months of not losing them, though. That was more about inattentiveness than forgetting where they are.

My December experiment will be tracking my time using Tap Log Records instead of Time Recording, and gathering ideas for building my own app. I want to see if switching tools will make it easier for me to capture other data in addition to activity, such as mood and ideas, and where the rough parts are so that I can smooth them over.

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Monthly review: October 2011

Sacha Chua — Sun, 06 Nov 2011 12:00:00 +0000

October was an excellent month. My work laptop upgrade meant that I could bring just one laptop to work instead of two. I’ve added lots of things to my Quantified Awesome personal dashboard. J- has caught up at school, and is doing well. We’re looking into how to make the house more energy-efficient. I’m learning more about cooking, and have picked up some new recipes. Life is good.

From my plans from September: I added library functionality to my dashboard, tracking the currently-checked out items as well as some statistics on the books I’ve read (retail price, number of pages, and so on). I think I’ll postpone the blog review to December or August.

In November, I’m going to focus on having a place for everything and everything in its place. I’m experimenting with the stuff-tracking I’ve added to my personal dashboard. Looking forward to sharing screenshots and experiences, and maybe even opening it up so that other people can track their things too. I’d like to see if I can complete a month of tracking stuff, and what I find myself needing to add to it. Let’s see how that works out!

Blog posts this month:

Quantified Awesome:

Work:

Tips:

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Monthly review: September 2011

Sacha Chua — Mon, 17 Oct 2011 12:00:00 +0000

As predicted, September was a month of preparation. Work projects winding down and starting up; little things to take care of before our trip to the Philippines; personal projects like my home dashboard… It was a good month, productive but not overwhelming.

October will pass before I know it – and indeed, I’m writing this halfway through. We spent the first half getting ready for or enjoying our trip to the Philippines, where we celebrated my sister’s wedding. The rest of October will involve getting back into the swing of work, focusing on projects – maybe even setting up a new work laptop, if I’m lucky. That will make winter commutes better, because I’ll be able to work with just one laptop and I can leave that one at the office.

Personal projects: My home dashboard is working out quite nicely. Travel provided a great excuse to improve the clothing logs / analysis part. There are lots of little tweaks I can do to make it even smoother, but it’s already quite handy now.

I’d like to add more library functionality this month: showing the number of books that are ready for picking up, tracking the date/time they’re read, and maybe displaying some other statistics: mean time between books? This might make a nifty line graph: number of books going in and out of the house per week.

It would be really nifty to calculate the total volume and/or a bag-packing list, so I know if I can fit everything into two bike bags, if I should bring a backpack, or if I should wait until W- can either accompany me or take the car. (Yes, I have library days like that.) Amazon has product dimensions, so it might not be impossible to build my own tool, although there might be some packing inefficiencies. The next step would probably be to build a tool that automatically deactivates my holds when I get close to full capacity, but that might be way too geeky. Just In Time library checkout management. ;)

Yes, the library is very much worth our taxes and donations.

I’ll save the blog review for November or December, once routines are back to normal. One of the good things about being forgetful is that I learn a lot by going back over old posts. Maybe I can hack an “On This Day” feed into my home dashboard or my iGoogle page, so that I can see slices of days. You can see “On This Day” lists when you view single blog posts on my blog, and they’re interesting slices of life through the years. I also want to review my old blog posts, add more notes, and format them for the Kindle so that I can go through my notes in an easier-to-flip-through format.

Life is great!

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Monthly review: June, July, and August 2011

Sacha Chua — Sun, 18 Sep 2011 03:22:50 +0000

Oh dear. This is turning into a quarterly thing, which tells me that I need to figure out what I want out of these monthly reviews and how I’m going to distinguish them from my weekly reviews.

In monthly reviews, I want to evaluate my projects and reflect on any trends. It’s not easy to get that kind of perspective weekly, and a year is too long a time to wait. That’s what my monthly reviews should be, I think.

In my May monthly review, I wrote:

I’m looking forward to lots of gardening, lots of biking, and lots of fruits and vegetables. Some of my friends are getting married – hooray! Work is ramping up, too. Back on the development track, making useful websites… Yay!

