എൻ്റെ

I had joined Ente.io exactly today 3 months ago. Initially, it was just a 15 hour/week job providing technical support to folks who were self-hosting Ente and improving Ente’s Documentation.

1 month in the job and I got very bored of everything I was doing. I wanted to learn writing code as I always think that programming is something I can never do at a good level. I have this imagination in mind of myself as a small kid staring at the heights of Burj Khalifa thinking how tall and hard it is to reach there. Hopefully, I will someday find the route towards the elevator.

Hence, I started taking up small and basic programming related tasks which will help me improve my understanding of Museum (Ente’s server program) and other aspects which are related to Self-hosting. Sometimes, I also try looking at the product, and think of enhancing it from a Marketing perspective as that is what the focus should be in the longer run. More like, I have self-imposed this, because growth and marketing about the product is 10X harder than building it. Selling something like Ente in India where people do not care much about Data Privacy is also a harder task.

Since I joined here, all I have been thinking about my Focus and improving at work. And recently, I came to know that I have very strong ADHD. I struggle a lot with maintaining still focus, that I manage to needlessly think or analysize about multiple things in a queue one after the other. Since, I fixed my sleep schedule, I had trimmed my day from 6:00 AM - 11:00 PM which means I had very less time in a day. So, I could improve my focus and squeeze all my work and hobbies in those dedicated hours. Honestly, this has helped me a lot. I wrote some good blogs, poems and read almost 5 books in the time period of 1.5 month. This also helped me at work, since I was enjoying writing, I would wait until 7 PM every day, so that I could power off, go home read or write something interesting and take a good, deep sleep.

To help focus and maintain a flow at work, I started writing real-time notes while working. I write a note whenever I am doing a certain task and I keep on taking notes on every single meaningful thing I do. Earlier in this practice, I always knew that somehow my mind would try to trick me into writing more words to make the notes look bigger. But, I try to write less and meaningful notes as possible. This has seemed to help me somehow at being a little-bit satisfied about the work I was doing. We have stand-ups once in a week and I try to make a good list of things I got done and are work-in progress.

I get to work along-side highly skilled and experienced individuals who also know how to maintain a good work and healthy culture. Everyone prefers imposing personal pressure than getting pressurized by peers.

This is my 2nd job before I graduate and I keep realizing how less time I am left with. Hopefully, I’ll play this game for longer with advancing to harder and challenging levels.