Organizational dysfunction is what I had in mind when I wrote it. It is highly complex. A founder led or a small organization is highly empowered to course correct the ship as opposed to organization with several layers of complexity. Everyone wants the buy-in but people don't have high agency.
There is a lot of fear in sunsetting features. This could be due to friction in how long it takes to develop. For example, consumer technology does a better job than regulated industries such as finance or healthcare.
Fair. The problem is that neither design nor development will size the request until product gives them a priority but product cannot prioritize till they get a size. And the going around circle continues.
I see writing packaged into buckets: creative output and distribution. I am curious how much effort was spent on distribution of your output. I love writing and building but I have often found that my project has failed because I lacked marketing efforts (distribution). Creating is always fun but sharing that work is blocked by my imposter.
I would second these guidelines as well to make wfh manageable.
I'll emphasize on 3. Manage your expectations with your direct reports. Let them know in order to stay sane you are going to have set schedule to manage stress while wfh. I do this with everyone I meet at work to set those expectations onset. It has helped tremendously.
It is indeed irritating and confusing at times. I like to do many things and explore new ideas. Curiosity takes me in different direction. At times, I question my personality and character. Perhaps the feeling of "curiosity killed the cat" is applicable when we are feeling this way.
But let's reframe this!
What if we start to accept this trait, not as a flaw, but as a part of who we are? Once you come to the realization, you start holding yourself accountable.
I have been working on a side project (www.wisecharlie.com) for almost 3 years and continue to do so for many years to come. To give you a background, I am a developer and I enjoy the creative side of code and design. So, it is natural for me to keep exploring new ideas, but I also know the importance of execution. Following are the ways I have held myself accountable to this particular project:
1. No expectations (goals) other than a form of exploration.
I have a revenue generating product, but that does not mean, my goal is to sell the most I can, get as many people to come visit my project and get the most sign-ups. I care about the topic, constant work-in-progress and iterate over it periodically. The process itself brings me joy.
2. Sticking to one project at a time removes a cognitive load of finding new ideas.
For some, creative block is a real thing. From the creative standpoint, I have built the website using plain JS/HTML/CSS, then built the blog using Gatsby. I wanted to learn about webflow so I re-built it during Christmas. I don't have to think about new ideas every time I want to learn something new.
3. Incremental steps as opposed to a giant leap.
I assign myself one task at a time on a monthly basis. That is it. I don't set ambitious goals of 100k users or any of that. This has allowed me to work on this project for over 36 months without feeling burnt-out. It is a turtle race so take incremental steps and make frequent progress as opposed to a giant leap. If I complete my assigned tasks, I allow myself to jump on to other ideas. This allows me to stay accountable and execute consistently.
4. Pick a hobby that has nothing to do with side project.
With lack of human interaction amid global stay-at-home orders, I find myself to be draining my productivity (rarely, but it does happen). To fix this, I picked up on sketching because I wanted to forget about everything that is happening around me. Sketching helped me with that because if I don't focus, my shapes don't follow the desired form. Here is the link to my sketch work https://twitter.com/mihirchronicles/status/12160752161594859....
I am sharing these resources so I can share real cases from my own life and inspire you to take steps that may work for you. Good luck! It is okay to feel how you feel, but I would suggest you to make incremental steps, define your process and take a long-term view.
The advice I share took many years of learning and doing. Curiosity brought the cat back and you can too! :)
My PT didn't mention much about posture like the book did. The book covers a lot of detail on how to sit, sleep, stretch, lift, breath and other basic human activities. Sleep was a huge win because I would wake up with pain most of the time but the moment I learned how to sleep properly and put those lessons in action, I woke up without any pain. I was sore the first day (a good sign, IMO). It is sad that I am old enough but my body has forgotten to perform these basic activities.
My PT did not mention anything about thoracic mobility exercises either. Book also covered chin tucks and shoulder rolls but it didn't stop there. These are some of the common exercises you find on internet and are recommended by mostly all of PTs. But when you are done with your sessions, there is no one to tell you at home about not exaggerating your neck while doing chin tucks. But the book did with amazing visuals.
PT (4.5 yelp reviews) did lot of trial and error solutions focusing on strengthening and mobility exercises. Great, if something worked, otherwise continue trying different solutions.
I also had to meet $1500 deductible for my insurance to cover these PT sessions but I could only afford 2 sessions a week. This point was not an obstacle but I wanted results from PT after 3-4 sessions to justify the cost which didn't happen to be the case for me.
OMG! This is so timely because someone asked on Twitter, what is one thing you wish you could've learned 10 years ago? My answer was taking care of posture. This is so epidemic, IMO. This is the closest I have come to feeling chronic pain that I had no control over.
I tried never ending solutions including Physical Therapy but nothing helped.
But I finally got control over it by doing TWO things:
1. Reading 8 steps to a pain free back by Susan Adams and putting lessons in action right away.
2. Performing THORACIC MOBILITY WORK