I've completed 60 Pomodoro's (1500 minutes) in April. This is a decrease of 63 Pomodoro's compared to last month, a difference of 1575 minutes.

Having reflections allow me to measure how much I've done and what I've accomplished to achieve my goals. It helps me stay accountable in my journey as a lifelong learner and studying the material I am interested in which will help me become a better developer and also keeping my skills current and up to date.

Self-reflection

I ended up finishing a React Hooks course by Tyler Mcginnis to understand the latest features added to React functions.

This month was dedicated towards job hunting and apply for new opportunities. Due to the exhausting nature of having multiple interviews and completing many take home projects, I have not been doing the data structures and algorithms. My priorities shifted quite a bit and for good reason.

A large chunk of my time was spent on working on the take home project required for me to move on to the next process of the interview stage and I have spent around 25 Pomodoro's within a span of 4 days.

However, there were times where I did not track my Pomodoro's because I was currently in flow and did not want to disrupt my momentum, this is one of the reason that my Pomodoro count has been low this month.

Unfortunately, this sprint led me to taking a longer break after completing the challenge in a timely manner. I have spent a lot of time learning how to do unit testing which is something I have never done before. In addition, the API I worked with was very complex.

Near the end of May. I had received some very good news and decided to dedicate a lot of my time re-organizing my space. Initially, I had made many improvements to my environment to make sure my studying and playing area became distinct enough to reduce the friction to study.

Major changes includes a large overhaul of my space and thus, I decided to move my entire setup to the basement. This required a lot of energy in moving and repainting the entire area and took about 4 days of hard labour.

However, I know that this will pay off in the long run and is part of my small improvement initiative every month. The summer months are coming and keeping the upstairs floor cool is going to be near impossible with a gaming PC in a small bedroom.

As James Clear says, if you aim to improve 1% every day for one year, you’ll end up 37 times better by the time the year ends. As part of my Kaizen initiative for myself, I tend to keep improving and optimizing my space to make sure I am in an environment that allows me to work efficiently and effectively.

I also notice a reduction in gaming. I no longer spend my time playing games as often as I did before. Perhaps, I feel like this is what it feels like to become older 🤷‍♂️.

Future Pomodoro Reports

Now that I will be working, I expect to see a reduction in Pomodoros. I will be dedicating at least 1-2 Pomodoro per day towards my initiative in algorithms and data structure to help solidify computer science fundamentals. I expect to see about an average of 20-35 Pomodoro's per month.

For the past year and a half, my Pomodoro reports have given me the insights of how much I can do and serves as a valuable tool in monitoring signs of burnout through trial and error. I have been making sure that I do not over extend my energy since I will be learning a whole lot in my new position.

I am very excited to start a new chapter in my journey and will have an upcoming post about the news.