The “Going Monthly” Plan That Didn’t Go at All.
Reviewing Priorities, Finding Focus, Living Life and Paid Subscriptions.
Buckle up, this one’s a bit lengthy- but I promise it ends well.
So, What Happened?
How come you never came back after you said the newsletter was going monthly?
My last sign-off saw me heading off into the “the newsletter is going monthly” sunset, with all intentions of finding that elusive time to sit down and write my thoughts out.
You’d think it was a forgone conclusion seeing as I actually journal most days—or at least I did at the time of my last newsletter.
Unfortunately, this practice met the same fate as the newsletter itself.
Am I here to give excuses? Of course not.
These are merely explanations 😁
My newsletter got caught up in something I’ve always struggled with- prioritisation and focus.
With my fingers in a lot of pies, and my brain interested in the rest of the bakery1 it’s safe to say I probably spread myself to thin trying to have it all.
The problem with trying to do everything is you end up doing very little.
You lose your priorities, you lose your focus.
And if you lose your focus, what exactly are you doing there in that moment? or any moment?
For the most part, spinning your wheels.
So I wanted to take this newsletter to talk about where I’m currently at; why I’m like this (😂) and where we’re going with this newsletter.
We Are What We Repeatedly Do…
In which case, I’m "distracted."
This isn't a new problem for me, and I'm sure it's familiar to many people.
Focus.
There are entire industries built around hacking productivity and reverse engineering or using NLP techniques on yourself with hacks, tips, and tricks to transform yourself into a person who can focus.
After a few years of knowing me, my wife swore I had ADHD (I don’t have ADHD) because I could hyper-focus on something and clear my schedule just to continue doing it (more compulsive, right?).
And when I'm telling her a story, I tend to jump around because something will come to mind that I find interesting, even if it's not entirely relevant. And at the same time I think I can add more context to the story or the subject because I believe the information coming to mind would be really useful to better understand the story.
I usually have several things on my mind, and to be honest there’s no rhyme or reason for why it jumps from one thing to the next, it’s just whatever was in the queue gets dumped out and then I’m off on that tangent.
Again, no, I don't have ADHD.
What I do have are too many things I want to focus on and develop, but I end up being overwhelmed by it all and then do nothing.
To be honest, I thought it was normal to want to pursue lots of different things all the time. I believed that people who excelled at a single thing (like actors, musicians, or academics) had to make the very sad decision along the way to be boring single-focused on that thing, effectively sacrificing parts of themselves so that one part could be great.
I don’t think it's really like that for those folks.
I have two younger brothers, both artists (one in the performing arts, the other in painting, tattooing, design, and music), and they’ve only ever been super interested in their specific vocations. Sure, they have other interests. One of them is a bit of a motorcycle junkie, bought and (attempted to) rebuild a bike, took a course on being a bike mechanic, and is part of a motorcycle club (no, not a gang; they're mostly middle-aged actors with fancy vintage bikes), but he’s an actor through and through.
And has been for decades.
I’m not 100% sure why I’m using that brother as an example. Suffice it to say, I know people can be great and focus on a single thing without losing their interests and spending time on other things.
The problem is, with multiple interests and passions, not being able to prioritise among all your interests will leave you living a “mile wide at an inch deep.”
Which is fine for some people, but speaking for myself, the deep dives into topics, the long-form articles, and conversations about subjects that fascinate me are what I’m after. It’s what I find tremendous value in—just experiencing the depth of something’s beauty, wisdom, or peace. Think about talking to a monk or the Dalai Lama—just an innate peace that has been plumbed through the drudgery and reality of the human experience, to find that insight and enlightenment.
In short, I like that deep sh*t.
That’s what’s worth having. That’s what’s worth working towards.
And I guess that’s what’s ultimately worth focusing on. But I don’t have unlimited time and energy for diving deep into everything.
How do we choose what gets focus and what gets relegated to a lower nice value?
Your Biggest Enemy and Ally Is: You
Sure, that's some $2-dollar-shop psychologist cliché right there, but things are cliché for a reason, right?
If "A mile wide and an inch deep" is how I don't want to live, the alternative is obviously an "inch wide and a mile deep."
Focus is easier said than done, and prioritising is an activity for people who know who they are and what's important to them, so the task at that point is executive, not cognitive in nature.
In other words, the order is obvious or already decided; there's only moving things into place.
I'm not here to guru anyone into productivity or "who am I?" solutions. I've long found that the "answers" have been available and understood for a while. But if you can't execute them or abide by them consistently, then that's your problem.
