As 2020 draw to a close and new year is beginning to dawn, its time to reflect for most of us. There is no doubt that due to pandemic, 2020 has presented challenges for everyone in one shape or other but despite those challenges we all tried to maintain our positive attitude in our own individual capacity and found new ways to overcome these difficult times and help out each other to overcome pandemic crisis. Give yourself a pat for what you have done through out the year!
Hello!, My name is Arshi and for an year or so I have been wanting to write and publish my thoughts on a platform which is widely known in online community, Medium certainly gives me that opportunity, so here I am. I want to share my 2 cents on how I tried to change my daily routine in 2020, hoping it may give you a pointer to change your daily routine for the better in 2021 and beyond.
I am in information technology industry for many years now (almost 22 years), pre COVID I never spared time for myself to reflect upon what I have done throughout the year both personally and professionally, i.e. where I should focus more vs less, etc. etc. I guess it was just me going with the flow in life running around between my work and family. Somewhere towards the end of 2019 I paused for a bit and decided to change my routine, after few weeks of thoughts and writing down ideas, I was able to finally came out with two themes that I should focus on going forward:
- Quality over quantity
- Pursue knowledge
Have you ever felt that you are doing too many things in your life and still not feeling content? That’s where I was, then suddenly early pandemic lockdowns gave me opportunity to align with my themes that I came up with earlier in the year. Since world came to a halt during lockdown, we as a family started doing morning walks few times a week which really felt like spending quality time with my kids and spouse. Those walks then turned into hiking, biking and exploring my city in ways which I have never done it before in pre-pandemic times. It definitely aligned with my ‘Quality over quantity’ theme and I felt happy and content. Some of the pictures below are from our walks…
Learning new things in information technology has always excited me, so early in the year I picked up few courses and certifications that I wanted to complete and assigned a date to each of those so that I can measure my goals later on.
Following is what picked up to increase my knowledge:
- Machine Learning: From Data to Decisions — MIT
- Python for Managers — Columbia Business School
- AWS Certified Solutions Architect — AWS
- Project Management Professional — PMI
I was able to complete all of the above by November this year which was slightly beyond the dates I hoped for but nevertheless these all have increased my understanding further with the help from my friends and colleagues. As they say, learning never stops and developing a passion for learning helps you grow further. I will continue this process in the new year 2021!
In this process of learning, I got inspired by so many talented individuals, there are so many individuals that its difficult to name everyone here but to name a few: Adrian Cantrill is a fantastic AWS course creator at learn.cantrill.io; Yujun Liang who has achieved almost every certification that you can imagine :-)! ; Allie Miller who is LinkedIn Top Voice 2019 and 2020 and Mike Chambers who is AWS Hero and ML course creator.
Intention for writing my thoughts is to share learning process with you and to see if I can provide any pointers to achieve your goals in the new year!
As I write this post in Mountain Time, there are still few hours left in welcoming the new year, I wish all the readers a healthy and happy new year 2021!