This summer had much less gardening and biking than I would’ve expected. The flood of vegetables from the community-supported agriculture program meant that I didn’t really feel like growing more. I worked on development projects with global team members, so I stayed home instead of biking into the office. Fortunately, friends’ marriage plans went on exactly as expected. =)

September is all about preparation. We’re preparing for an upcoming trip, work projects, and personal projects. Winter’s coming, too. There’s so much to get ready. If I stop and think about it, I’ll feel overwhelmed, but bite-sized chunks will get me through it. Here we go!

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Monthly reviews: April and May 2011

Sacha Chua — Fri, 03 Jun 2011 12:00:00 +0000

Time flies! Travel throws me a little off track when it comes to reviewing, but that’s okay – I’m back on the ground and will probably stay home for at least the next little while.

Based on March’s plans:

Work

[X] Get a good prototype together for project C
[X] Get the paperwork in place for project M
[X] Prepare for training on project I
[X] Help with other work
[X] Assist with “Get Social, Do Business”

Relationships

[X] Put together more study group resources
[-] Practise driving – eep!
[X] Prepare for May trip

Life

[X] Start garden
[X] Write and draw a lot
[X] Focus discretionary time on plans and experiments

Mostly there, except for the driving bit! I may just register for classes again, or set up a training schedule with W- and stick with it. But it’s summer and I’d much rather bike than sit in a car. Excuses, excuses… =)

Here’s what went on in April and May:

April: Started learning Latin. Worked on Ruby on Rails project (yay!). Gave a presentation on training. Helped with math study group sessions. Sewed a dress.

May: Celebrated my sister’s wedding in the Netherlands! Wore the red dress I made. =D Started the garden. Deployed a PHP site and conducted training in Colorado. Started with community-supported agriculture. Shifted to eating lots of salad and vegetables. Lots of learning. Some sewing, too.

My favourite posts:

How do I want June to add to my life?

I’m looking forward to lots of gardening, lots of biking, and lots of fruits and vegetables. Some of my friends are getting married – hooray! Work is ramping up, too. Back on the development track, making useful websites… Yay!

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Monthly review: March 2011

Sacha Chua — Sun, 24 Apr 2011 12:00:09 +0000

I found this in my draft folder. Might as well post it!

Plans for March:

Ah, March. Wrapping up the first quarter with several projects on the go and even more proposals underway. I’m starting to get the hang of this. I wish the paperwork was smoother, and that we had more people in IBM with whom I could share Drupal and Rails projects! =)

Warmer weather means it’s time to get the garden going. We still get a bit of snowfall, but the forecast is looking up. Plenty of rain means free watering and no fussing about with hoses that could still freeze.

From last month’s plans

Work

[X] Shepherd more projects to signing and work
[X] Learn how to implement web services on Websphere Application Server
[X] Create and deliver more presentations
[X] Finish blog series on blogging

Relationships

[X] Host another get-together
[-] Build a set of people to call once a week
[X] Check out Toastmasters again
[X] Practise driving

Life

[X] Refine my plans
[X] Start seedlings

Plans for next month

Work

[ ] Get a good prototype together for project C
[ ] Get the paperwork in place for project M
[ ] Prepare for training on project I
[ ] Help with other work
[ ] Assist with “Get Social, Do Business”

Relationships

[ ] Put together more study group resources
[ ] Practise driving
[ ] Prepare for May trip

Life

[ ] Start garden
[ ] Write and draw a lot
[ ] Focus discretionary time on plans and experiments

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Monthly review: February 2011

Sacha Chua — Sun, 06 Mar 2011 22:54:30 +0000

February was an interesting month at work. Lots of presentations, for one – that’s the easy part. Lotusphere was quite an experience, too. I’ve started helping with estimates, scoping projects, preparing paperwork, and learning new platforms. This is the longest I’ve worked at IBM without being heads-down on one or two projects. Instead, I’m juggling the plans for several. My manager isn’t stressed out about this, so I’m not stressing out about it either.

