Year of Teamwork

Year of Teamwork stems from some of the issues I’ve been facing lately with delegation. Reflecting on my calendar in the past few months, I see that I’ve already started spending significantly more time on code review and planning than actually writing code than I used to this time last year, but it’s not nearly enough. I still spend the majority of my time as an individual contributor, which is scaling very poorly. I’ve been in a “move fast and break things mode” lately, and I need to slow down, introspect, and listen.

I want to delegate more and plan for further into the future. I also want to involve more stakeholders more early on and more frequently when making decision, both in my personal relationships and at Pabio.

Secondly, I want to do a better job at internalizing feedback; I’ve been told that I’m very receptive to it, but that’s where it stops — I don’t actually do a good enough job in implementing it.

Finally, like this past year, I want to continue to do the things I did right, but invest more in my support system. I want to continue improving my physical and mental health and keep working hard towards my goals, both short- and long-term, while finding more time for my friends and family.

Other themes I considered were Year of Focus and Year of Wellness. I’ve found myself working on Sundays or checking my phone during coding sprints3 and I want to do less at a time but with a greater focus, even if that means “harder vacationing”, but I think the Year of Teamwork will help push me in the right direction with these goals as well.

Illustrated portrait of Anand

About the author

Anand Chowdhary

Anand Chowdhary is a creative technologist and entrepreneur. He is the co-founder and CTO of Pabio, an interior design and rent-to-own furniture company funded by Y Combinator. He lives in Utrecht, the Netherlands.

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