2016: New beginning – work plan

creative-work

This year was literally a new beginning. I left my job at Thoughtworks where I worked for almost 2 years as a Software Engineer. The process for my decision is a whole other conversation. What I would like to share in this post is about how I am developing a plan to continue to growth, to learn and moving forward. I hope this plan can also inspire others, specially if they are going through similar circumstances.

Distributing the time

I got the number of hours I have available during the week (ex. 40hr week)
I assigned a percentage for each category. This percentage represents the percentage of time that I want to allocate to each category
I made the calculations and got a number of hours per week per category
To make it visible, I marked my calendar with this information (which I plan every Sunday)
I measure my progress every Sunday in a time called “Retro time” using an excel doc where I keep track on my progress, lessons learn and weekly goals

2. The Plan

Areas where I want to focus on:
- Work – Passion – Add Value:
  - January:
    - I took classes to get better in Photoshop, Illustrator and InDesign
    - Learning about areas that I enjoyed while I was working at Thoughtworks: Design, UX, UI development, Product Design
  - February:
    - LearningLearning more in deep about Sass and Compass
    - Started learning about Wordpress and how customization of themes works
    - Developing a simple wordpress site for a friend
    - Started learning PHP
    - Putting together the mix of skills I learned during Thoughtworks to update my resume
    - Host a co-working time, space with a group of women at my place
    - Brainstorm ideas about how I can add value to others
  - March:
    - Continue learning about PHP and designed/developed a custom responsive theme that can be upload to wordpress
    - Refresh my skills on Angular.js, responsive design
    - Learn how to design using Sketch
    - Design my personal blog website
    - Volunteered to provide consulting services to entrepreneurs
  - In summary this past months I have been:
    - Diving deeper on developing or mastering the skills that I enjoyed doing during my job
    - Learning skills that fill the gap between my job and what I want to do next
    - Exploring projects and skills that I was curious to learn about
    - Giving (helping, supporting and working on empowering other people, specially under represented women)
- Job Search: I added this item starting in middle of February
  - Updating resume
  - Searching about roles, companies, teams, etc
  - Applying to one company that I really would love to work for but its hard to get in
  - Connecting with friends and mentors
- Wellness
  - Training for a half marathon
  - Getting super serious about weight training and hiring a personal training so I can learn a sustainable way to workout
  - Learning to eat better
- Spirituality
  - I have been meditating every day (literally) and I have seen how this makes a huge impact on my life
  - Reading a lot about how consciousness, being present, connecting with my inner self
  - Journaling
- Relationships
  - This includes reconnecting with friends, mentors, mentees
  - Giving quality time to people I love