When it rains, it pours. If these proposals go through, they’ll probably sign at roughly the same time. Some of them are flexible and some of them have tighter timelines, so March and April promise to be full of learning experiences. This is great stuff, and exactly what I should be learning. Can’t wait!

From last month’s plans:

Work

[X] Work on new project
[-] Put together talks for Deeper Insight, Remote Presentations That Rock, and the ITSC: Did the second two, but not the first
[X] Mentor more people
Participated in Lotusphere
Learned how to estimate and scope projects

Relationships

[X] Organize get-together
[X] Get visa and arrange travel details
Learned new recipes

Life

[X] Write up more reflections
Experimented with Zipcasts, tweetchats, and other ways to share what I know

Plans for March:

Work

[ ] Shepherd more projects to signing and work
[ ] Learn how to implement web services on Websphere Application Server
[ ] Create and deliver more presentations
[ ] Finish blog series on blogging

Relationships

[ ] Host another get-together
[ ] Build a set of people to call once a week
[X] Check out Toastmasters again
[ ] Practise driving

Life

[ ] Refine my plans
[ ] Start seedlings

Weekly/monthly reviews:

Communication tips:

Other stories:

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Monthly review: January 2011

Sacha Chua — Sun, 06 Feb 2011 13:00:00 +0000

2011 was off to a great start. Lots of Drupal work, a conference, and a new project lined up. I started an internal project using Drupal 7, which is pretty cool. I got into the rhythm of making bread every week and of baking larger batches of food to share. I made time for some things I’d been procrastinating, and I had fun. I’ve been reading more books that analyze everyday life, and I’ve been having fun using those perspectives to examine my life. Good stuff.

Plans for January:

Work

[X] Finish Project M
[X] Finish Project S
[-] Start new project – Finished the month with Lotusphere, lined up a project for return

Relationships

[-] Host get-together – Postponed to February
[-] Send delayed holiday cards – Oops!
[-] Get into the habit of meeting people – Must work on this

Life

[X] Improve my routines: set aside time for drawing, sewing, and making presentations
[-] Post goals – Wrote goals, haven’t posted them

Plans for February:

Work

[X] Work on new project
[X] Put together talks for Deeper Insight, Remote Presentations That Rock, and the ITSC
[X] Mentor more people

Relationships

[X] Organize get-together
[X] Get visa and arrange travel details

Life

[X] Write up more reflections

Reviews

Sketches

Reflections

Geek stuff

Life

2011-02-05 Sat 17:44

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Monthly review: December 2010

Sacha Chua — Thu, 20 Jan 2011 13:00:39 +0000

Update: fixed year, thanks!

Forgot I hadn’t done one of these for December. Good thing I’ve been getting my to-do capture system sorted out again. In November’s review, I said:

What will December look like? Lots of good work, more productivity
experiments, maybe some Android hacking, a few social get-togethers,
and onwards to another great year.

We did most of the work on Project M and Project S, both Drupal projects for non-profits who had received grants from IBM. I experimented with changing what day my week starts on, making taho, illustrating cards, and Android use. Lots of Android hacking, too. Oh, and we disassembled and reassembled a new washing machine and dryer, and both worked! Boy, did we ever learn a lot from that. I posted more sketchnotes, networking tips, Emacs news, and career reflections, too.

Plans for January:
- Work
  - [X] Finish Project M
  - [X] Finish Project S
  - [X] Start new project
- Relationships
  - [X] Host get-together
  - [X] Send delayed holiday cards
  - [X] Get into the habit of meeting people
- Life
  - [X] Improve my routines: set aside time for drawing, sewing, and making presentations
  - [X] Post goals

Reviews

Development, work, and geek stuff

Tips

Sketches

Life and experiments

Writing and blogging
2011-01-19 Wed 08:28

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Monthly review: November 2010

Sacha Chua — Mon, 06 Dec 2010 13:00:00 +0000

In last month’s review, I wrote:

We’re halfway through November already. I need to write a yearly review. My work anniversary syncs well with our yearly performance review cycle. I’ve got pictures to organize and memories to write. And then there’s the holiday season coming up. We’re working on being more social.

