Simple Comforts

Every Thursday the cafeteria in my office has cookies and milk available at 2:30pm. It is a simple snack but oh so comforting. Comfort can be a great thing especially during trying times like right now with people worrying about COVID-19. Unfortunately it also hinders progress and learning. If we always stay in our comfort zone, we never progress. This week that point got driven home more than once on my current work project.

My project requires that I use a tool that I have been using for the past decade. I thought I knew it inside and out but discovered there is still plenty to learn. I put together a demo last week and showed it off at the beginning of this one. My boss thought I did a great job but had some minor tweaks with some very simple things like colors. The tool does a pretty good job of hiding color choices from you and selects them automatically. I had no idea how to change them as they didn't look too bad but could be better. When my boss asked me to do so, I said, "I'm not sure how but it is probably possible." Playing around a bit, I figured it out. In fact I managed to implement all of the minor changes rather quickly.

When the software you use automatically takes care of mundane tasks, it is easy to accept the defaults and say the project is done. My reality is that I settled. I could tell that things didn't look perfect but would rather work on other parts of the project than fix important little details for my demo. I'll have to remember that before my next demo so I take the time to show my vision of the project.