First Post

The title is lie.

Or at least it feels that way, as I’ve already written quite a bit of content. Though this will be the first thing I post.

This entire site is intentionally designed to be as simple and low-maintenance as possible. I don’t want it to become the project. I want this to be a collection of content I put together while I am pursuing my own goals and sharing along the way.

As I have started to build out that content I find myself constantly justifying the work I am choosing not to do. Eventually it occurred to me that these justifications are all based on my own objectives, and laying those out clearly would give me a good starting point for this site.

With that being said, here are the specific goals I’m setting out to accomplish:

1. Keep a record of what I’m learning and doing #

I have “started” a blog a dozen times, and I have started writing my “first post” a dozen times.

I have finished writing a first post probably 3 or 4 times.

I have put that first post online twice.

Out of all those times, I’ve had it up on my own website once. I took that down about two weeks after putting it up.

I say all this to say, my main goal is to have something online that I maintain on a regular basis. I am very aware of my own obstacles in that regard, which is one of the reasons I’m clarifying these objectives now.

These are meant to assist me in narrowing my focus and avoid traps that will eventually kill my momentum.

2. Focus on technology I want to work with #

As a career goal, I want to be working in a cloud-first role. This means I want to direct my efforts towards things like:

• Azure and AWS
• Terraform (Infrastructure as Code)
• Kubernetes
• Ansible and Chef

This list is not comprehensive, rather a sample of things I want to learn more about. By documenting what I’m learning I also hope I can write something useful for others to consume as well, especially considering how much these technologies advance on a daily basis.

This objective also goes hand in hand with the next one.

3. Avoid time and effort traps #

I am very susceptible to the trap of Motion vs Action, and it honestly derails most of my personal development pursuits.

Because of this, I want to intentionally steer away from things I know will consume a lot of time without giving me a lot of results. Some examples of this would be:

• Building something myself rather than using another product
• Focusing on getting an aesthetic exactly right
• Implementing a small feature that doesn’t really matter
• Watching YouTube tutorials

A good example of the points above for me would be any sort of dev work. I will never be a full time developer, though I am comfortable enough to have built a handful of small projects. I have a bad history of starting what I thought was a small project, and getting so mired in some of the tedium and learning effort that eventually all motivation for the project dies off.

Based on Objective number 2 above, I want to skip work I might have attempted in the past if I know it’s just going to be a trap for me. This may cost me some learning but I consider it an overall benefit towards education I actually want to accomplish.

4. Document some of the work I do on a daily basis #

My daily job does not encompass most of the technologies I’ve listed above (yet). However, I do specialize and get the opportunity to do some cool things.

While I want content to be educational for me personally, I also think its worth demonstrating some of the solutions I am able to come up with in my regular day to day. This type of work will be related to more traditional Microsoft products:

• Powershell
• SCCM / Intune (Computer management)
• Domain Services

These sort of posts will be limited to things that might be useful to other people in similar roles.

Conclusion #

This effort is really to put myself first in what I’m writing, and to clarify the things I am hoping to accomplish. By outlining these objectives, it gives me something I can refer back to whenever I’m trying to justify in my mind why I’m choosing to do one thing, especially to the exclusion of another.

By making my own efforts more focused, I’m hoping it provides better content for others to consume.