November was great. We got back into the swing of work. I’ve been up to my ears in Drupal, and lovin’ it. We’ve also been tweaking our household routines, and have taken to cooking all of our dinners during the weekend. With lunch portions in the freezer and dinner portions in the fridge, we hardly have to do any cooking during the week – freeing up time to help with homework or take on personal projects. We’re going to keep up with that experiment in December, and then see if we can expand it to two weeks of dinners (some in the freezer) once we free up more freezer space.

It was fun working on my annual review together with my manager, and the notes that I kept helped me flesh things out in detail. He encouraged me to apply for the next level of professional qualifications, too, so I’m going to spend some time working on that.

I took lots of sketchnotes during a virtual conference I attended, and people liked the sketchnotes. =) It was fun drawing them!

I bought an Android phone and learned how to program for it, so I’m looking forward to all sorts of geeking around. I downloaded a few tracking apps, too, and have been experimenting with logging the time I spend on activities.

Social: Progress on this front! We sent out our first batch of Christmas cards as a married couple, yay. I’ve also been better at organizing or attending get-togethers with friends. =) I still haven’t sorted out the rest of the wedding pictures. I’m thinking of just burning a copy and mailing the disc home to my parents.

Oh, and we watched Wicked again! =)

What will December look like? Lots of good work, more productivity experiments, maybe some Android hacking, a few social get-togethers, and onwards to another great year.

Reviews:

Writing and blogging:

Work

Sketches

Productivity:

Android:

Other stuff:

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Monthly review: October 2010

Sacha Chua — Mon, 15 Nov 2010 13:00:00 +0000

W- and I got married in October. That pretty much took up the whole month between spending time with our wonderful families and recuperating from the celebration. When I got back to work, I started on a Drupal project. It’s good to be back in development.

We’ve switched back to Eastern Standard Time. The sun sets earlier now. I’ve taken my winter mittens and scarves out of storage. We’re gearing up for what I’m resolutely calling "baking season" – a way of reminding myself that even winter has its benefits. To celebrate baking season, W- has been baking these absolutely scrumptious brownies.

We’re halfway through November already. I need to write a yearly review. My work anniversary syncs well with our yearly performance review cycle. I’ve got pictures to organize and memories to write. And then theres’s the holiday season coming up. We’re working on being more social.

Life is good.

Reviews:

Weekly review: Week ending October 31, 2010
Weekly review: Week ending October 24, 2010
Weekly review: Week ending October 17, 2010
Week ending October 10, 2010
Monthly review: September 2010

Other stuff:

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Monthly review: September 2010

Sacha Chua — Wed, 13 Oct 2010 12:00:00 +0000

Last month, I wrote:

September: more Idea Labs, preparations, keeping things sane

We’re halfway through October already. As predicted, September was packed with preparations. The tools I had built made it easy to delegate my work, and the simplicity of our wedding plans meant fewer last-minute panics. We survived.

October, of course, was for the wedding and the family get-togethers. All three of us sisters married or will marry in October, making anniversaries easy to remember and group dictations easy to plan. We had also all partnered up with electrical engineers, in the kind of coincidence that’s usually reserved for identical twins. (And then there’s the unusual number of people named John in our family…)

The rest of October will be for recuperation, getting back into the patterns of everyday life after so many months of preparation. I look forward to returning to that rhythm of writing that helps me make sense of the days.

Book: How to Win Every Argument: The Use and Abuse of Logic

Book: Thank You for Arguing

Book: Getting to Yes

Systematically eliminating choices

How to be dispensable, and why you should document and automate yourself out of a job

New note-taking workflow with Emacs Org-mode

Old notes on staffing a virtual conference booth

Rhetoric

Tips from remote workers

What can I do to help make the world more equitable?

Getting past generation-based conversations

Welcome, listeners of the Taking Notes podcast!

