another mad work week. worked through the weekend prototyping a new form which went live on GOV.UK today.
Stephen was out for a few days earlier in the week so I covered him and pretended to be the head of design for GOV.UK. nothing broke, though that’s almost all credit to the brilliance of the design team who amongst them picked up on the businesses offering support work, switched focus to some other work at the drop of a hat, and calmly updated the landing page while politics swirled around us. Ignacia, Mia, Kate, Conor, Jeremy, Joe, Tim, Stephen: can’t think of anyone I’d rather design through a crisis with than all of you!
I’ve always thought the Design System was cool, but don’t usually come into contact with it in the course of my work. using it in anger made me appreciate it even more.
Conor suggested at one point this week that we’d shipped more in the past two weeks than some people do in a year. no slight on those other people, but he’s not wrong: we have shipped a lot.
woke up exhausted on Tuesday morning and took the afternoon off. definitely went too hard at it: by Sunday night / Monday morning I’d got into the mindset that “well, there’s nothing else to do I might as well be working”. and by Monday afternoon I was definitely not on my game: switched on my product manager muscles when I should’ve let someone else do their own job. Tuesday afternoon was just enough of a reset to get me through till today. I’m not going to make that mistake again.
due to minor cough last week, we’ve been indoors for our respective 7 days. C went back to hospital work yesterday. it was meant to be her first full time week of health research. instead, she’s being redeployed back onto the wards. felt a bit sick after closing the door after her yesterday morning. I’m trying not to be bitter about it, but last night with the NHS clap I thought, yeah, remember your clapping next time you go outside for an unnecessary reason.
complaining much less about my back since we started a Yoga With Adriene 30 day challenge.
I went for my first walk of a week just now, just to the park. stayed off the paths and on the grass and well clear of everything. feels well apocalyptic out there with this kind of zombie avoidance stuff; I think I might prefer staying indoors.
started Flights by Olga Tokarczuk, but found it really hard to read it without wondering when the pandemic was going to arrive in the plot.
a family member of a friend in Italy died this week. Bergamo is the worst hit city in Italy so I guess that was likely to happen. but still some deep sadness these past couple of days. it is senseless. please just stay indoors. I’m re-orienting my mind from thinking “it’s just the corner shop to get some biscuits” to “are biscuits essential?”. and of course the answer is no, they are not.
have taken this afternoon off too: went for a walk, cleaned the floors, and dusted off my record player. picked out My Favourite Things by John Coltrane to play loudly. little things.