{"id":630,"date":"2020-01-02T13:21:37","date_gmt":"2020-01-02T02:21:37","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/clickworks.me\/?p=630"},"modified":"2020-01-20T18:26:32","modified_gmt":"2020-01-20T07:26:32","slug":"reflecting-2019","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/clickworks.me\/index.php\/2020\/01\/02\/reflecting-2019\/","title":{"rendered":"Reflecting 2019"},"content":{"rendered":"<p>This post is mostly for me to process my thoughts and reflect on major milestones from 2019. My journey continues. A journey from no experience in testing and automation to first meaningful projects, achievements and, hopefully, first rewarding job in automation.\u00a0<\/p>\n<h1><img decoding=\"async\" loading=\"lazy\" class=\"alignnone size-large wp-image-633 aligncenter\" src=\"http:\/\/clickworks.me\/wp-content\/uploads\/2020\/01\/Screenshot-2020-01-02-13.17.17-1024x711.png\" alt=\"\" width=\"640\" height=\"444\" srcset=\"https:\/\/clickworks.me\/wp-content\/uploads\/2020\/01\/Screenshot-2020-01-02-13.17.17-1024x711.png 1024w, https:\/\/clickworks.me\/wp-content\/uploads\/2020\/01\/Screenshot-2020-01-02-13.17.17-300x208.png 300w, https:\/\/clickworks.me\/wp-content\/uploads\/2020\/01\/Screenshot-2020-01-02-13.17.17-768x533.png 768w, https:\/\/clickworks.me\/wp-content\/uploads\/2020\/01\/Screenshot-2020-01-02-13.17.17.png 1612w\" sizes=\"(max-width: 640px) 100vw, 640px\" \/><\/h1>\n<h1>Milestones in 2019<\/h1>\n<p>Let&#8217;s have a look at my key milestones in the past year\u00a0\u00a0<\/p>\n<ul>\n<li>found a mentor to help me learn testing and automation<\/li>\n<li>got ISTQB certification<\/li>\n<li>completed uTest Academy and got first hand-on experience in manual testing<\/li>\n<li>started a website<\/li>\n<li>found testing internship<\/li>\n<li>got my first python test working\u00a0<\/li>\n<\/ul>\n<h1>Productivity: struggles and lessons learned<\/h1>\n<p>If I look back to what I managed to do in the entire year it does not seem like a\u00a0 big achievement. On the other hand, I was quite busy with other things. Apart from learning\u00a0 testing and automation, I had to<\/p>\n<ul>\n<li>take care of my family<\/li>\n<li>do the job to pay the bills<\/li>\n<li>keep running my Amazon project<\/li>\n<li>work\u00a0 on my TAFE business course<\/li>\n<\/ul>\n<p>Lack of time was the biggest obstacle. Yet, lack of focus was probably the root cause of why I have a feeling that could have achieved much more in 2019.\u00a0<\/p>\n<p>Now if I&#8217;d ask myself &#8220;What made it difficult to maintain focus?&#8221;, it&#8217;s two things. First, not having a clear picture of my priorities. I see it clearly now, no matter how hard you work, you only have 24 hours in a day. If every day you spend juggling between multiple tasks, that does not help make significant progress towards your number one goal.\u00a0<\/p>\n<p>Another lesson is sleep is getting more and more important for me. I feel that my productivity and motivation are hugely affected by the quality of my sleep. For example, if spent last 30-40 mins before going to bed in front of a computer or smartphone and fell asleep after 10.30 pm waking up at 5.30-6.00am, my day is not going to be productive. And as I look back I had a lot of these days in the last year.<\/p>\n<p>At last, it is important to repeat some things that helped me to make some progress in\u00a0 getting experience and learning testing and automation:<\/p>\n<ul>\n<li>practice makes perfect. Everyday practice, even in small chunks is the best way to improve testing skills.<\/li>\n<li>having a mentor and ask your own questions can save a lot of time and guide to the right direction.<\/li>\n<li>books and articles accessible through the Internet are always there to help.<\/li>\n<li>coding can be fun, especially when your code finally works.<\/li>\n<li>when you stuck and tired, just take a break. Return later, ask someone a question, research answer on the Internet.\u00a0<\/li>\n<\/ul>\n<h1>Goals, priorities and balance<\/h1>\n<p>Now that I clearly see what drags me down, I should find the way to\u00a0<\/p>\n<ul>\n<li>stick to work approach that is guided by my priorities<\/li>\n<li>improve my sleep: get to bed on time, do not stay up until late with computer\/smartphone, develop routines and habits to help me improve my sleep<\/li>\n<\/ul>\n<p>I think it is also important to maintain a healthy work-life balance. I know it sounds like an obvious thing, but for me, it is not just a cliche phrase. It has become so important because this year I&#8217;ve realized that I have only one life. It&#8217;s up to me how I live it: rushing and worrying about all the work that I need to have done or making a conscious choice and maintaining a healthy balance between life and work.<\/p>\n<p>Anyway, it would be good to have some SMART goals for 2020. Let&#8217;s see.<\/p>\n<ul>\n<li>Complete 10 web UI Python tests by 01\/03\/2020 using some things I recently learned (pytest fixtures, parametrization, page object models, yield, config files)<\/li>\n<li>Set up tests with CI tool and remote server by 01\/04\/2020<\/li>\n<li>Rebuild my Linked in page, update CV and send 20 job applications by 01\/03\/2020\u00a0<\/li>\n<li>Complete 100 days of automation and testing challenge<\/li>\n<li>Write at least 50\u00a0 web UI tests\u00a0 using Python by the end of 2020<\/li>\n<li>Write at least 12 blog posts in 2020<\/li>\n<li>Read 3 books about testing by the end of 2020.<\/li>\n<li>Find full-time\u00a0 the testing job by the end of 2020<\/li>\n<\/ul>\n<p>&nbsp;<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>This post is mostly for me to process my thoughts and reflect on major milestones from 2019. My journey continues. A journey from no experience in testing and automation to first meaningful projects, achievements and, hopefully, first rewarding job in automation.\u00a0 Milestones in 2019 Let&#8217;s have a look at my key milestones in the past year\u00a0\u00a0 found a mentor to help me learn testing and automation got ISTQB certification completed<\/p>\n<div class=\"read-more\"><a class=\"btn read-more-btn\" href=\"https:\/\/clickworks.me\/index.php\/2020\/01\/02\/reflecting-2019\/\">Read More<\/a><\/div>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":[],"categories":[30],"tags":[32,46,51,41,50,45,52],"post_folder":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/clickworks.me\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/630"}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/clickworks.me\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/clickworks.me\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/clickworks.me\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/clickworks.me\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=630"}],"version-history":[{"count":6,"href":"https:\/\/clickworks.me\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/630\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":651,"href":"https:\/\/clickworks.me\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/630\/revisions\/651"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/clickworks.me\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=630"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/clickworks.me\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=630"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/clickworks.me\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=630"},{"taxonomy":"post_folder","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/clickworks.me\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/post_folder?post=630"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}