Tips for entrepreneurs

‘round the bend

Towards equity

Filipiniana

Getting the WordPress Lifestream plugin to work on my blog

Emacs Org mode and publishing a weekly review

Stuff is just stuff, and experiences are just experiences

Labour Day painting

Redoing things

Fit for You: Thinking about my priorities

Thinking of autumn

The value of constraints

Book: Leading Outside the Lines

It’s okay if you can’t remember or spell my name; being human

Reviews

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Monthly review: August 2010

Sacha Chua — Fri, 10 Sep 2010 12:00:00 +0000

Last month, I wrote:

What will August look like? I’m turning 27, so it’ll be a great excuse to do that yearly review (and what a year!). Work: Organize lots of Idea Labs, support workshops, attend training, improve our community toolkit, come up with a way for other people to organize Idea Labs easily, explore opportunities, and prepare presentations. Relationships: Sort everything out for wedding, reorganize space, meet up with W-’s family, have a tea party, meet up with friends, mentor and be mentored. Life: Get back into sewing pouches and other organizers. Draw and write more vividly. Have fun. =)

It’s been quite a month. As promised, a yearly review, with a PDF of my favourite blog posts from life as a 26-year-old. Lots of work: organizing Idea Labs, attending training, creating training material, tweaking the community toolkit. Lots of changes – things that rippled into changes in lifestyle: a blender for healthy breakfast shakes, a television and a PS3 for family gaming (but be careful with the timesuck!), a tablet PC for drawing and presentations. We helped a friend solve a temporary housing problem. And the wedding preparations – mostly okay, but a fair bit of drama. The licence has been obtained, the bed-and-breakfast for my family has been reserved, the dress has arrived, the photographer has been booked. Some differences. Fortunately, W- is amazing, and we’re going to get through this. I’ve got a little bit more clarity around the career front regarding what I want to do, so I only need to focus on resolving one thing at a time.

September: more Idea Labs, preparations, keeping things sane. October: a whirlwind. And then a new normal, I hope.

Reviews:

Work and tips:

Life:

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Monthly review: July 2010

Sacha Chua — Sun, 08 Aug 2010 12:00:00 +0000

Last month, I said:

What will July be like? I want to polish my community toolkit and share it with more people. I want to explore sales and see what I can learn even in my current role. I want to invest more time into developing relationships. I want to build a few projects. I want to learn how to play at least one song on my ukulele. It’ll be busy and fun and amazing.

And it was busy and fun and amazing.

Lots of Idea Lab awesomeness: It’s always such a thrill to bring together so many engaged and insightful people to help our clients innovate. And we’re getting better at the process, too. We pulled the latest Idea Lab together in three weeks or so, and I prepared the summary of the results on the same day. We’ve got a number of Idea Labs on the go, and I even helped a client learn more about how they might do those Idea Labs internally.

I’ve been doing lots of other fun stuff at work, too. The expertise location pilot I’m working on is going well, and dozens of SMEs have filled out their profiles. I’ve been revising presentations, designing simple posters, preparing handouts, organizing information, and updating tracking spreadsheets. Thank goodness for to-do lists, organizational tools, I learned how to extend Lotus Notes with Java plugins. Added a bunch of features to the Community Toolkit plugin Luis Benitez had started, including the metrics tool that people had wanted for private communities. Also added a bucketload of metrics to the web-based tool. Fixed some bugs along the way, too. I’ve started seeing communities weave the output into their newsletters, and it always makes me feel warm and fuzzy.

I’m checking out another fascinating career possibility – a new digital expertise position that’s just been created. It looks like a great fit, and we’ll see if things work out. It’s amazing how so many of my different passions come together. That position, for example, might take advantage of my master’s work in expertise location, my development using Drupal, my interest in marketing and communications, my passion for helping people connect and collaborate… Another position I’m interested in would make the most of my passion for helping people and organizations collaborate better, my interest in sales, my love of making quick prototypes. Passions can be like LEGO blocks, quickly reconfigured and combined.

Reflecting and mentoring: I’ve been thinking a lot about life, success, and happiness these days, prompted by what other people post or ask. Here are some of those reflections:

Relationships: I enjoyed having people over for tea, and I made a few new friends along the way, too. I’ve also been helping a friend settle into Toronto and learn how to cook. I’ve (slowly) been sending out bottles of jam, and really should set up some kind of packing center so that I can get more of these out the door.

