Weeknotes  

Monday 02 Jan - Sunday 08 Jan 2023

Goodbye 2022

As this is my first weeknotes of 2023, I’ll say goodbye to 2022 but don’t worry I’m not going to write a lengthy review of last year.

I’m going to copy the format of my friend Eleanor who does a nice retro style summary of her year.

So here is mine, after reflecting on 2022:

Stop

Putting my own needs behind those of others.

Start

Genuinely taking care of my physical and mental health.

More

Blogging and writing - I enjoy it and it helps me to think.

Less

Meaningless social media! - By which I mean, less ‘pull to refresh’, less blue light before bed, and less clickbait laden doom scrolling.

Weeknotes Season 4

I rather like the season & episode analogy for weeknotes, I don’t know who did it originally, possibly Matt Jukes?

To me it helps weeknotes to not feel like some sort of writing treadmill I can never step off.

I might have a break from weeknotes for a holiday, illness or just because my focus is needed elsewhere and that is fine. With that said, on with the show.

Happenings

• First day back 💪 - Jan 03

  Tuesday 03rd of Jan was my first day back at the desk. Usual, catching up on emails, updating the calendar and ‘work admin’.

  Part of that admin was booking and updating some travel for next week, as I’ll be joining @psd in Bristol for a meeting with our friends at the planning inspectorate. More on that next week.

• Illness 🤢 - Jan 04

  On every level I could have done without this. Food poisoning was the suspected cause. Top tip… DO NOT eat raw cookie dough unless you are sure the flour was safely nuked of any bacteria.

• Prototype second guessing 🤔 - Jan 05

  For what feels like a life-time I’ve been kicking around a prototype with my team aimed at the problem of helping people understand the ‘state’ or ‘health’ of data collected from local authorities.

  It is a really hard problem and I think I’ve struggled because I’ve been flip-flopping between either focussing too closely on a particular set of users or jumping full circle into trying to design a one size fits all and overly generic solution.

• Meetings and catch-ups 💬 - Jan 06

  Friday was a day of calls and catch-ups with my team. I joined a call with a new director within corner of the department. It was nice to hear Paul talk about our work with some good questions and challenge about it which he answered impressively.

• Figma resource is listed on GOVUK Design System 🚀

  Over the break I enjoyed releasing and blogging about a Figma resource for the GOVUK Design System.

  This week I submitted a pull request to the design system documentation site for a link to it to added to the community resources and tools page. Which was merged! 🥳

Watchings

• She said - A well directed true story about the New York Times reporters who help shatter the silence around the subject of sexual assault in Hollywood. If you liked Spotlight or The Post, you will enjoy this.

Link clickings

• Keeping npm dependencies up to date and secure - from that clever-clogs again, Elanor Mollett.
• Introduction to Web Components - By Dave Rupert.
• The Co-op Experience Library - A nice example of a design system and set of excellent guides for teams within a large organisation.

See you next week!