Sunday, April 6th was to be the day that I took the WHOLE day off. After a failed attempt the previous Sunday where I found myself catching up from a week back east, I had promised my team and one advisor that I would take the whole day off.
Well into my Saturday night which was a family dinner with a college friend visiting from Canada, Shay, our VP Tech, sent me an email giving me the go ahead to test the 3.1 Vault features for Monday morning.
If I did not test on Sunday morning, Shay would be at a standstill. You may say, “So what? It’s Sunday!” Shay is a dedicated employee but more importantly a partner in Traklight and an owner. Shay set a date for Monday to release these new features; if I stick to not working on Sunday, then I hold him back and I am not helping him succeed.
Luckily, I love testing. It is my favorite task – it is me against the system – no talking to anyone or selling or pitching. Just our staging site and me. My goal – think of every combination to try to break something so a customer does not encounter an error once it is live. Also to notice user experience issues for future. The latter is Shay’s expertise so he usually has a plan for those issues already!
So I went to bed Saturday deciding that testing was not technically “working†and I committed to a hike on Sunday with a departure time of 8 am for the Superstitions.
I hiked for 5 miles up a canyon and back, and had a blast except for some knee damage and one tumble. I tested for 90 minutes before I left and I am writing this blog now. On my hike, I worked out the steps for sales video and make some other decisions. In case you think my day started with the testing, it actually started when I woke up with a start because I had just thought of the product name for embedding our software with partners!
More reasonable commitments to my team and my one advisor with the initials D.T.:
1. Over communicate but communicate smart goals and let people go!
- The “to†line is the “to do†line in an email
- Cc means FYI
- Call out people’s tasks with a due date, resources and assign responsibility and accountability
2. When one Traker falters then step up to help out
- Our values state that we pick up any work that someone cannot do
- Just because a person works on the weekend, there is no need to feel guilty to do the same – emails do not disappear!
- That all said, we are still in the early stages and have to do what needs to be done. Today that requires getting Shay’s testing done and creating more blog content.
3. Be true to yourself
I am unhappy forcing myself to not work at all for a full day. Our company has just re-launched the site and software. April is a big month with tons of exciting prospects and we have one “winged;†Traker who is working from overseas. I cannot adjust my speed; it’s just that simple.
I can take some time off each day and take good care of myself. It’s about work/life integration, not balance for me. Everyone is different.
#onwards