Work or Fun?

It’s been a few weeks since I started volunteering at the local volunteer-run radio station.  I’ve thought of it as an opportunity to contribute to the local community, while also learning some skills I am interested in.

In the last two weeks or so, I found some time to give the website a facelift, or at least a little foundation makeup 🙂 I learnt how Elementor works (and how it’s been used to hack together the site), the various plug-ins that slow down work by an order of magnitude (I literally spent over a day waiting for the site to load!) and how to disable them while I work. Integrating a payment method to reduce payment friction for memberships, reviewing the 5-year strategy and cash flows, creating website features that didn’t exist weeks ago – a wide range of skills being reused or learnt along the way. The micro-skills I’m learning are improving the speed (not necessarily the quality) with which I’m getting things done.

Because most people I’m working alongside seem to have either not the skills required or the willingness to do what’s required, I get the opportunity to speak up, roll up my sleeves, and do the work. Someone commented that I might be doing all the work (I don’t really care because there are no ‘accountability goals’).  If I’m having fun and learning while I’m doing this, rather than wasting time on things that are either meaningless or non-contributing, I don’t think of it as work.