Enjoying the process

and leaning into sustainability in 2022

Wow, is it still January? I hope you all are hanging in there. It is certainly a strange time, and I am at the same time feeling pretty settled in my day-to-day and also trying to stay mentally prepared for this household to shut down at any moment with covid for 1-2 weeks (and prepared for any of my colleagues’ households to shut down at any moment as well!). It reminds me of Dan Na’s quote:

Sudden traffic is infuriating for everybody. But traffic that you know exists is like, okay, maybe you prepare it a little differently. Maybe you fill up your playlist with podcasts, you take some snacks, you fill up your gas tank. You just set yourself up for a smoother ride, despite the fact that you're driving the traffic either way.

This quote is particularly relevant for me right now, as my partner Naveed often suggests going for hikes or outings that are more than an hour away. I resist, because I think, why would I go for a hike an hour away, when there are perfectly good hikes 15 minutes away? I want to get to where we’re going faster!

One of the themes that has come up for me this month is leaning into enjoying the process. My tendency is to focus on the outcome — how productive is this activity, what will I get out of it, what impact does it have? This is true for work, where it perhaps feels more like a strength, but also true in persona life and hobbies — and this is where it can feel quite limiting.

Enjoying the process in new hobbies

I’ve been training for Berkeley’s half-marathon at the end of February — I signed up because I wanted to challenge myself, and I knew that I tend to rise to external challenges. The last time I trained for a 10k, I was good at following the training plan religiously, so when I ran the 10k race, it was quite effortless. But, I didn’t particularly look forward to the training runs, and once the race was over, I stopped running altogether.

Late last year, I connected with an engineering leader and long distance runner Anna, and as I ran my training plan by her, she said it all looked reasonable, and also gave me a stern look and said, “and remember, the point is to have fun.”

And so, as the weekly training mileage and long Sunday runs go up and to the right, I’ve been experimenting with prioritizing enjoying the process. I’ve let go of strictly following the schedule — I’ve cut runs short because I just wasn’t feeling it, I’ve gone on route-less runs, where I just run aimlessly for awhile and then try to find my way back home, I’ve stopped to walk for awhile when I’ve felt like it, and I’ve stopped to admire houses and store windows.

It’s been an interesting tension of both enjoying the process and making sure that I’m roughly following the training plan enough that I’ll reasonably be able to complete the half-marathon. In a way, this is a really ideal place to train this mindset of enjoying the process, because I’m just clearly not a competitive long-distance runner, and my only real goal is completing the race, barring any injuries or illness. I hope that by enjoying the process, I’ll continue running on my own after the race.

Enjoying the process at work

At a high level, I optimized for enjoying the process at work when I started my role as VP of Engineering at Range. In mid-2020, I was home in the pandemic, with my kids at home with no childcare half of the week. As I considered a new role, it quickly became clear to me that I didn’t have the desire or capacity to deal with a role in which I didn’t enjoy the process.

In tech, with rocket ships and impending IPOs and salaries high as ever, there are plenty of places to go where the job is a means to an end — a personal sacrifice of a few years or a few decades until your equity vests, or you make enough money to buy a farm in the middle of nowhere, or open a bookstore&cafe.

For me, it became clear that I wanted to work somewhere with people I trust and respect, on a product I care about, and where I genuinely believe I’ll enjoy the journey of building out a company together. That desire is my main driver for working hard on Range, so I can keep working at Range, and we can help more teams work better together.

This clarity has been so important, and has served as an anchor for me amidst a somewhat chaotic world these past two years.

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As for driving longer distances for outings, Naveed is quite patient with me. I always resist, saying I don’t want to drive that far (when actually he does the driving). He says, “You always say this, but then after we go, you say, ‘You were right, this was great, I’m so glad we did this.’” Then I begrudgingly agree, and then do indeed enjoy the long drive with scenery and conversation, and then fulfill his prediction. Maybe some day, I’ll be the one dragging us out for day trips and loading up the car with podcasts and snacks.

My recent thoughts on twitter

Sustainability in 2022: Very related to this post, making remote work sustainable (and enjoying the process) has been really top of mind this month. I sent an email to the team at Range about it, with some tips on creating more sustainable schedules and work for ourselves. Giving myself permission to pop out for groceries, or block out no-meeting time has been really helpful so far. A 15 minute post-lunch walk has been a pandemic staple over here, and I’m currently experimenting with taking every other Friday afternoon off for some personal time.

4 day work-week vs custom flexible work arrangements: This is a hot topic, as 4 day work-weeks seems to be a benefit that more companies are offering or considering. I explore the pros and cons of more prescriptive time-off options like 4 day work-weeks and more company time-off, versus really embracing custom flexible work arrangements that may look different for each individual. They are both departures from the Monday through Friday 9-5 norms, with 4 day work-weeks feeling easier to understand, implement, and market, while more custom flexible work requires a foundation of async tooling, high-trust teams, and introspection. I’m curious to see how it all plays out.

Other things I’ve been enjoying

• Christine Koh’s Edit Your Life podcast and Hello Relationships podcast — these and Esther Perel’s Where Should We Begin podcast are the soundtrack for most of my runs — though I recently ran without podcasts, and enjoyed that as well.

• Sunday meal prep — as the adult in this household responsible for weekday meals, I’ve started doing some meal prep on Sundays to make my weekdays a little easier. I’ve been a long-time reddit lurker on /r/mealprepsunday, so now I’m putting all my absorbed knowledge to good use. Some favorites so far: air-fried veggies blended into soup in the Vitamix (bell peppers and carrots have been a hit), a few pounds of cooked chicken thighs or drumsticks, a big pot of no-recipe-random-fridge-stuff soup, and a dozen hard-boiled eggs for breakfasts or egg salad.

• Morning pages — I started reading The Artist’s Way and have been writing morning pages for the last month. It’s 3 pages each morning of stream-of-consciousness writing. They’re meant to be somewhat disposable, not meant to be read by others or even yourself. It’s been a fascinating process for me and something I’ll share more about in the future.

I really enjoyed all the responses I received from my last post, so here are some questions for you:

• What’s something in your life that you’re really enjoying right now?

• What are some of your practices for sustainable and enjoyable work?

Hope you are well and crushing the daily wordles (borrowed this from a recent email I received!),

Jean