Weeknotes 6th March 2024

Open Working

What this is

I’ve been taking a course on “Open Working” for the past few weeks, and I have to admit, to myself and to the course organisers, that I did not understand it at first. I initially wanted to use it to write up ideas and explanations of the work of Radical Engineers, and Open Working could be used to do that, but I’m too much of a perfectionist around published work in the voice of Radical Engineers. I’ve been writing partial journal entries about my charity work but not publishing them because I’ve not had the time to finish them to my satisfaction. It has taken a few weeks to realise that this would be a much more valuable method to write an open working journal, which can absolutely include my Radical Engineers work, but will be me in my voice. I’ve always dipped in and out of journaling, starting during quieter times (hello 2020 lockdowns!) and stopping during busier times (hello 2022 post-lockdowns!)

I make no commitment to writing every week or keeping this up or anything else. This is for me, and if whoever’s reading this is interested, it can also be for you, if you want.

In terms of how it’s laid out, I want a place to keep my thoughts about my work, both as a charity trustee and in my profession as a freelance consultant, and even potentially in my audio drama hobby. Given the openness of the medium (heh, “medium”), I’ll try not to put to much of my too personal life in here. This is a journal on my actions, processes and concerns as I interact with public spaces. So for this week, I’m laying out as thoughts about the past week, and thoughts about the next week, and maybe any other thoughts. This may change.

Thoughts about the past week / today

I’m in the middle of a relatively calm week. I’ve come close to the end of a couple of pretty intense projects at the end of last week and this week has just been about polishing off those projects responding to a couple of short change requests. I’ve also had the time to take on a couple of mini-projects. Yesterday, I did a few hours of model corrections for my client Ben, and a couple of hours making an edit to a model for a healtcare client (name to be confirmed after completion). I have a few more hours of work for Ben today and another couple of hours for the healtcare client.

Thoughts about today/ the next week

The other thing I’m doing today is a meeting with a potential new project for Radical Engineers. The applicant, Darkspark, comes recommended from my friend T (not a psuedonym, that’s genuienly their name). I’ll write more about it if we end up working together. I don’t really have much more the rest of this week, but the beginning of next week I’m due to start working with a new client. And there’s a Radical Engineers Trustee meeting. So that’s exciting.