On week notes

Lately, my week notes have been brought up in conversation a increasing number of times. I felt it was about time I wrote a bit about them.

I started writing week notes back in January. I started for a few reasons. For one, I wanted to motivate myself a bit more and keep a closer eye on the things I was doing and blogging felt a good medium to express that. I missed the team week notes we used to write on the govuk-dev blog, which became less and less frequent as we grew in size and diverged into multiple teams. I also admired some other folk who took time to regularly write week notes: Matt Sheret and Go Free Range are doing this really well.

At first, I wasn’t sure whether I’d have the self-discipline to keep posting regularly. Indeed, there have been times when it’s slipped a little and I’ve frantically thrown some words together the following Monday morning. However on the whole, it’s been easier to maintain than I thought. In fact, I haven’t yet missed a week (holidays not included). Whilst I never expected my week notes to have much of an audience, it turns out people I never would have expected read them on a regular basis.

As the year has progressed, I’ve noticed a slight shift in my week notes. Compared to the start of the year, I rarely write code for things outside of work anymore. I no longer read as much as I used to do either. Perhaps this will pick up again towards the winter.

I’m happy to see other people at GDS writing week notes too. James, Dai and Tom have dabbled with week (or month) notes. They’re all worthwhile reading.