Proper Work

I can barely believe that it's nearly that time of year when I pack up my Laptop and go to Stuttgart for the Vision show to catch up with the latest news and technology in the Machine Vision industry. Last year I returned feeling enthusiastic and determined to produce some quality software algorithm of my own using my newly found CUDA skills. Now that an entire year has passed I have been struggling to remember what exactly I have achieved towards that goal. It appears that I have been doing alot of WORK, which pays the bills, but hardly any work.

Emanuel Derman spoke about WORK and work which captured the essence of what I think many talented engineers feel every day. There is always alot of WORK to be done, things like paperwork and meetings and bug fixes and presentations and little tasks which get you through the day and pay your bills. But the number of days in which real work gets done, stuff which will last more than a day and which feels like rewarding constructive activity... well that doesn't seem to happen enough.

The only solution I have found is to do some work after a full day of WORK. Unfortunatley an hour or two of typing in the evening, propped up by strong coffee and hungry for food is not the environment which germinates really good blue-sky development.

So I'm taking out a few days next week, turning off the mobile and shutting down outlook, and doing some work.