Enjoy the process

Too often I am, and probably we all are, result-driven. Get there fast, get it done, get it out of the way. Or get it automated or implemented in a way that I can reproduce something quickly by the dozen. This applied to nearly every aspect of my life.
And I see my daughter now reading a lot of books. But she is always keeping track of how many pages still to read, and likes finishing books.

Let’s take another wood working example. Since I started wood working 18-20 years ago, I was looking for the best way of jointing two pieces together. And best in this case means: solid, quick to make, easy to make, repeatable results, nice to look at. I own tools and jigs and built jigs for probably nearly every way of jointing two pieces of wood together. It is pathetic. When I thought about it, my reason was to get it done quickly and out of the way. We are talking about my hobby here. I’m not earning any money with wood working.

In 2024 I finally realized that what I’m doing there is hurting myself. Wood working is my hobby. And while it’s nice to achieve something and have something presentable, I do this to relax and distract myself from my day job. How can you relax when all you think about is, how to get this out of the way?

So I started to enjoy the process more. I cut a few dovetails by hand. I built smaller boxes. Instead of turning ten pens or five mills in one batch, I usually turn them piece by piece. Because I started to enjoy more the making of the piece than reaching the actual goal itself.

While I do the cycling usually for the joy of being out in nature, I got more and more obsessed with this goal of reaching a tour with 100km. “Thanks” to my back injury I had to cut rounds shorter again and the 100km is a non-goal. So I enjoy again more the being outside.
The same with cooking. During the week it stays a chop-chop task and get something on the table quickly. But on the weekends I can take more time, and prepare and put more awareness into the process.

The same is true at work. We try to do as much as possible in the shortest amount of time. Efficiency and effectivity are the key drivers. Get stuff done. How can we speed up delivery times, how can we reduce this, etc. There is no time left anymore to actually enjoy the process of testing or programming. Everything needs to happen now or rather yesterday.

We are hired as software testers, but the goal is to get tickets into the state of “tested” as fast as possible. We are optimizing our processes. We use risk-based approaches to reduce the amount of testing that needs to happen.
When did you last slow down during your testing and actually focus on the testing part, instead of the getting done part? When did you last enjoyed doing it? I know some of my colleagues actually spend a lot of time on the process, and think it through and come up with new ideas. But for others life is too busy, and things need to be effective and efficient. Don’t get me wrong, we are all doing a thorough job. My point is that some focus too much on the “done” part, than the “doing” part.

What I try to say here is, that if you are not happy with focusing on getting things “done”, maybe try to focus on “doing” things. This must not mean to get slower or less efficient. It just means, that we should enjoy the journey and the destination. Re-align your priorities. And if you don’t do it at work, look at your hobbies. Are you enjoy doing the thing or getting it done?