Friday Reflections - Perjantaipohdintoja

I'm at it, still. I'm calling companies and spreading the information about Tick-the-Code.

On the weekend I hope to have some time to reflect on the success of these calls, or the lack of it and make the appropriate changes. At least I'm getting a great hunger to go back to writing. Contacting people out of the blue and telling them about a new way of checking their code, a way which they've never before heard from, is difficult, to put it mildly. It's not that the sold product is necessarily bad. It might be that I'm no good at selling. But I'm trying and hopefully learning. There are some promising leads so far, but for every promise there are ten rejections. It is very hard.

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In between the calls, I do some gymnastics to keep my back straight and shoulder from hurting. Today I wrote six postcards to dear people in Finland. Beware! Written messages are on their way (once I get to walk them into mailbox.)

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Have a nice weekend! Remember to recharge your mental, spiritual and physical batteries so that you can handle whatever next week throws at you. Plan your week! Don't let the week run you! Think about all your different roles and what is the most important thing in each role. As father, friend, brother, sister, mother, employee etc. Put the most important things in your week first and reserve time for them.

In order to do this, you'll have to understand what is really important. That might take some thinking. Do it weekly, for your own good.

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Our insurance agent finally returned my call. During the past six weeks I had left a few messages on his voicemail but he had never called back and he never picked up. Before he used to be almost totally dependable. One time he was in the hospital for an appendectomy and wasn't reachable for a few weeks but other than that he could always be relied upon. We were starting to worry that something might have happened to him and Virpi wrote an email to his employer asking for a status.

Today he called, because he had received the email and had no idea about our messages. There was something wrong with his answering machine or voicemail. At least he is fine, and again at our disposal.

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I finished Edward de Bono's book "Simplicity". Yes, the book is almost pure white and invisible against a white background. Imagine the amount of black fingerprints on my copy, though. Here are some thoughts I noted down from it.

"You have to want to look for simplicity. You have to be motivated to design simplicity. Whose business is it to make things more simple?"

“If something needs doing, then do something about it. Don’t just hope that someone else will. What is everyone’s business also has to be someone’s business.”

“Dealing with complexity is an inefficient and unnecessary waste of time, attention and mental energy.
There is never any justification for things being complex when they could be simple.”

I found these thoughts great, partly because they support my Crusade for Simpler Software. That's exactly what Tick-the-Code Inspection is all about. Taking simplicity of code as a value makes sense and saves time, attention and mental energy!

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Suomennos: Soittelut Tick-the-Code -katselmoinnin levittämiseksi jatkuvat. Into kirjoittaa on palannut palavana. On pakko saada julkaistua artikkeleita aiheeseen liittyen. Tiedonvälityksen täytyy tehostua.

Puheluiden välillä jumppaan ja tänään kirjoitin neljä postikorttiakin rakkaille ihmisille Suomessa. Odottakaahan vain! Postia on tulossa. Ihan ilman sähköä.

Muista ladata patterisi viikonloppuna. Suunnittele viikon kulku etukäteen. Ajasta ensin tärkeät asiat kustakin roolista. Tiedä, mikä on oikeasti tärkeää.