Since day one, I’ve always felt like I was behind. I was moving too slow. I could never catch up. Our customers wanted, even needed, improvements. I rushed and hurried and worried. I bounced around from this enhancement to that. I got away from exploring ideas and just built the first solution that came to mind. It got the job done, but deep down, I was usually disappointed with the results.
I thought that was how it worked. Everything needed to be done yesterday. I didn’t necessarily work absurd hours, but I didn’t slow down and really take my time to find a great solution. I just raced to get it out the door so I could get to the next thing on the list. I couldn’t keep up with the ideas and requests that thousands of users inevitably generate. Even today, I still struggle with this. I want to make it easier for them to work, so I worry and hurry.
As it turns out, learning to let go and take my time has been a powerful lesson. Improvements are no longer a race where I start out two laps behind. They’re a journey where I’m exploring to find the best solution; not the quickest. I’m measuring success in days or weeks instead of hours. Writing code is fun again. That fun is inevitably translating into a better Sifter for our customers. That was the whole point in the first place, right?