This is inspired by Kirstie Whitaker's weekly reports and the encouragement from OLS fellow Maya Sundukova to write down what I spend my time on.
- 16-01-2023
- 23-01-2023
- 30-01-2023
- 06-02-2023
- 13-02-2023
- 20-02-2023
- 27-02-2023
- 06-03-2023
- 13-03-2023
- 27-03-2023
- 03-04-2023
- 17-04-2023
- 24-04-2023
- 08-05-2023
- 15-05-2023
- 22-05-2023
- 29-05-2023
- 05-06-2023
- 12-06-2023
- 19-06-2023
- 26-06-2023
- 24-07-2023
- 31-07-2023
- 07-08-2023
- 14-08-2023
- 21-08-2023
- 28-08-2023
- Replace this text with a one/two sentence description of who you helped this week and how.
- Replace this text with a bullet point list of what you achieved this week.
- Replace this text with a bullet point list of where you struggled this week.
This space is yours to add to as needed.
- Catch-up with folks - it's always helpful to reflect together.
- Microgrants - I do think they are on track
- Proposal was sent
- Small co-ordination bits around sorting the next contract, chasing purchase orders and moving the blog to GitHub
- Focus on priorities beyond the microgrants, felt a bit lost but chats helped providing some direction.
- This is the end of my Resident Fellowship!!! You've been a good companion, diary. I will move to a new one for the next role though.
- Writing up a reflection blog for my Fellowship - quite happy with all the things that were achieved even if it sometimes didn't feel that way. Yay to me for keeping diary here - it was really helpful.
- Unblocking Civi (well, Emmy did) and getting started on microgrants proper
- Reconciliation
- Application for Digital Communication Cohort
- Energy levels and focus on Friday. Brain stuggles to plan for the next weeks without freaking out about things unnecessarily.
- How did I end up having strong opinions about references?
- My rainbow nails
- Learning about all sorts in the team coffee chat
- Getting the project proposal in a decent shape: there is now text and an updated budget.
- Kicking off with microgrants and then hitting a roadblock pretty much immediately.
- Making sense of why Civi broke and fixing it
- Wrapping my head around a good way of tracking microgrants and not getting overwhelmed
- Somehow this week felt busy but also not like much was achieved. Brain was fried on not much productive work.
- Some lovely Fringe shows - and I'm glad that I did take time off to enjoy them.
- Some conclusion to the fundraising platform investigation.
- Looking at swag platforms.
- Kicking off the book club conversation.
- Workplan for myself for the next months.
- Proposal budget.
- Writing proposal text. Nothing in the document makes sense yet. Spradsheet > text.
- Focus this week was hard.
- Still figuring out the new workload thing. Adapting habits is hard.
- Conversations with Emmy, Yo, and Malvika who are just smart and lovely people and provide great food for thought.
- Donations - OLS7 honoraria are all sorted!
- We submitted a proposal!
- A lot of interesting reflections with Mayya.
- Good chats about new potential opportunities, initial draft notes of what that could be.
- Minor wrangling of Civi.
- Joined a governance committee meeting, facilitated part of it.
- Initial investigation of options to get donations for OLS.
- I'm so not quick at getting anything out of Civi. Need to do way more Civi work to get better at this.
- Started a new thing. Trying to figure out new workload and rhythm while still enjoying some summer time off.
- Lovely chat with Malvika catching up on things
- Catch-up on inbox
- Pick-up a few payments - almost done wrapping up OLS-7
- Reviewing OLS-8 applications
- Reviewing some governance docs that have been worked on while I was gone
- Hosted part of co-working
- Getting back into the swing on things - felt like I was not on top of stuff this week.
Wrapping up other things and starting new stuff adds additional stress and makes the summer slightly busier than expected.
- Governance discussions were interesting and just some time to properly catch up with Malvika
- Self-care workshop on the weekend was very validating
- Paid most outstanding honoraria
- Got both blog posts out of the door (somehow at least)
- Started some more learning about accounting just to note that there's a lot of jargon I don't yet understand, so more to do in future.
