Already one month down, and I’m pleased with the progress of my “projects, projects, projects…“, which chug along at a decent pace.

We’ve begun usability testing on some initial wireframes for the new MyDojo. I’m looking forward to delving into the user insights and starting to progress the designs towards high-fidelity mockups. The next big challenge will be to translate the (still in progress) system architecture into Flutter, which I’ll be using to develop the mobile app.

I’ve been using Notion to keep track of the myriad items in the backlog, and it really does keep me sane – between managing my work life, my reading list, and my software dev efforts, it’s become a second brain for me.

On the novel front, I’m making steady progress towards the first draft of the mystery novel I started writing at the beginning of last year. I’m about 23 out of 35 chapters done. Writing by hand is a nice form of detachment, but I really do hope I can decipher my handwriting when it comes to transferring the entire novel into Scrivener. The goal is to get this first draft on paper by end of this month, which is daunting in and of itself. It took me about 3 years to write Devanagari, which I still honestly haven’t finished (as I need to revise it into a coherent 2nd draft).

But I’ve found writing this mystery novel to be a lot easier. It’s set in a place I know (Durban), the characters fascinate me (one in particular, a nasty guy who may or may not be the villain, and whom I can’t wait to introduce you all to 😉), and by writing the entire first draft by hand, I can be safe in the knowledge that the mere act of transference to Scrivener will be a leg-up with the 2nd draft.

I’ve also started attending the Amsterdam UX meetups, which has been a great way to connect with the local UX community. Both talks (last month’s State of UX in NL and yesterday’s leadership session) were inspiring, and a great way to get out and talk shop with like-minded folk.

With the weather marginally improving (slightly longer days, with more welcome sunshine), getting out to the Amsterdam UX meetups gives me a good excuse to snap pics of this beautiful city like the one above.

Until next time (hopefully not only next month), it’s “all for now.”