This was a quieter week compared to the last few. I did a lot of personal writing and writing for work. The driving range where I hit golf balls has been closed, so that’s been a bummer.

On communication

I struggle in my work life finding ways to express myself. I’ve experienced that a lot these past few weeks. My issue is that I use weak language to share my ideas and opinions. I say phrases like:

  • “I feel…” or “I think…”
  • “It seems to me…” or “To me personally…”
  • “It could be that…”
  • “Maybe…”

A good friend brought this to my attention years ago. He told me he observed that though I might feel strongly about something or see something important others haven’t seen, I use weak language to talk about it. It makes me sound like I’m doubting my thoughts, thinking they’re not a big deal, or hedging myself.

It’s my personality type to make myself small, to blend into the background and not make a ruckus. This can be good. I can sit in a meeting full of lengthy monologues, back-and-forth arguments full of interruption, and off-topic discussions and say a few words to bring the conversation together. I’m a person of few words who spends their time listening.

But trying to always fit in can create challenges and frustrations. It can lead to poor communication on my part, as my friend pointed out. There are times where I’ll use so much weak and non-committal language that it’ll sound like I’m not saying anything. There are other times where I ramble as a last resort, trying to find a way to safely express my thought when my brevity fails.

I haven’t learned the lesson yet, but I’m working on it. Thankfully, the app I use to write iA Writer highlights weak language and tells me to delete it. Too bad it doesn’t work with thoughts and speech.

Graphs showing schema entropy

I wrote a Twitter thread on Friday showing graphs I generated based on the work I’m doing on schema entropy. It was interesting to visualize the relationships between the schemas and include other information like the number of references incoming and outgoing for each schema.

As I mentioned in the thread, I’m speaking on this topic at the API Spec Conference in September. You should join in!

Notes

  • We finished watching Schmigadoon. I liked the story.
  • We watched In the Heights and enjoyed it.
  • I’m still reading ‌the same books from last week.
  • I finished listening to the audiobook Everything Belongs by Richard Rohr.
  • I finished watching Tony Parker: The Final Shot. I’ve been watching a lot of basketball documentaries lately while I’m on the rowing on rowing machine.