Tag: Australia

  • Working from home or the office?

    From looking back from the previous post, it has been 5 years since my last blog post! Thinking back at all the things I have done, I feel like I need to write something!

    Before I get into it, analysing the posts before, I realised just how much I was trying to make this blog into something that was meant to be inspiring for others. The more I thought about it and the content I was writing, the more this blog became less about benefiting me. This is where I want to steer this blog back to what it was set out to be:

    Life updates and general rants to keep me sane!

    Every time when I start something, I always think “how can this benefit me and how can this make me money in the future?” Then I go into this rabbit hole of how to do this and changing my content to relate to my readers. And then the content becomes harder to write as I start to think “will anyone like this”? This had caused me to stop writing my blogs. But this did make me find another hobby I never thought I would have gotten into though… DRAWING!

    But the simple reality should really just be writing blogs so that stuff just doesn’t get built up in my head and letting it out somewhere… So there is the small explanation of the silence…

    So… Where have I been?

    I guess a lot happens in 5 years but the past 2 years have been very quiet and that is of course to do with the pandemic! Let’s talk about that!

    Since the lockdown ended almost a month ago, it almost feels like the lockdown never happened but I sure as hell know it did and it almost made me go CRAZY!

    When my work switched from the office to home, it started off well. I liked the thought of how flexible it was. But then as time went on, it became a horrible experience.

    So I found that at the end of a work day, I tend to always forget the time and end up working overtime without me knowing it. I think the biggest difference in the office is that when you see everyone is leaving, that is usually the trigger to stop working! But when remote, I have the illusion that everyone is still working resulting in me needing to work too. I need to change that!

    With this extra overtime accidentally happening, it tends to make me lose focus with my personal hobbies and detach me from a lot of other things I could be working on.

    On top of this point, I spend a huge amount of time on the same computer and the environments start to get very merged in together. My workstation is now a “work environment” where it used to be a “gaming/creative environment”. It does become harder to identify whether my workstation is a place I can switch my brain off…

    So when people ask me:

    Which do you prefer? Working from home or working in the office?

    My answer would actually be “a bit of both”.

    There are great advantages working from home. It gives me a flexible lifestyle to do small errands and continue work as per normal. On the other hand, going to the office gives me a social aspect to have small talk and know that there is life outside the “remote bubble”.

    The restrictions do seem to be lifting and it does come to be a big relief that this is happening.

    I suppose when things go back to normal, I would prefer to work 2 days in the office and 3 days at home. That sounds to me like a very good balance!

    What do you prefer?

  • How the new life is so far…

    It has been months since moving from UK to Australia. It has been crazy busy from when I moved and until now, I believe that I have come to a stage where it has kind of calmed down that I can sit back to write an update blog. It has been a while but lets go!

    So what’s changed? I started off with a bit of cash so the minute I landed, I was a little unstable but good thing that I had a place to stay so that was a huge benefit for me.

    With no time wasting, I immediately went job hunting. This initiated with a quick portfolio website for companies to see and whipping something up and looking for work, I felt like the portfolio was the key part of it all. Finding time to do it was difficult but eventually, it was complete… After an extra few days, companies started to call me and several initial tests were sent for me to do. Long story short, it came down to 2 choices where one company was interested and the other still in deciding mode but with a bit of thought, it became clear that I decided to choose the company that suited me best… So 1 month and a bit later, I was in the working life.

    So now the job was clear and out of the way, it came back into looking to find time for my projects, which were put on hold for so long. This became a little difficult as I gave the job priority. It was rather hard to find time since I did a few late nights and stuff but recently, my weekends have now freed up opening time for development.

    My progress now lies at a point where a new project that I thought of a while back can now jump into motion. At the same time, I have given more thought into a web project in collaboration with my brother so with that, I will be busy for the next few months. This is a great feeling as personal development starts here!! This deserves a smiley :).

    In another topic, networking is starting to look better. I am beginning to see a clearer forecast of friendly people to hangout with and stuff. Although this is still a small number, it should rise if I let loose but like I said, it’s only been a few months so let’s see in another fe months to find out where I get to…

    The games part of me have played a bigger role lately. Specifically, the Wii U is the console played most. I suppose I never really saw the potential in the beginning for the Wii U but with the recent games especially Mario Kart 8 (and of course, the multiplayer experience), it changes my whole opinion about the console itself. Maybe I am living in the good old days where play games next to people just makes a game 10 times more enjoyable. Whatever the case, it creates a great diversion away from the world.

    Moving on to a social topic, I ran into a few friends down in Melbourne to see how they were in the weekend. They were friends that I have known for years (since secondary school) and we all decided to redezvous in Australia! It was pleasant seeing these faces again and we had a great time just catching up and hopping from bar to bar. I guess I haven’t really had one of these nights since London but it was sure a good feeling that I was experiencing my first time in Melbourne with these guys! So if you guys are reading this, thanks for that weekend! It was awesome!

    So to sum up my entire time over in Australia, I guess I have been enjoying my time over here so far. The people are pretty nice, work environment is a splendid place to work in and the general networking is slowly happening making everyday a moment to remember. I did start off a little scared moving from a space I was once very comfortable in to an entirely new life but it is growing on me…

    Thanks for reading guys and I will try post more often. Until next time…