Also, moved wedding to October 2 because of delays related to my parents’ visas. I think everything’s sorted out now! =)

Ukulele: Leonard Cohen’s Hallelujah – can play it, but haven’t memorized it yet. It sounds very chipper on a ukulele. ;) Woodworking: Not as much as last month, but we did work on our chairs some more. Sewing: Stops and starts, but am definitely keen on sewing more.

What will August look like? I’m turning 27, so it’ll be a great excuse to do that yearly review (and what a year!). Work: Organize lots of Idea Labs, support workshops, attend training, improve our community toolkit, come up with a way for other people to organize Idea Labs easily, explore opportunities, and prepare presentations. Relationships: Sort everything out for wedding, reorganize space, meet up with W-’s family, have a tea party, meet up with friends, mentor and be mentored. Life: Get back into sewing pouches and other organizers. Draw and write more vividly. Have fun. =)

Monthly review: June 2010

Sacha Chua — Thu, 08 Jul 2010 12:00:00 +0000

June was a great month for building. I built my first piece of furniture, a folding Adirondack chair I built from Lee Valley’s plans. The community newsletter tool I built for work turned out to be wildly popular, and it’s inspiring how people from different parts of IBM are helping me make it even better. I re-built my website to work on PHP+FastCGI+Nginx instead of PHP+mod_php+Apache, and it should be faster now. I built friendships, too, adopting a newcomer to Toronto and helping her find her way around. =)

If my family gets their visas sorted out, W- and I will get married in less than two months. Exciting times indeed!

Last month, I said:

So, what does June look like? More adjustments at work, a flurry of wedding preparations for August, lots of woodworking while it’s fun to work outdoors, lots of writing, a bit of gardening and sewing, and some more conscious attention to people’s lives. It’ll be awesome.

Work is terrific. I’m interested in exploring this sales opportunity that looks tailor-made for the kinds of skills I want to learn, but I’m also very much enjoying the work I currently do and the other projects that my new manager has lined up. It’s hard to decide! I’m looking forward to discussing my options with my mentors and old friends at a tea party I’m hosting this Saturday.

It’s been great woodworking weather. This weekend I’ll be busy with social events, but next weekend, I can start working on a storage bench and a kitty litter box hideaway. The two projects should come together pretty quickly. After all, they’re just big boxes. ;)

New interests like woodworking and playing the ukulele tend to be incompatible with writing, but I’ll see if videoblogging can help me get more stories down. At least there will be raw material to work with. I feel self-conscious watching myself on video – do I giggle too much? stutter too frequently? – but as I realized in my post about the ukulele, you can’t get to excellence if you won’t risk mediocrity. Besides, it’s good to show people that it’s okay to learn. ;)

What will July be like? I want to polish my community toolkit and share it with more people. I want to explore sales and see what I can learn even in my current role. I want to invest more time into developing relationships. I want to build a few projects. I want to learn how to play at least one song on my ukulele. It’ll be busy and fun and amazing.

Here are the blog posts from June:

Risks, personal brands, and findability – in which I get on my soapbox about being people instead of brands
Book: Making Peace with Your Office Life – surprisingly great guide to debugging your office environment
Keeping my name – just so you know, I’m going to stay Sacha Chua forever. ;)
Growing up – yay for my sister growing up!
Editing audio and embedding it into a MS Powerpoint file – I didn’t know that before
Thank you, David Singer – friends are awesome
Using supervisord for Nginx+FastCGI+PHP – useful for geek bloggers
Seven Tips for Short Talks – quick tips
The fruits and chairs of our labour – look, my chair!
Say the steps out loud – share what you’re learning
Planning ahead – I like it
Notes about business communication – More tips
Happiness – for my mom’s memory book
I want to learn how to draw better – Practice!
On libraries at school – I heart libraries
Braindump: Automating repetitive tasks using AutoHotkey – yay automation
Thinking out loud: happiness – for my mom’s memory book
LotusScript: Checking another database for categories that do not contain a document of a particular type – geek stuff
The work of self-understanding
Passion – for my mom’s memory book
Personal finance – for my mom’s memory book
Goals – for my mom’s memory book
Some of my favourite quotes – for my mom’s memory book
Influence map; introspection – filling in stories

Weekly review:

Last month: May 2010

Read the original or check out the comments on: Monthly review: June 2010 (Sacha Chua's blog)

Monthly review: May 2010

Sacha Chua — Wed, 02 Jun 2010 12:00:00 +0000

May was quite a learning experience. From an oh-no moment when I accidentally mail-flooded around 70 people to a new hobby (woodworking!) that led to lots of shared time with W-, to more hacking in Lotus Notes… It was a very fun month.