- Check in about our OLS/SSI fellows
- I just generally was so tired all week. Felt it made everything slower than it should have been.
- Wrapping up everything before going on holiday is a lot.
- Maker space tour in the co-working: it's nice that you never quite know what will happen in that slot.
- Paid a good chunck of the OLS7 honoraria, including using services that were new to me. Seemed to all work fine and learning new things felt good.
- Check-in with Emmy.
- Chasing missing receipts for reconciliation.
- Some comms for OLS-8.
- Progressing blogs, have them almost ready to go for next week.
- The micro managing side struggled towards the end of the week. Not entirely sure why I started feeling slightly lonely after a super productive start to the week.
- Procrastinated on decision making.
- Scheduled time to sit in the hammock before the weather turned.
- Graduations! Generally seeing all the amazing projects and especially the feedback from my mentee. Good to be reminded why we do this!
- Kept payments going.
- Started reconciliation and felt like I'm actually making a difference on finance things.
- Final reflections on self-organising teams course.
- Started thinking about the OLS non-cohort service offering.
- It was a quiet week, so it almost felt a little bit lonely.
- Sunshine and new desk made for a decent combination and overall happiness.
- Puppy love
- Figuring out a new and hopefully improved work set up
- 2 blogs - which is more than I have done in the whole year so far
- Keeping payments going, sorting through some contract stuff.
- Attend the RSE Skills event to do more thinking about skills and training. Wasn't sure about it at first, but turns out once the event started, I had strong opinions on stuff!
- Pain - less than last week, but still.
- Frustration that blogging takes me so long.
Felt like I did a lot of additional stuff this week and need to do some thinking again.
- Loved today's co-working chats, I'm so glad we didn't cancel but I hosted that space. Not an easy conversation with straightforward to dos, but incredibly valuable.
- Not so sure, kept the finance stuff going.
- A lot and I need to do more reflection on why. It was not my best week.
- Non-OLS things have progressed and seem under control, so at least not everything was bad.
- Long catch-up with Mayya with lovely prompts to reflect.
- Met with my mentee
- More finance onboarding, slightly wrapping my head around more things (or not, we'll see)
- Fiscal sponorship chat
- Well-being and self care cohort call attendance
- Some of the finance systems were not playing ball and very unclear in their error messages if there were any at all. One seems to be resolved, one still outstanding. Didn't seem the most productive week overall.
- Finally managed to do some reading in the garden. More spring like weather is definitely helping with the mood.
- Getting a handle on finance stuff and actually be able to contribute and help.
- Got set up on various finance systems.
- More onboarding meetings and actually paying stuff.
- Prepped and led on cohort call.
- Followed up on CW23 conversations and managed to structure thoughts in a way that made sense.
- Some time to start reading on more facilitation things.
- Less energy due to cold. Felt not the most productive though I got a lot done.
- Read a lot of stuff that needs some more written reflections. Need to make time and headspace for those.
- Co-working to sort out my thoughts
- Started finance onboarding and some reading of things
- Mentee meeting and expert chat
- A lot of small bits
- Some more progress on self-organising teams
- With some extra time off, it felt a bit busy. Definitely low on energy towards the end of the week.
Managed to join another oblique thinking hour which was fun.
- A super interesting cohort call
- Prep for CollabW23 next week with Mayya
- Good (last) 1-1 with Yo
- Started the self-organised teams course
- Checked in with my mentee
- Didn't get everything done that I wanted as Friday isn't going so well.
- I started fighting with Wordpress... let's see where this will go.
- Running a 2 hour mentor onboarding session. Loved it, felt confident, audience was great.
- Prep for the cohort call next week, emails went out to speakers, pad is ready, so this should be good to go.
- Finally kicked off the consultancy slack channel!
- Checking in with Mayya around the CW23 session, first draft of the slides for the session.
- Some emails that have been on the to send list for quite a while.
- Had a bit of panic around hosting this week's cohort call (didn't end up doing it) and felt not on top of things.
- Started using toggl to track time and I'm not sure yet if I find it helpful.
