Cold and dark

Sweden is settling into a time of fewer daylight hours, colder weather and because of where I live my chances of any real snow are slim. Right now it is delightfully cold out and it feels like a proper start to winter. I dare not hope it continues.

Wherever you live your seasons might be a bit different. And seasons are layered things. We have the seasons of weather. Seasons of culture. Usually those are fairly widely distributed norms. Here we have the whole Spring, Summer, Autumn, Winter thing. Seasons are a thing in work as well though.

I think mostly due to holidays and vacation time there is conference season which starts in spring around March or April, in Europe it tends to dip around July-August for vacations, returns in full force and generally ends November. There are conferences all year round. But the intensity and frequency of them is higher during the season.

For freelancers you'll see similar intensity where there are lulls before summer vacations and end of year. Unless you are dealing with companies who have particular budget cycles in which case those determine their willingness to sign contract and utilize hours.

We grow things in the dirt. We enjoy that. So we have those seasonal shifts. There are some milestones of night minimum temperature, soil behavior and more that mark shifts. But most of it gradually changes from "oh these need to go in now" to "oh, we get berries now" and then "this is the only thing alive now". Finally "well, let's plant the garlic for next year". The winter season isn't off. It is lower intensity typically. But importantly this is when we prepare for the next year. I'm setting up some sensors for the green house and we are looking at a watering system. We have over 200 square meters of green house this season and we plan on making the most of it.

Similarly with work there are seasons. My work includes the conference season, the freelancer season and I need to figure out what goes where and how the balance works. I think this darker season with less time spent outside does suit itself to more hacking on code things. I need to make an effort to get out while the sun exists a bit. But this is not the most fun season. Nice holiday stuff. Shitty weather in this part of the country. So a good time to hack on stuff and do a lot of client work.

Part of balance for me is figuring out what goes where across the year and having a sense of the overall shape of things while the details always shift. Conference season is over for me. Time to look at the spread of confs for next year. Client work seems steady for now.

What seasons do you follow and care about?

Thank you for reading. I appreciate it.