I have a new manager at IBM. I’ve talked to him a lot before, and I’m looking forward to working with my new team, which is really mostly my old team plus some people I’d worked with before, so it’s more like a logical reorganization of people I enjoy working with anyway. =) This probably means there’ll be plenty of coding in my future. I know this high-flying strategy/consulting/marketing stuff is more prestigious, but I do like code. Maybe it’s time to flip back.

One of my goals for May was to declutter, get better at keeping things tidy, and remember things. I’m happy to report that my dresser top has been clutter-free, my bedside table has remained simplified, and I haven’t forgotten my keys once. I still have a lot of work to do on the decluttering front, but I’m slowly getting there.

The garden is growing merrily now. The chicken-wire-and-wood cage we built is doing a great job at protecting our garden from the predations of squirrels. Lettuce and radish harvests regularly fill our salad bowls. The first green tomatoes dangle from stems. The pea shoots have stretched almost all the way to the top of the twine supports. There are even some bittermelon plans bravely giving Canadian summers a go.

Woodworking turns out to be an awesome hobby. It’s fun making things with your hands. I’ve built three boxes so far (including a bread box that’s now keeping our bread safe from Neko!), and I’m looking forward to building my fourth. The next box I build will have a floating bottom and a sliding top, I think. I’m not sure if my 1/4” stock is too thin to cut a groove into, so I might go up to 1/2” sides.

Woodworking + deck repair + shedding cats + warm weather = no baking and no tea parties. However, people have been hosting barbecues and things like that, so I’m happy to catch up with people at other people’s events instead of mine. =) Perhaps I might still have a fresh fruit party. How would we do it? We’d move the kitchen table outside and clear out the living room, I think. More decluttering…

I also realized that I’d like to get to know a whole bunch of people more. Taking a look at my interests (which were practically all home-based), I realized I needed something that involved some kind of regular social interaction, too. I wondered how people manage to make friends outside school, and how I might work that back into my schedule. Going to people’s get-togethers, though, I realized that I managed to make good friends somehow or another, and I’m looking forward to getting to know them and other people. Fortunately, the tech scene is absurdly well-connected through social networks and things like that, and good weather + daylight savings time gives people an itch to get out and meet up.

So, what does June look like? More adjustments at work, a flurry of wedding preparations for August, lots of woodworking while it’s fun to work outdoors, lots of writing, a bit of gardening and sewing, and some more conscious attention to people’s lives. It’ll be awesome.

Posts this month:
Travel kaizen and the meaning of life
Exercising the senses
Imperfection
Getting the hang of big companies
Woodworking
Exponential awesomeness
Getting the hang of gardening
Braindump: On face-to-face and online social networking (xpost)
The garden in May
Presented Remote Presentations That Rock v2 for the Best of TLE 2009 series
Thinking about the path ahead
I want to learn how to make drawings/videos like this
Custom fields in Lotus Notes / Domino? You may need to set the SUMMARY field flag
Org-toodledo
Picking hobbies that fit together
Even more awesome LotusScript mail merge for Lotus Notes + Microsoft Excel
Quick notes from a conversation about speaking and facilitation
Dear future Sacha,
Holy cow, that was a lot of mail – so sorry
Quick guide to domain names
Remote Presentations That Rock (revised)
May 2010: Remember and declutter
A letter to my 8-year-old self
Holy cow, that was a lot of mail. So sorry!
Squirrels, shop class and drafting: making my peace with high school
Bread of salt and taste of home
Braindump: What I learned from our virtual leadership conversation
Thinking about what people remember

Weekly reviews:
Week ending May 30, 2010
Week ending May 24, 2010 (Victoria Day long weekend)
Week ending May 16, 2010
Week ending May 9, 2010
Week ending May 2, 2010

Last month: April 2010

Read the original or check out the comments on: Monthly review: May 2010 (Sacha Chua's blog)

Monthly review: April 2010

Sacha Chua — Wed, 05 May 2010 12:00:00 +0000

The world is an explosion of colour. It’s gardening season, and I can’t wait to explore herbs, vegetables, and fruits. It’s biking season, and I’m lovin’ the exercise. As for sewing, I’ve swapped out my fleeces and started sewing linen. Spring has sprung!