- Doing a lot of thinking on the consultancy part of life and how it might look going forward.
Note that this covers 2 weeks with a longer Easter break in between.
- Having a break - recharging away from home with great company is important
- Slides for mentor onboarding
- Various emails and other prep for OLS-7 week 9
- Regular check-ins
- Feels like it was okay, I gave myself permission to do less during those weeks and that felt fine.
- I bought tons of facilitation stuff and now need to figure out how to use it. Also thoughts about website hosting...
- Lovely catch-up with my mentee to start the week.
- Good brainstorming with Yo to structure my messy thoughts.
- Fireside chat
- Catching up with the last bits of Art of Gathering
- More mentor onboarding planning
- Emails for the session I'm in charge of
- All this did not fit into 7 hours as expected. Will take some time back over Easter.
- Facilitated some other things with limited prep - good for confidence!
- Many conversations about mentoring, really enjoyed doing the training again and then planning another onboarding session.
- Having a bath now the hot water is back ;)
- Art of Gathering week 5
- Meeting with my mentee
- Several brainstorming sessions
- Guess what: time as there are quite a few things to do before having a break next week.
- Made good progress with conference presentations, it's been a while.
- Checking in with Mayya, very useful reflection time
- In-person meeting with Anne!
- Caught up with Art of Gathering homework
- Last mentor onboarding session
- Some small bits
- Supported a one day conference on zoom - that is a lot of zoom time that I'm not used to any longer...
- Tried to progress some promotional material, but couldn't for the life of me figure out how to edit that nicely.
- This week was more around progressing consultancy while there are no urgent OLS deadlines. And it's been another week of waiting for the hot water to be fixed.
- First meeting with my OLS-7 mentee
- Some more Art of Gathering though I am behind with the practical exercises
- Submitted a workshop to the Open Science Conference
- Got myself somehow organised for OLS-7, co-facilitated some mentor onboardings
- Some more fireside chat prep and promotion
- Started the week tired after travelling, so Monday felt overwhelming. Week picked up after that.
- Book club is wrapping up today - really enjoyed reflections and discussions.
- Dressing formally for the interview; should do less yoga trousers when working ;)
- Small bits: CollabW23 submission, helping out with an interview, starting another conference submission, more Art of Gathering
- Focus. Have been thrown off by last minute things happening and never deal well with that.
- Being able to dig into the Art of Gathering
- Draft for a CW23 submission
- CEDI application - actually press the submit button
- Small bits around OLS/SSI Fellows management, OLS-7 prep
- Emotions: had a low point and struggled to find energy to actually tick off some of the things
- Took a day off! Seems harder to do with the set up, so proud that I officially blocked a day.
- Fireside prep discussion - really important conversation plus I very much like having a note taker that stops and summarizes my ramblings into something coherent
- Welcomed the OLS/SSI Fellows
- Small tasks to further help progress hiring
- Clarified some thoughts about conference submissions which should make putting proposals together more straightforward
- Do I sound like a broken record if I say doing everything in 7 hours?
- Tackling the CEDI application is helpful but also a bit depressing and I'm unsure if I will submit.
- Planning for OLS/SSI Fellows - I actually have some inspiring ideas which does not happen often ;)
- OLS-7 reviews
- Finalizing the application screening, joining project planning meeting for context
- Basic roadmap for consultancy offer
- Doing everything in 7 hours as always
- Impostor syndrome around some other ideas
- Wondering if I need to dig more into literature around communities... lots of thoughts, not well structured.
- Checking in with Mayya and brainstorming a few things together.
- First stab at looking at applications
- Some small things around the OLS/SSI Fellows, it's moving now 💪
- Time keeping when looking at applications: I find it so hard to do that quickly and properly
- Last week on the Whitaker Lab - feels like a big-ish decision to step away
- Had to switch phone - also feels like a big deal nowadays
- A 3 months check-in with Yo. I haven't started the year the most organised, so that was nice.
