We’re in an interesting phase here at freistil IT. On one hand, we’re still up-to-our-necks busy with infrastructure work we should have done many months ago. On the other hand, we’ve started to talk about our new strategic direction.

This week, Markus and I took a look at the roles we’d like to cover in our future hosting business. It made me happy that we quickly found a healthy split in preference between building software behind the scenes (both infrastructure automation and product applications) and working more closely with our customers in a DevOps consulting capacity. This is going to be an exciting new path for our hosting business.

Next week, I’m going to shift my focus a bit off coding and put some serious work in my talk for DrupalCon Amsterdam. Given the level of exhaustion I’m feeling today, the talk’s topic “How to build up resilience and keep burnout at bay” seems to hold a mirror in front of me. It reminds me that being productive isn’t everything. Productivity needs to be sustainable. I have a tendency to expect more from myself than is realistic, and often the result is only a half-finished to-do list and a feeling of failure. I’ll make sure to touch on this kind of self-sabotage in my talk. First of all, though, I’ll have to slow down to a healthier pace. I’m also going to make more time for physical exercise, which will help two-fold: it’ll keep me from filling my whole day with work, and over the long run, it’ll provide me with the “corpus sanus” that my “mens sana” needs as its partner.

Still, I’m looking forward to making progress with our infrastructure updates because I’ll do them either on my live stream or pairing with Markus. Both modes of work are are great source of fun and motivation.

Have a great weekend!