There is much to reflect on and learn from this week despite the lack of feeling like I made any progress in the workshop. In some ways the fact I use a word like progress is an indicator to where my mild discontentment may have arisen from as I am already slipping into treating this like work again!
I've not really cut anything that I would describe as interesting which has irritated me. This is due to a combination of working on 'real work' and completing a lot of annoying but very useful jobs like finishing setup of my PC and rigging up a dust collection method for the CNC. The weather was also bloody hot (at least for the UK) and so the area the CNC resides in becomes unbearable after about 2pm.
My irritation has made me realise that I'm already unconsciously starting to do 'quick' jobs for other people - mostly for minimal charge or as a favour - which is eating into the time where I could be doing more complex interesting work. So far this has had some benefit as I've been able to learn something useful from almost everything I've cut. This will diminish though as these jobs continue to be similar in scope. As such, going forward I need to make sure they continue to help me learn something and if not that I start to say no or charge accordingly to guard the time for the cool stuff.
My other realisation is that I am unable to gain pleasure from doing useful jobs that need to be done but are not interesting. This is almost certainly a character flaw but one that will be hard to overcome. I'll have to think more about how I might reconcile this. Perhaps as I reap the benefits of something like the dust-collection system I'll be able to realise how these types of activities can be made more pleasurable. It would probably help to frame them as beneficial before I start rather than an inconvenient necessity.
So, as you can probably tell if your still reading this, this week there is nothing to show but the meanderings of my mind. I have done quite a bit of computer work on the mantel reproduction job I'm working on but need to ask the customer if I can share that or not. I also made a prototype for someone but that cannot be shared.
So my challenge for this week is to refocus on the original goals and start enjoying the overall process again, maybe aiming to make one or two cool things to keep the sense of contentment bubbling along. At least the weather appears to be going back to normal UK summer so the barn will be bearable for full days again.