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One thing I've never really enjoyed during my career is keeping track of things I've been working on. I'm very much a 
do-er and I like to just jump into things and start doing. I like to lose myself in the task at hand, the problem I am 
solving and the code I am working on. 

I always hated it whenever I was asked for a progress update or a report at the end of the week or worse, the end of the 
month, listing all the things I'd worked on or delivered recently. Sure you can get this information in my line of work,
usually from the Kanban board or whatever but I never wanted to "waste" the time (that's
how I saw it) looking backwards at the things I'd moved on from and often already forgotten about!

I think I've come to realise that this was a mistake. I was framing it all wrong. One of the big problems in my industry
is burnout. It can often feel like we're hamsters on a wheel expected to just keep sprinting week after week, feature
after feature, with very little celebration for what we have done. I know I have personally suffered from burnout 
recently. 

The answer I think has been staring me in the face all this time and I actually need to credit [Parul Singh](https://www.linkedin.com/in/theadhdtechrecruiter/)
with the original idea. I was reading her post on LinkedIn about her "Brag Doc" which she's using the keep track of everything
she's gotten done, because in her own words; "sometimes it doesn't feel like much!". This resonated with me hard! 

We do so many things day to day and not everything is planned in and visible on a board somewhere. Things happen and we 
get drawn into things and these de-rail other things and before you know it you've failed to deliver something when you 
expected and the reasons why often get forgotten. Whilst it might not be a serious problem on the surface, afterall bosses 
accept the explanation for why things are behind schedule, it can be very damaging subconsciously and very demotivating. 

So I decided I'd take this idea and run with it. I'd flip my hatred of progress tracking and reports on its head and make
a few quick notes week by week of things I'd worked on and preferably completed. Then at anytime when I felt like I was 
not making progress as quickly as I'd have liked, or was just feeling a little stressed out I could take a look back and
remind myself what I'd actually achieved in the previous few weeks and months. 

So without further ado here's my BRAGGADOCIOS BLOG update for January 2023. 

## WEEK 1

### PROJECT: www.liam-reilly.info

* I updated my website to support 2023 in both the blog and books section.
* I published a blog post about my goals for 2023.
* I created a new component for my blog that suggests other blog posts to read.
* I signed up for a ko-fi account and created a component for my blog that let's people click through to support the blog.

## WEEK 2

### PROJECT: www.liam-reilly.info

* I added comments (mini reviews) to each of the books I've read that are listed on the website.
* Published a blog post about Chia seed milkshakes and the health benefits.
* Published a blog post about YouTube #shorts and how to hide them in your web browser.

### PROJECT: [St Chads Primary School Website](https://www.stchadsce.cheshire.sch.uk/cheshire/primary/stchads/)

* I worked with the Governors of the school to help improve their existing website including:
  * Fixing navigation issues across mobile devices.
  * Addition of new content pages.

# WEEK 3

### PROJECT: www.liam-reilly.info

* Published a blog post about the WARP terminal. 
* Finalised new Logo for the website and to be used across social media and other platforms. (I was actually working on this logo for the previous couple of weeks too)

### PROJECT: Alchemist Labs

* Configured new external backup solution for critical company data.
* Payroll improvements in accounting software.
* Tax returns.

# WEEK 4

### PROJECT: www.liam-reilly.info

* Fixed a couple small bugs such as the new blog post suggestion component sometimes offering the same post twice.
* Major re-styling of the website to fix some display bugs and to also improve aesthetics on larger displays.
* Added full theme support to the website including light and dark themes which default based on your OS settings and then persist across sessions for future visits.

## BONUS 

* I went to the cinema. I ate out in restaurants and bars. I caught up with friends. 
* I didn't drink any alcohol and found that surprisingly easy.
* I closed my 3 rings on my Apple Watch meaning I kept to my targets for calories burned, exercise minutes completed and stand hours each day.
* I read 2x books.
* I meditated every morning for a minimum of 20 minutes.
* I published the very first B-BLOG! (Braggadocious Blog)
* Cooked and ate my first ever Lasagne. 40 years old and I tried Lasagne for the first time yesterday! 🙃

So all in all I got quite a few things got done in January! If you'd asked me off the top of my head what I'd done I'd probably have said
designed a new logo for my website! But the reality is I did so much more and this should be celebrated. Instead of feeling
like I've not achieved much I instead feel like a super-hero and I'm excited to see how much more I can get done in the weeks
and months ahead!

I'm going to keep this habit up every week this year and if it's worth mentioning I might continue to publish updates 
like this at the end of each month. I am expecting to be tied up doing a lot more day to day client work though so might
not be worth publishing but will still be good for me to remind myself just how hard I am working when it feels like 
nothing much is happening! 


BRAGGADOCIOUS BLOG! - JAN

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