Bowing out of #MakeoverMonday

The story so far

For the last 4.5 years I have been co-leading the #MakeoverMonday project and helped to build it into the community it is today. Those years included work and effort from my side but everything I put in, I got 10-fold in return. #MakeoverMonday helped me build my personal and professional brand, grow my network, meet new people and make friends. It helped me find my passion for helping others advance their careers. It provided the foundation for 2 books and countless presentations. For all of that I am grateful and I’m proud of what we accomplished.

Now it’s time to pass that sceptre over to someone else, so they can continue to grow the project and the community and use their commitment to further their career, if they wish.

The why

I fully believe in and support the mission of #MakeoverMonday and I know based on my own observations and the feedback from participants, that being part of the project community, participating regularly and using each week as an opportunity to grow your portfolio can result in tremendous growth of your technical and analytical skills. It’s something I will continue to support and promote, because it remains true.

Over the past few months I realised that I didn’t have the same drive and passion for leading the project anymore. My life has changed significantly over the last 5 years, ever since moving from Australia to Germany and then to the UK and there are things I want to spend more time on. They don’t involve visualisations and they don’t involve screens.

I don’t regret the sacrifices I made to lead the project and I don’t regret the many hours I spent on it, because as I mentioned above, I got much more out of #MakeoverMonday than I ever expected.

I want to focus on other topics and other activities, however, and to do so I need to make room in my schedule, which led me to the decision to step down as the official co-host of #MakeoverMonday and leave the project in Andy’s very capable hands and support him as he builds a new ‘lead team’.

What now?

In case you’re curious what I want to spend my time on: It’s being with the people I love, spending time with our puppy, Maggie, going running and swimming, reading and listening to audiobooks, sitting in the sunshine and doing nothing.

Doing nothing isn’t something I experience very often, but the past few months with Maggie have taught me a lot of lessons. When she was a young puppy during her first 5 weeks with us, she wasn’t allowed outside as we waited for the vaccinations to run their course so she’d be protected against diseases. 5 weeks indoors with a bouncy Labrador during winter is not easy. Sometimes all I was able to do was sit there with her and watch her, making sure she wasn’t causing destruction but also absorbing all the things she did do. Her learning, her curiosity, her body language, her figuring out this world and her bonding with us. It made me think “is this what everyone else does in their free time? They watch their dogs, cats, kids play and explore the world? They just sit there and enjoy themselves, maybe watching a movie?” I enjoyed that and I want more of it. And I don’t want a webinar to get in the way of dinner preparations. I don’t want to build yet another viz at the expense of going for a walk with Andy and Maggie.

I need to switch off more

I’ve also done a bit of soul searching recently and have recognised that I crave disconnection from technology, from social media and the time-suck it becomes. I’m not immune to suggestions, to funny Instagram reels, to intriguing YouTube videos. The only way I can protect my time and sanity is by switching those things off deliberately. #MakeoverMonday is a reason to check Twitter one more time and get stuck scrolling through the feed, losing 20 minutes (or more) in the process. And I don’t even have notifications switched on. Heck, I don’t even use the Twitter app. Mindless scrolling isn’t healthy and it’s not how I want to live my life. I have no problem at all using social media for work and for leisure purposes, but I am trying to keep my usage as low as possible and use that extra hour (or more!) a day to do things that bring me more joy: Go for another walk, teach Maggie how to navigate an obstacle course, watch a movie with Andy or call my best friend for a 2 hour chat.

Protecting my personal space and time

I also realised that while I love that my career is built around data and draws heavily on data visualisation, storytelling and analysis, as well as data culture and data literacy, it’s not something I need to keep doing for hours each week during my personal time. Nothing bad will happen if I don’t build a visualisation in the evening, instead of doing something that actually helps me disconnect from the busy-ness, the ‘doing’ and instead gives me a chance to spend more time ‘being’.

Knowing when and how to quit

Co-hosting the #MakeoverMonday project all these years made me feel like I couldn’t stop doing it. We don’t want the project to end so it took me all these months, basically since the beginning of the year, to acknowledge that I had lost my mojo and needed to stop, but also that the project will be perfectly fine without me. New people will bring new ideas, they will improve the project, no doubt. And it gives them the opportunity to move from learning to teaching which actually increases how much they will learn and helps them find a way to articulate their knowledge.

I might be leaving the #MakeoverMonday project, but I’m not exactly far away. I will help behind the scenes with establishing the future team, whatever it may look like. I simply need to take myself away from the responsibilities of running the project because I need room for new things and ideas.

So now you know

So that’s that. I hope that all those reading this will continue to participate and encourage others to do the same so we can all get better at visualising and analysing data. I also hope you found it helpful to read about the reasons behind my decision, especially if you feel a bit stuck yourself but worry that stopping what you’re doing will harm your progress, career, etc. It won’t, because when you stop something that just doesn’t work anymore for you, you make space for new things. And if there are no ‘new projects’ on the horizon for you and you simply want time to sit on your porch and watch the sunset, then please do it.

Yes, the world needs better data analysis and visualisations but even more importantly, it needs people who are staying true to their values and personal priorities. Rather than burning out by doing everything for everyone, talking about every topic and being at every party, let’s allow ourselves to focus enough on our personal lives even if it’s against the hustle culture social media advocates.