Showing posts with label blog. Show all posts
Showing posts with label blog. Show all posts

Wednesday, December 1, 2021

Finding (and Keeping) Motivation Is Hard - You Are Not Alone


Hello, and welcome to my new blog.
All jokes aside, it's really been a while since I last wrote published a blog post..
I just didn't have the power or motivation to finish any post.
I'm even wondering if I do have it now.
I did start quite a few posts, but they very soon became a bit too long, or I lost attention.
And after one or 2 writing sessions I just stopped and moved on, to the next post I wouldn't finish.
That's been going off and on for about a year I guess.
I wrote published 2 posts in 2021 so far, that says it all.

After finishing the actual Power BI post and this prelude, I decided to split them up into 2 separate posts.
This post has become more of a motivation/#pbifamily post, the second part is about the November 2021 Power BI Desktop update.
This does mean you'll have to wait a bit longer for an in-depth Power BI post. But that actually gives me the chance to create another post in a very short time frame. 😀

But... We're all in this together

Going to Power BI Next Step in September, and all the fun and learnings I had, really did get my attention and created some sparks for new energy on writing and speaking, even on new topics. But as you have guessed, that also didn't quite come through all the way.

I guess doing a major home improvement project also doesn't help, right?
Eventually, it turned out really great, I'm writing this blog post out of my new office! The office is not quite finished all the way yet, and there's still a lot of work to do before everything is finished, but a major step up already!

Re-energize

I also get a lot of help from and inspiration for running in these times, from all my buddies at #runhappy:

Thank you for that, Erin, Bradley, Thomas, Wolfgang, Ben, Jim, Michael, Kasper, Craig, Magnus, Leslie, Lynn, Koen, Monica, Taiob, Mohammad, and others that occasionally join!

It's important to get new energy, in whatever way you do that. I love to go running 150k+ per month and have regular stand-up or lunch walks, but do whatever suits you. Just make sure you go away from your screens once in a while every day. Go play with your kids/dog/cat/spouse for a few minutes 😉

You are not alone

Luckily I know I'm not alone in this, .
This tweet from yesterday actually sparked my interest in writing a new blog post:

That's why I do think that December can be a turnaround. Let's at least try, right? 😃

The End

I wrote this post almost in one go (alright, I was distracted a few times when searching for the tweets I wanted to embed 😀).
It's nowhere close to anything I've ever posted.
Way out of my comfort zone.
But if it helps only one person, I'm happy.
And if not, it actually helped me already.

If you need motivation/help/anything: reach out.
Leave a comment here, on Twitter, on LinkedIn, in real life, whatever suits you.

Have a great day! 💛

Thursday, December 10, 2015

Open Live Writer On GitHub

A few days ago an open source fork of the Microsoft Windows Live Writer code was announced. It is now called: OpenLiveWriter. It makes it easy to write, preview, and post to your blog. The current release has version 0.5.


As I host my blog on Blogger I encountered some issues when I wanted to login to the application while installing it. According to the issue tracker at GitHub this was a known issue and is being dealt with in the next minor release 0.5.1. I hope they are able to fix this soon as I'm eager to try it out!

Have a look at the project on Github or see what they have in mind for next releases at the roadmap!

Thursday, January 8, 2015

2014 in Retrospective and Planning for 2015

Well, that's it for 2014 then, it's been a year already. And we're already on our way in 2015. I've encountered several ups and downs last year, with Niels being the best of course!

I'm actually not that good in setting or reaching my goals, so I thought of writing them down, so I (or anyone who reads this) can at least hold me to it afterwards. :-)

Blog
I wanted to do more blogging last year. Well.. that turned out differently :) I just couldn't find the time or inspiration. I did have some periods in which I was somewhat active, but I need to get a more regular schedule. So, starting realistic and achievable, my goal is to get at least 1 post per month out in 2015 and also get my first #tsql2sday post.
And looking further on the horizon, I do some have speaking intentions, I just don't know when or what to talk about yet. I would like to explore this in 2015 a bit further.

Certification
It's been a while ago that I started my learning path to MCSE BI. Due to private matters my time dedicated to learning hasn't been that high in 2013 and the first months of 2014. Starting in March I dedicated some more time and finished 70-461 in April. In December I also passed 462 and 463 and so I finally got my MCSA! My goal is to get my MCSE in 2015, preferably before September.

SQLSaturday Holland
I also attended my first SQLSaturday event in Utrecht last October, meeting a lot of nice new #sqlfamily: Catherine, Clint, Grant, Jeffrey, Julie, Pieter and also renewing the friendship with old ones: Jen and Joost. It was a great event and I had lots of good sessions to attend. I especially want to follow up on Continuous Integration by Grant Fritchey (b|t). He also wrote a good article on SQLMag on this same topic.

Running
I'm also a fan of running and am finally training more in the last months (or at least trying to..). And now, I have set my mind on running a marathon with my friend Joost. Yes, the whole nine (or actually 46145) yards. The location still has to be determined. I already completed several half marathons, with the fastest last October in 1h45m.

Enjoy the year 2015 y'all!
Nicky

Thursday, August 15, 2013

Suggested Reading

I came across some nice articles and blog posts in the last weeks I wanted to share:
Hopefully you can get somehting useful out of here!

You can also follow me on Twitter: @NickyvV

Monday, July 4, 2011

Disclaimer added

I think it would be smart to write a disclaimer for my blog, so I took some examples from Danny Foo and put together my own disclaimer.

New blog added

I started this blog today and I'll be posting to it on a regular basis.
The main things I'll be talking about will be BizTalk, Business Intelligence with PowerPivot and related topics.

Please feel free to distribute this blog to colleagues and friends.

Featured Post

Power Apps or Translytical Task Flows?

I think I have gotten this question at least five or six times in the last few months, and with Translytical Task Flows reaching GA in the M...