Anybody that has spent any time with me recently has probably heard about how much I love working for Chef. I have been meaning to write a post about how great the transition to Chef has been for the last month, but just never seem to find the time. The people are amazing, the company is amazing and the product is amazing.
But, with any good job, there comes new challenges. My new role at Chef has meant a lot more writing. I have probably written more in an official capacity since joining Chef than I did on my personal blog the entire time I was at Demand Media. The context switch is hard. Active voice is hard.
It has been much harder than I expected to get in the frame of mind to write at any length. I find that I frequently sit down to write a blog post or an email that needs to go out to the mailing list and am easily distracted by technical things. Even as I write this post, I am cmd-tabbing back and forth to a chef-client run (CCR). Finding that place of focus for me is wicked hard when there are so many fun distractions around.
To add to the adventure, through the amazing critique of my coworkers, I have realized I still write like I am in an academic program instead of doing business writing. What that means is that I tend to use 50 words to explain something when 10 words will do. To add to that, I am super guilty of using passive voice in my writing. I am thankful to @sethvargo, @jtimberman, and @btmspox for their willingness to provide honest and constructive feedback.
What I want to do right now is commit to writing daily or something akin to that, but I know that life over the next month will be too busy to even begin a regular writing exercise. So from now until vacation starts in two weeks, I am going to actively pay attention to when I am avoiding writing and work to do it more frequently. I truly believe that the only way to improve at these sort of things is to do them more often to get better.