If I count the travel time, I finished my 40-h work week by Wednesday. Why bragging about prioritizing work over family? Hustle culture isn’t that cool honestly. When pushing >80 h work weeks, most normal people are just on their way to a burn-out. However, it is not that simple. In my case, I performed field measurements in a school I have designed the acoustics. I started that work in 2021 and now, over 4 years later the buildings are almost finished. Just think about it for a second, how frustrating it is to make recommendations to a client and then wait for almost half a decade until you get feedback and can finally own the consequences of your recommendations. Feedback should be rapid, but this is the reality of civil engineering. That’s why I pushed such an insane work week. My curiosity was like a fire I couldn’t put out. I had to know if my calculations worked in practice!

Diary, EducationRikard ÖqvistJanuary 31, 2025crunch, work, rest, experience, wisdomComment

Steve jobs on consulting

Steve Jobs once did a speech on consulting and how crucial it is for learning and improvement to “stick around” for a long time, several years, to fully “own” the consequences of your recommendations. I have worked as a consultant most of my professional life and it hit very close to home. In the building industry where I am an acoustic consultant, the delay between your first advice to a client to the finalized building is measured in years. And I am finally getting old enough to seeing several of “my” projects materialize. It is equally scary and wonderful.

Acoustics, EngineeringRikard ÖqvistMarch 21, 2024acoustics, consulting, wisdom, construction, buildingsComment

Blog post #200

Two hundred weeks of consecutive blog posts tonight. Solid proof of the power of incremental improvement. Of course, I do not expect anyone to read all my 200 brain dumps. That was never the purpose. The purpose was to improve my writing skills. And it is impossible to not improve if you do something for 200 weeks straight. And by the way, it is also impossible to not deteriorate if you commence in harmful activities for 200 weeks straight. The only difference is that it is a lot easier to be consistent with bad habits. Consistency with activities that improve your life and the life of everyone around you is very hard.

DiaryRikard ÖqvistOctober 2, 2023impulse control, age, wisdom, youth, values, principlesComment

Tread your steps carefully

I will never forget the final couple of months when I was finalizing my PhD thesis for the print. Several years of extremely focused work was reaching its conclusion. And the thing I remember best is that feeling of “I understand this topic now!”, that you can only get when you are close to the finish line. Everything kind of snaps into place and it feels like you can write the perfect thesis. However, when you finally reach that stage, the time is almost up, so you will only be able to write a fraction of all your ideas. It’s a wonderful and frustrating paradox.

EngineeringRikard ÖqvistApril 11, 2022work, health, burnout, iceland, growth, wisdom, learningComment