March 2023 Summary

1. Data#

Period: March 1, 2023, to March 31, 2023 (31 days in total)

The recorded data for this month is as follows:

Vocabulary learning: Total duration of 8 hours 9 minutes, goal achieved
- Learned 20 words, reviewed 1155 times
English reading: Total duration of 10 hours 55 minutes, goal achieved
Reading books: Total duration of 14 hours 27 minutes, goal achieved
- Completed reading 1 book this month: "Galaxy Heart 3"
- The book describes the story of human beings fighting against alien races in the space age from a fresh perspective. However, the ending is somewhat disappointing, and there are many things that can be told about Abbo's son. The reason for the collective suicide of the people of the galaxy is puzzling. Although the final new patroller system has emotions, it may ironically lead to the fragility of future peace.

2.1 Abandoned development of excalidraw-mate halfway

Phenomenon: The development of excalidraw-mate was abandoned halfway. In fact, the initial version of MVP was working fine, but two important features could not be implemented quickly, rendering this version meaningless.
Reason: Insufficient preliminary research and difficulties in technology selection increased the development complexity. The Tauri ecosystem is not mature enough and does not have an official solution for reading arbitrary files from the system or deep linking. Resolving these two issues would require a significant amount of effort, which contradicted the original intention of quickly developing an excalidraw client. In the end, the decision was made to use vscode and a custom plugin instead.
Improvement: Thoroughly conduct requirements and technology research in the early stages to ensure appropriate technology selection. At the same time, stay true to the original intention and only create a minimal version that solves the problem, avoiding the creation of unnecessary requirements for the sake of adding features.

2.2 Low check-in rate on weekends

Reason: No fixed check-in time, especially prone to procrastination on weekends.
Improvement: Set a schedule to review vocabulary and read English in the morning at 10 am on weekends, and take breaks to read books in the afternoon while coding.

2.3 Poor performance in team sharing

Reason: Was fixated on an unimportant but urgent issue before the sharing session, which delayed the preparation time. During the presentation, a forgotten knowledge point was mentioned, resulting in unclear explanation of the problem and disrupted presentation rhythm.
Improvement:
- Take every presentation seriously and prepare the slides and related content one day in advance. Do not present any unprepared content.
- Prioritize handling urgent and important tasks. Other tasks can be temporarily postponed. Strictly follow the plan. If the planned tasks are not completed within the specified time, prioritize completing the important tasks rather than the urgent tasks.
- When the number of back-and-forth communications exceeds three times, promptly have a face-to-face discussion. After confirming that both parties have expressed themselves clearly and still cannot reach a consensus, seek immediate intervention from a third party.
  - Actually, this process will delay an MR for about two to three days.
- Many of the bottlenecks encountered this time are common business scenarios, so it is necessary to accumulate relevant best practices within the team.

2.4 Spent a long time on Code Review

Phenomenon: Spent 7 hours on code review during the last week of the month.
Reason:
- There was a large merge request that had been pending for three to four days.
- Encountered several issues where both parties could not convince each other, resulting in wasted time on repeated communication.
Improvement:
- Strictly implement the practice of encouraging one merge request per day, with a maximum of two days per merge request.
- When the number of back-and-forth communications exceeds three times, have a face-to-face discussion in a timely manner. After confirming that both parties have expressed themselves clearly and still cannot reach a consensus, seek immediate intervention from a third party.
  - Actually, this process will delay an MR for about two to three days.
- Many of the bottlenecks encountered this time are common business scenarios, so it is necessary to accumulate relevant best practices within the team.

2.5 Failed to achieve work goals

Reason:
- In March, I was bombarded by AI, surrounded by various information and ideas every day, making it difficult to focus on work and unable to suppress the urge to implement "brilliant" ideas.
- Most of the time for weekly summaries was spent on busy Monday mornings, resulting in rushed summaries without reflecting on monthly goals.
Improvement:
- Even brilliant ideas need to be scheduled and prioritized in the plan.
- Most ideas require detailed consideration of feasibility. At least draw a prototype to determine if they are feasible.
- Be aware that many ideas are pseudo-requirements. Sometimes, it's just wanting a feature that an existing product doesn't have, and then imagining small optimizations that may not be useful. It is necessary to ask oneself clearly what problem the idea solves and whether it is necessary to start a new project to implement it.
- Pay attention to the issue mentioned in the February summary about reviewing monthly goals during each weekly summary. Try to do the summary on Sundays as much as possible.

3.1 Overall check-in compliance

Overall, vocabulary learning, English reading, and book reading check-ins were all compliant.

3.2 Work progress was on track without delay

Work tasks were completed on time, and progress was normal.
The Pomodoro technique helped narrow down the focus and improve work efficiency.

3.3 Completed the quick task creation feature in agenda

Among various ideas, I made time to complete this feature, which integrated AI into the existing project and truly improved the practicality of the product.