On a few occasions, I have thought about making a blog. I’m not sure why it took so long for me to just do it. Maybe imposter syndrome, procrastination, or a lack of time, really a combination of them all. Well, it’s never too late, right?

Since this is my first post, I wanted to take the time to introduce myself and talk about why I have decided to do this and what my goals are. Then I will talk about why it took so long.

Who am I?

I’m a Software Engineer from Ireland, I grew up in Cork on the city bounds nestled between the city suburbs and countryside although I spent much of my adolescence around the city centre, which was not far. At the time of writing, I live at my family home due to the coronavirus pandemic, working from home like many others. I suppose I now have a lot of free time for tinkering and other things such as this blog.

I have a background in Computer Science, Data and Financial Services. Currently, I have a large interest in the world of DevOps and will be pursuing an MSc in DevOps beginning in Jan 2022.

As for other interests, I love animals, cooking, I’m passionate about education, environmental issues, open-source and other technology topics. I also love using what skills I have to help people, my most rewarding experiences are from solving problems for people, especially when no one realised it’s a problem!

Many have described me as ‘horizontal’, which I’ve been told is due to my calm nature.

Why did I make a blog?

At the beginning of the pandemic, while locked away in isolation, I decided to spend my free time learning a new skill. This led me to stumbled upon some automation tools and subsequently heard the word ‘DevOps’ repeated frequently. I had heard the word only in passing and never gave much thought to it, honestly, I had no idea what it meant. A few web searches later I found myself agreeing with the practices and philosophy and wanted to learn more. Over the first year of the pandemic, I tinkered with and taught myself more about some automation tools and read more about DevOps. By halfway through 2021 I decided I wanted to dive deeper, maybe this is the right fit for me.

I spoke to some people at work and ended up applying to do a masters degree in DevOps, luckily for me an opportunity presented itself to work on some DevOps/MLOps related projects and I also took that.

I’ve created this blog to share my interests, experiences, thoughts and knowledge on anything I’m currently working on or tinkering with. But I also saw an opportunity to write about my fresh experience diving into DevOps. My initial focus is to discuss and document what I’m learning and experiencing as I embark on my DevOps journey, along with some how-tos and discussion posts.

This blog will mostly consist of tech-related posts, but I’m not opposed to writing posts on other topics down the line, some personal posts, maybe some cooking, whatever I feel like - it’s my blog after all.

What took me so long?

I mentioned at the start of this post I thought about making a blog site for a while, so why take as long as I did? Imposter syndrome, procrastination and time. Let me take some time to talk about why I didn’t just do it!

Imposter Syndrome

Imposter syndrome, if you don’t have it you likely don’t realise how little you know, if you do have it you likely don’t realise how much you don’t know.

I think most people suffer from this, at least some of the time. I put off making a blog because I didn’t think it would be worth reading because who would want to read a blog written by me? It’s not just this blog, I put many things over the years on the long finger because of imposter syndrome.

This is all too common a thought for many. If you doubt your skills, talents, or accomplishments, you shouldn’t. We have these thoughts because we are aware of the gaps in our skills, our talents and our accomplishments but this can be our strength, we know what we need to work on to improve. You will always be your worst critic, and sometimes that can be a good thing, it can push you to be better! Just also be sure to keep it in check because it can also push you too far or get in your way.

I eventually came to the realisation I was suffering from imposter syndrome and decided to recognise those thoughts for what they are, just thoughts and nothing more.

Procrastination

You know how it goes, you start one thing, all is going great and then you think “Hey! I just thought of a better way to do this.”. Next thing you know you have 20 unfinished projects, 18 of which will never be complete. This blog was not just one of these left-behind projects but maybe 3-5 of them. I kept starting over, using a different approach or a different framework or a different tool. Honestly, I learned a lot from that, I don’t go anywhere near web development in my day job so I had fun tinkering but resulted in a lot of wasted time, effort and code.

It can be hard to focus on the task at hand sometimes, especially when it gets tough and you’re doing it in your own time. You have to find a way to keep on task and not just leave something unfinished.

I’ve found Kanban boards work well for me, I created a board for all my ’to-do’ tasks in my life, shopping lists, paying bills, following up on emails, projects, everything and anything really. Then I can organise them by priority, state on completion and more. I’ve found this helps me see the whole picture and get a sense of what’s really important and needs to get done. Once my most important tasks are complete, then I can think about messing around with some low priority things I wanted to do. Kanban boards have been so great for this and many other things.

Time

The last reason I put off making this blog is time. I simply never found the time. Which does tie into imposter syndrome and procrastination.

Pre-pandemic I certainly spent too much time on pointless things, don’t get me wrong, simply relaxing is important, but when you have a mountain of things that need your attention, maybe it’s best to get a start on that mountain. I found myself procrastinating on a lot of things and as a result, wasted a lot of time just procrastinating. Not getting things done, knowing it will come back to haunt me! Sometimes I wasn’t aware something needed doing, I didn’t have sight of it, now I do, and being more proactive about things has saved me a lot of time.

On top of chronic procrastination, I was a young man, at the beginning of his career. I felt a massive pressure to prove myself lest I am exposed as a fraud or viewed as unfit for the job. This led to maybe working harder or longer than I should have at times. Which just resulted in fatigue and more of my own time being required to recoup. I think this was honestly not even required at times, I just did it because I thought it’s what I should do.

Thankfully I’ve gotten much better at time management and making sure I don’t spread myself too thin and keep on top of tasks before that mountain grows.

Conclusion

Now that I’ve gotten to tell you a little about myself, why I wanted to start writing a blog and even why it took so long! I feel this blog can now finally begin.

If you’re interested in following me on my DevOps journey, liked what you read or are interested to hear more from me in the future; be sure to subscribe.