4th November is two anniversaries for me: it’s the anniversary of my Dad passing away in 2023, and also the anniversay of me and my partner, back in 2000.
I’m still making tweaks to try and make these weeknotes more readable and also getting used to Hugo.
So what happened this week?
Monday
7hr 49m sleep: 63bpm resting heart rate: 14st 13lb weight. Earworm: Just Like Heaven by The Cure
Started the day with a client call at the Hub. I’ve lost both my pairs of earbuds somehow. Then I paid our VAT bill for the previous quarter. This required extensive resetting of passwords at our bank, and took much longer than it should have done. This, plus the anniversary above, has prompted me to start Swedish Death Cleaning for the business: I’m building up a Black Box document that the team can use should anything happen to me.
Started drafting weeknotes early. Also a meeting with one of our associate developers who is helping on a project. She’s awesome.
Feeling a bit grotty as our next door neighbour’s fire alarm malfunctioned at 1am and it took a couple of hours to get back to sleep.
QOTD: “Revenue is vanity, profit is sanity, and cash is king.”
Started reading “Profit First” by Mike Michalowicz https://mikemichalowicz.com/profit-first/.
Tuesday
6hr 9m sleep: 62bpm resting heart rate: 14st 11lb weight. Earworm: This Town Ain’t Big Enough by Sparks.
I went running at 5am. Out for 90 minutes, ran for 41 of them in 12 intervals averaging 3 minutes 20 seconds each. So after that I was tired. I don’t experience runner’s high.
At the Hub by 9am to catch up on emails etc, but met my big sister mid-morning, to visit a physical bank branch to set up an Executor’s account for our Dad’s stuff.
QOTD: “@martinhowitt whatever happens, we will deal with it with fortitude, grace, and yelling our asses off on the socials. Sleep well.” - Russell Garner on Mastodon
Wednesday
4hr 29m sleep: 63bpm resting heart rate: 14st 12lb weight. Earworm: Soon by MBV vs Andy Weatheral.
I woke up at 2:30am and instantly started thinking about what was happening in the US election. So I got up and spent a little while catching up, then lots more time trying not to think about it. One of our Directors is American and she is clearly going to need time to navigate the grief cycle.
Main focus today was admin as I couldn’t bring myself to do anything more substantial: but I did do the paperwork to close one of Dad’s bank accounts and also to get copies of the Will and Grant of Probate. Should have done both of those things ages ago. I also invoiced a client that another of my business partners has been working for. Felt better (invoicing has that effect on me!).
Travelled up to Bath and checked in to the hotel. Ate. Prepped. Slept.
The Profit First methodology has some common sense in it, but it does require you to set up 5 (at minimum!) business bank accounts, preferably 7. I currently don’t have the nerve to do this and will need the moral support of fellow directors.
QOTD: “@martinhowitt I’ve lost both parents. I’ve found it takes about two years to get out from under the grief, and 40 more to sort out the guilt. Hang in there. You’re not alone.” - Katherine Pickett on Mastodon
Thursday
5hr 46m sleep: 64bpm resting heart rate: no weight measure: Earworm: Diesel Power by Prodigy.
At Bath Spa University today, we support their short course in Data Analytics and Machine Learning with a day-long workshop about working in data-related roles. I really enjoy these workshops, and they happen about once per term. Plus I get to work with Lucy, which os always life-affirming.
QOTD: “All models are wrong, but some are useful.” Attributed to George Box, statistician
Friday
5hr 50m sleep: 63bpm resting heart rate: 14st 12lb weight. Earworm: Ramble On by Led Zeppelin.
Still trying not to think about The Thing, even though it’s bad. The company has, of course, survived other Things, but this feels different. I want to be clear about this. I want the company to be powerful so it can do good things, like protecting some of the people and places that need it, and - yes - hurting the people that are threatening those people and places. I don’t know entirely what that looks like yet. But I work with some very clever and creative people, and I guess I’m one of those people too.
One thing we are already doing is reviewing some of our contracts to ensure we aren’t unwittingly contributing to the problem. I started working on that today with Simon, one of the other TDP directors, amongst other things.
QOTD: “I’d write weeknotes, but no-one would believe what I did all day” - Simon