I’m currently in Enterprise Architecture in my organization and as a result, I blogged earlier about putting up study notes with regards to preparing for the two TOGAF (The Open Group Architectural Framework) exams. And then… I dropped off the face of the Internet.
Just as I was getting started (again), I was asked to contribute heavily to an effort I hadn’t been involved in except peripherally. As a result, I went from a touchpoint of maybe a couple of hours a week to where I was working extra hours so we could ship. Needless to say, there were things and efforts which had to be abandoned. In my case, I put off some of my hobbies, like playing and running Dungeons & Dragons (D&D), and my certification preparation.
Work has died down. We shipped and now we are working through the issues that always happen with a major first release. However, my contact with the effort is back to the peripheral edge for the most part. I feel preparing for the TOGAF certification is important because it means I’ll focus on learning the framework. While I had to abandon the effort for a time, it isn’t something I want to discard.
Life happens and sometimes it changes our plan. If you’re in IT, work often spins up to a greater level unexpectedly. At those times, we all have to make hard choices as to what to let slide. Some of those are still important to us, they are just not as important right now. If you think about how you can get back to those things, it can make letting them slide in the first place a little easier. When I chose to pause the things that I did, I also thought about when and how I could come back to them. Now I’m in a position to execute on preparing for certification again.
Having a plan helped. I was less stressed when I made the decision to put those things off. And now, being able to come back to them, I’m excited to begin the journey again. The difference between this time and when I encountered more stress letting some slide and trepidation coming back to something I let slide is the plan. It feels like a continuation with an expected interruption, sort of like the end of the fall semester in college, rather than a restart.