Staying Agile

Emily Deans
Jul 30, 2017 · 2 min read

I ended up deviating a bit from today’s initial plan of action. I started off working on my Weekly Project, as planned, but quickly realized that I was still (!) feeling kind of shaky on many of the concepts from the past week.

Because I know the material and supplemental activities will only get more complex from here on out, I made the executive decision that the most useful way for me to spend my time today was by revisiting (yes, again!) the fundamentals from last week’s lessons.

This involved re-reading through the week’s lessons/notes, revisiting previous assignments, and watching a few tutorials (mostly on Node.js and Express) on YouTube and Lynda. This was a tricky decision to make, as it meant I’d be falling a bit behind of where I’d hoped to be with improving past submissions and getting a bit of a head start on this week’s project before the new assignments start piling into the mix. I’m hoping making this call will enable me to move through the coming week on a slightly stronger foundation. Fingers crossed that ends up being the case…

A critical factor in successfully navigating a high-stress, intensive environment such as a bootcamp — in which huge volumes of new material are being thrown at you constantly and it’s virtually impossible to stay ahead of the curve — is the ability to foster agility in your approach. This is relevant to your time management/scheduling, as well as to your chosen focus. As I’ve discussed here in a previous post, there is always so so much more to learn on any given topic, and you can end up wasting a TON of time, unintentionally, by taking too deep a dive into all the resources/subject options instead of actually focusing and choosing to pursue a specific info vein (we can only do so much at once, right?).

Having a carefully honed agility (something I by no means claim to possess) allows you to make quick assessments and reassessments of your overall approach at any given moment, and whether your course of action — while maybe a great jumping off point when you conceptualized it a few hours/days/weeks ago — is still serving you and your end goal. This allows you to be nimble and responsive — not reactive — in a strategic way.

Hope everyone had an awesome weekend. See ya tomorrow!

Song of the Day: “Best to You” by Blood Orange

Emily Deans

Written by

Washington, D.C.-based web developer. Former cheesemaker/food-systems nerd and current nerd in general.

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