Grit and habits are the superpower - CoW#7
I also talk about productivity traps, quality code and more.
We are back to normal. Back in London and my daughter is healthy.
It was again hard to keep on top of my learnings, given the unusual week between work and travelling back. Next week it should be better.
I have been thinking about my habits recently and how I can keep improving.
I am also seeking feedback. So if you are reading this edition, I want to hear from you. What did you like? What can I improve?
Personal & Well Being
Grit: The power of passion and perseverance ( Watch video )
A common theme in my newsletter is to never give up. This is because it has been my mantra for a while. When I am passionate about something I don’t give up.
Angela Lee Duckworth takes us through her findings in psychology and education. What makes the difference is grit.
One characteristic emerged as a significant predictor of success. And it wasn’t social intelligence. It wasn’t good looks, physical health and it wasn’t IQ.
It was grit. Grit is passion and perseverance for very long-term goals.
Real results come from consistency and determination. I like the analogy with a marathon. Long-term goals need a similar attitude. We have to be able to keep going for a while to see the finish line.
Grit is living life like it’s a marathon, not a sprint.
Failure is part of this. When we learn that failure is what can allow us to grow, we embrace a growth mindset.
Growth mindset is the belief that the ability to learn is not fixed. It can change with your efforts.
Atomic Habits: How to Get 1% Better Every Day ( Watch video )
I have used strategies from this book this year to get more fit. I am energetic and I like moving. Yet I always hated to exercise, in fact, I am a bit lazy. I never went to the gym. I have now a healthy habit that I have kept for 30 weeks. More recently it became a daily habit.
I spend ~30min a day exercising/stretching every morning when I wake up. I am on day 74 of my streak. I am proud I developed a healthy habit.
This week I decided to revisit Atomic Habits concepts. I was looking to find new strategies to develop new habits.
This video gives a good intro.
Habits are small things we do every day. They contribute to forming our identity(-ies)
When it comes to habits, what people often confuse for lack of motivation, is a lack of a plan.
We have 4 stages in building a habit:
Noticing
The main idea is the implementation intention.
To make a plan we start from the end. Imagine in 6 months’ time that you failed to achieve what you wanted. For example, losing weight or learning a new skill. What contributed to that failure? What can we do instead to succeed?
Once we analyse with a “pre-mortem“ our failure we can start planning. We can use if/then to have a strategy in place around our circumstances.
Now that we have our habit, we need to make it stick. The “30 days rule”, is not enough.
Wanting
The environment we live in impacts our habits.
We can be the architect of it so that our habits are easier to perform. We can also make our bad habits more difficult. For example, leaving a guitar in your living room increases the desire to play it. Leaving your phone in another room, can reduce the temptation to look at it while focusing on something.
Doing
To get to a regular practice, we need to make the habit easy to execute. For example, for exercising daily I set the bar quite low. I aim to do 30 minutes a day. If I don't have that time, I allow myself to do 15-20 minutes instead. We don't have always to do 100%. Consistency is what matters.
Liking
The reward is very important. Many goals don't give you immediate reward. Missing this step often means losing the habit.
There are ways to do it. An example is creating a chain. Imagine crossing in your calendar each day if you completed your habits.
In my example, doing exercise 1 day doesn't show any results. I do feel better, but that is not enough. Being aware of the streak (consecutive days) gives me a lot of willpower.
The best way to change long term behaviour is with short term feedback
I close with this quote:
If you can change your habits you can change your life.
References
An intriguing visual summary of the book is here
Read the book
People and Teams
5 things that are typically confused for productivity( Read More )
This is the heart of many problems in tech teams.
Being busy, working in isolation, getting feedback too late.
Does that sound familiar?
This is where Kanban if done to its full extent, can help our teams.
The core of Kanban is making implicit rules explicit. Working in-progress (WIP) limits are the main rule that we should make explicit on our board. The goal is to reduce the time of delivering value to our customers (lead time).
Here are the five points in the article:
Confusing responsiveness for productivity
Confusing lack of interruptions for productivity
Confusing individual preferences/satisfaction with productivity
Confusing utilization with productivity
Confusing raw throughput with productivity
There is an interesting tension between the first 2 points:
being too responsive → context switching
no interruption → potential lack of feedback
Finding the right balance between being responsive and avoiding interruption is key. We need to seek early feedback because it can help us avoid rework.
The point 3 is important. Individuals make teams. Yet only when collaboration is in place we can perform as a team. A team needs a clear protocol (ways of working), of what it takes to complete the work. A safe environment where people seek help and collaborate more.
The point 4 is core in Kanban. Being busy and having lots of work in progress(WIP) doesn’t help the team as a whole. A high WIP will only make the issue with bottleneck worse. A good rule of thumb to start is having WIP limits set to n-1, where n is the number of individual contributors. But you can experiment, with what works best for your team.
You can't fix core competency with a stern conversation ( Read More )
I am a strong believer in feedback and difficult conversations. Honest conversations with your people enable them to become more self-aware. There are situations though, where this is not enough.
DHH talks about 2 categories: core competency and engagement. He believes you can fix engagement. But core competency can’t be fixed in the short term by talking.
Part of the job of a leader is making difficult decisions. When you don’t have the right fit and you did try to figure it out, there is only one solution. And yes, it is hard and sometimes heartbreaking, but in the long run, it is best for everyone. Including the person you are exiting.
Nobody wants to work anymore ( Thread )
This is an historical perspective on the topic “Nobody wants to work anymore“. I guess this is a good reminder for all. Thinking that things were better in the past is a cliche’.
Technology and Delivery
The Code Quality Advantage: How Empirical Data Shatters The Speed Vs. Quality Myth ( Read More )
Adam Tornhill brings an interesting data perspective about low quality software.
As an IC, I have worked with bad code and good code. Bad code, often has the nickname of “legacy code“. I learnt a lot by improving that code.
Yet I do remember how hard was working on the code. I do remember how difficult was to deliver on time. So this article resonate with me.
Today, technical debt consumes one-third of technology budgets, yet only 10% of business managers actively manage technical debt
Code quality reduces in the long run development time making our work more predictable
Since the data set collected from Jira included information on the type of work being done (e.g., features or bug fixes), we can also correlate code quality and defects. This data point might be the most impactful as it shows that poor-quality code has up to 15 times more defects than healthy code.
The main point that Adam Tornhill is that we should leave behind the myth of quality versus speed:
We need high-quality code in order to move fast.
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If you have something to say or share, leave a comment 👇.
I would enjoy if my posts would allow constructive conversations. 💬
Have a great weekend! 👋🏻