Weeknotes – series 07 episode 13

Reflecting on 1 year contracting

I've been contracting for just over a year now, and I'm still pleased with my decision to take the plunge.

It feels like there is less work around at the moment, so I feel lucky that I've managed to have continuous work. It looks like my first contract is set to continue for at least another 6 months.

My previous 2 (permanent) jobs only lasted a year or less each, so it feels a little ironic to get more stability from contracting. This is a welcome surprise to me.

Contracting has also given me the chance to really focus on the practice of interaction design.

Being honest with myself, I think my core interaction design skills have suffered because previous roles have pulled me lots of different directions, into things like people management or high-level strategic work. Those things are really important, but I think I went down that path too quickly.

Still, having experience in those areas helps with navigating tricky situations that I face as an interaction designer, so maybe it wasn't such a bad route to take.

About 8 months ago, I wrote down some informal goals for myself. I've been able to make progress on about 75% of the things on that list.

I haven't really been able to move around and work with a range of orgs, but as mentioned earlier, I've been pleasantly surprised by the continuous work.

I do have the head space however to engage more with the wider gov design community, which I'm really enjoying.

Nice things to do in Swansea

I added Nomad Bar & Kitchen and Motley Pie & Coffee to my non-exhaustive list of nice things to do in Swansea.

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