I’ve been slowly working on improving little things in life. For example, I picked up a few more porcelain saucers from Goodwill so that I’m not always scrambling to find clean saucers for guests during my tea parties. I’ve also been doing lots and lots of gardening, and the plants are starting to poke up. Lots of drawing, too.

Monthly goal review: One of my goals for April was to figure out how to free up a weekend instead of doing batch cooking all the time. Now we’ve got the roast-chicken-for-frozen-lunches extravaganza down pat, and have a month of frozen goodies ready to go. Yay! I’ve been doing a bit of sewing, too, and have made a few tops I enjoy wearing. I haven’t been doing a lot of Emacs tweaking, though. That’s okay – I’ve been busy doing other things.

What’s up for May? I’m going to focus on slowing down and being mindful. I want to focus on the moment and giving myself time to tidy up, double-check, and reflect. I occasionally misplace or forget things, and I can get better at remembering. So May is spring-cleaning month. I’m going to get the hang of this!

April recap:

After preparing my personal business commitments in March, I spent some time thinking a lot about career growth. I thought I’d figured out my dreams of wild success, but I suspect there’s still a lot missing from that picture. Here are some thoughts on work:

I’ve been exploring leadership, collaboration, presentations, and creativity:

I’ve been thinking about life, too:

And writing about other stuff!

Weekly reviews:

Read the original or check out the comments on: Monthly review: April 2010 (Sacha Chua's blog)

Monthly review: March 2010

Sacha Chua — Tue, 30 Mar 2010 12:00:00 +0000

For the third year in a row, March was a flurry of presentations. I started with “The Shy Presenter” at Ignite Toronto, did a recorded replay of “Remote Presentations That Rock” for IBM Canada’s International Women’s Day celebrations, gave a 5-minute presentation on collaboration for a client in the UK, gave a short talk on personal brand to the IBM A/NZ social media marketing team, gave a talk on “Presentation Kaizen” at PresentationCamp, and did another replay of Remote Presentations That Rock. I also gave a brief overview of Sametime Unyte and Lotus Connections Communities to my second-line manager. I even gave a short presentation on microblogging, too. Eight talks – new record for frequency! I’m looking forward to a quieter April, although the next few months already have talks scheduled.

March was also a month for career planning. I drafted my personal business commitments and individual development plans after many conversations with my manager, dotted-line manager, and various mentors (including one who is about to retire from IBM). I mapped out what I wanted to learn, and people have been helping me find opportunities to do so. I realized that travel wasn’t as scary as I thought it was, so I applied for IBM’s Corporate Service Corps and indicated my availability for occasional overseas work. I learned a lot about facilitation, too. I helped one of my mentors facilitate a large-group discussion around Smarter Cities. Hooray!

March was a month of transition from winter to spring. I’ve been biking – yay! The tulips and lilies-of-the-valley are starting to poke through the soil, and I’ve planted a few seeds in the garden. Can’t wait to get plants going again! We’ve been very busy baking and filling our freezer with all sorts of goodness, so that’s working out just fine.

April promises to be quieter. I’d like to get back into Emacs tweaking and sewing, and maybe free up every other weekend instead of cooking all the time. =)

For some reason, people really liked On circumstances and somebodies. Here are other blog posts you might’ve missed from this month:

Presentations and public speaking:

Other communication skills:

Work and career:

Automation and lifehacking:

Weekly reviews:

Previous monthly review: Monthly review: February 2010

Read the original or check out the comments on: Monthly review: March 2010 (Sacha Chua's blog)