For me, I had to take inventory of all the things I was trying to do—this newsletter, for example.
What am I really trying to do here?
What do I want from this?
And the answer to that is to write.
I want to write things out of my head and into the real world, organise them, look at the words on paper, and package them in a way that can offer profound insight (the confidence aye lol).
That's it.
But this is up against a myriad of other things: a full-time job that pays my bills, a BJJ and gym routine that require time and consistency, and also cost me in terms of energy available for other tasks. I have a newborn baby and a stack of books I want to read. In the middle of it all, I have a household and a wife in the mix (sorry, honey, I promise I'm not listing in order of priority), and apparently, to make the most of all this and deliver my best, I'm meant to find time to sleep.
The truth of the matter is quite simple- this is all as complicated or as simple as we want to make it.
I'm not going to die if my hope of gracing another R&V main stage to play the drums in front of thousands of people is not fulfilled again.
Or if I don't win another professional MMA fight, or if I only read 3 books this year instead of the 12 I promised myself I would.
There is no "solution" here other than stepping back from it all and knowing this: this is the process of refining what we've made of life to this point. I'm sure the hustle bros will disagree with me, but everyone, at some point, has made their decision on the things they want in life—whether it's truly their goals or their parents' or society's—and the next important decision is whether they're willing to do what it takes to achieve it.
And that's the part we live with most days.
Am I going to do the thing I know I need to do to live the life I want? Or not?
Or am I going to change the things I want in life to match the things I'm willing to do?
There's no right or wrong answer, only the realisation that this malleable and tormenting reality, this constant question of—
"Is this what I want to do with my life?"
—will remain until we have an answer for it.
It’s Not You, It’s Me.
It's not all doom and gloom—today’s newsletter wasn't meant to be a dark question mark over your life and life's purpose, I promise.
It's just something that's, for the most part, compulsive for me—to find myself questioning what I'm doing and if it's still what I want to do.
I think it can be helpful to reflect as you live through your life and see if the path you're travelling is still the path you want to be on.
After all, the world is constantly changing, and most importantly, you, the person, are (hopefully) always learning and growing as well. So naturally, you won't be the same person you were when you started out on the road you're on now.
How Can We Support the Uncommon Engineer?
Oh, I’m so glad you asked 😁.
I've enabled paid subscriptions.
I've been thinking about it for a while but was always hesitant to take this endeavour "too seriously," essentially giving myself an out, instead of trying to see what I could make of it.
But I've received some really great and completely unsolicited encouragement from people at work about past newsletters, so I know there's something here.
One of those work colleagues even pledged $150 USD to the newsletter when payments were still disabled just because he really believed in what I was writing about (Thanks, Cam).
Deep down, I know I have knowledge and insights worth writing about, ideas worth spreading, and topics worth discussing with society at large.
With that comes what I'm offering—
Free Subscribers
I will post at least one free newsletter a month that everyone can read.
Paid Subscribers
All paid-only posts including deep dives and rants2
Full access to posts archive
Podcast - I’m toying with the idea of a recording of each newsletter so you can hear it in my voice3 but want to probably license my voice before the LLMs get it and then all manner of shenanigans are committed in my likeness.
The newsletter will still stay very much in the technology space (it’s kind of my niche).
So, the deep dives will be on tech topics like cloud platforms, AI, cyber security, but also their impacts on the Pacific Islands or the Pasifika community and how tech can enable or disrupt things related to my community and how we should navigate accordingly.
Where it makes sense for a wider audience to access my writing, I'll make it public.
But for the most part, these are insights and perspectives that I believe are worth the $8 USD/month subscription.
And if your workplace covers subscriptions, this newsletter can serve as a valuable learning resource on technology. 😉4
That’s it.
It’s good to be back.
I still have a love-hate relationship with starting out writing each newsletter, but I think after a few drafts and leaving it to sit, it’s nice to come back and see that it wasn’t all complete gibberish.
Thanks for reading- see you in the next one.
R.
This is my analogy for being interested in a lot of things and wanting to have it all.
the rants will tend to be more personal and “real” so I think it makes sense to be behind the paywall. Nobody needs to read that unless they find my ranting entertaining, or know me personally so know it’s good value.
not 100% sure why you’d want that, but it made for a nice personal touch for paid subscribers- let’s just make sure it doesn’t get weird, okay team? 😂
at least that’s how the big dawgs are doing it *cough*
, *cough*