- Small bits: wrapping up the Open Source module, sorting invoices for EOSC-Life, hiring prep
- Zoom logins again
- Proper vision and goal setting for 2023 - I'm procrastinating with all the small tasks to avoid asking the big question
- Still enjoy the book club - the accountability for having to put down notes and thoughts helps enourmously
- Running the Intro to GitHub session - it was nice to do that again after a long while even if it was not very streamlined. I hope folks attending got something out of it.
- Good chats in the co-working session.
- I set up this repo and started formalizing tasks.
- Still felt a bit all over the place and didn't spend too much focus time on things.
- Managed to attend parts of the Science Europe Open Science conference, didn't feel I learned too many new things though.
- Did my SSI Fellowship shortlisting which was super nice again.
- Progressed some consultancy discussions.
- New nail colour.
- Being able to be grumpy in the cafe-te-ria session.
- Lovely feedback on the Ally Skills session
- Ran Ally Skills workshop and led on more content - slowly getting more comfortable facilitating them.
- Brainstormed with Yo about OLS fellowship programmes of various kinds.
- Started some documents on the open-source module.
- Low energy week full of brain fry, little sleep and just a lot of down time. Brain struggled to focus.
- Managed some other adulting tasks this week that occupied a lot of brain space.
- OLS social and checking in with folks.
- Decent first draft of OS session.
- Progressed resources and speakers.
- Co-hosted co-working session.
- Minor promo for accessibility session.
- Identifying more speakers - not yet as aware of the amazing OLS community as I'd like to be.
- Attended an in-person conference to start the week. Struggling with in-person, will avoid as much as possible.
- Trying to find a rhythm for the rest of the tasks.
- Loved the insights from the accessibility for visual impairment session
- Volunteering at the Radical Book Fair
- Initial reporting on EOSC-Life
- Managed some feedback on proposals
- Zoom logins - couldn't host co-working
- Open source session hasn't progressed as much as I wanted
- Unblocked some consultancy aspects
- Booked a passport appointment
- SSI Fellow selection: 1.5 intense days but as always soo interesting to see awesome folk collaborate
- New (final) version of open source module
- Invited some speakers, one confirmed
- Helped looking at some mastodon server policies
- No major big blocker, but also not much focused work it feels. Got a lot of small things done.
- Attended the SSI session on befriending your inner critic, need to figure out how to make meditation more of a habit.
- Chatting to Yo to double check my approach for getting speakers for the OS module, incredibly helpful and now under control
- Quite a few fellows pieces: blog contribution, drafted a policy piece, some other small bits and bobs
- Version one of the EOSC-Life report, should be almost ready to be ticked of the list
- Hosted the co-working session
- Got a bit too stressed and muddled about OS module speakers.
- Keeping to 7h for OLS stuff - so much to do and help with.
- Managed to get some meditation in -> improving my habits
- The OS skill-up session on Wednesday! Not perfect, but a great session with wonderful speakers and engaged attendees.
- Book club on Programm Management book.
- Random chats in the co-working session.
- Finalized some of the fellow pieces, so things could actually go live.
- Co-hosted the co-working.
- Fed back on a range of documents.
- Zotero - why is references of "grey literature" so hard?
- Very low energy this week, felt like some days, not much happened.
- Again, keeping to 7h for OLS stuff...
- Meetings with poetry and cute tiny people.
- Contributed some bits to a grant proposal that was submitted this week.
- Hosted quiet co-working.
- To do list for the rest of the year/early 2023.
- Need to learn not to feel stressed when others are busy but trying to help would actually slow things down. Not good at watching other people working at 200%.
- Need to catch up on consultancy but it does not feel out of control yet.
- Catching up with people ahead of the holiday break.
- Resident Fellows blog PR.
- OLS/SSI Fellows announcements.
- Some chats with Emmy about hiring and looking into potential workflows.
- Getting pictures to display as part of the blog. Fixing the PR for the blog under pressure.
- My desk is a mess, I need to tidy before going on Christmas break.
- Replace this text with a one/two sentence description of who you helped this week and how.
- Replace this text with a bullet point list of what you achieved this week.
- Replace this text with a bullet point list of where you struggled this week.
This space is yours to add to as needed.