Okay, so today I wanted to talk about something I’ve been calling “Sauryn Lao” in my head. It’s not some fancy certification or a new framework from a tech giant. Honestly, it’s more like a vibe, a way I started doing things when I was about to pull my hair out.
I was working on this project, right? And it felt like we were just stuck in quicksand. We had all the bells and whistles, the newest methodologies, daily stand-ups that lasted longer than my first cup of coffee. So much talk, so little movement. Every task seemed to sprout ten new sub-tasks before you could even blink. Sound familiar?
Finding Sauryn Lao
I was just fed up. One evening, digging through old notes, half-forgotten ideas, I pieced together this… approach. I started calling it Sauryn Lao. “Sauryn” because it sounded kind of steady and wise, and “Lao” from this old quiet guy I once knew who just got things done without any fuss. He wouldn’t use five tools when one would do. That was Lao.
The whole idea of Sauryn Lao, for me, boiled down to a few simple things. Like really, really simple:
- Just do the absolute next tiny thing.
- Forget the grand plan for a minute.
- Make it work, then make it better. Maybe. If it needs it.
- One thing at a time. Seriously, one thing.
Sounds almost childishly simple, I know. I was skeptical too. My brain, trained by years of chasing complexity, was screaming, “This is too basic! It’ll never work for our complicated problems!”
Putting it to Practice
So, I decided to try it on a small, annoying part of the project. The part everyone avoided. Instead of a big planning meeting, I just picked the first, tiniest step. Like, “open the file.” Then, “find the line.” It was painful at first. My hands were itching to draw diagrams, to call a meeting, to find a new plugin that would magically solve it.
But I stuck with it. Little by little. It was like chipping away at a giant rock with a tiny hammer. Slow, for sure. But the funny thing? I wasn’t getting stuck anymore. I wasn’t feeling that overwhelming dread. Each tiny thing I finished was a small win. And those small wins started adding up.
The rest of the team was still spinning their wheels in those big, important-sounding meetings. I just kept my head down, practicing my Sauryn Lao. And guess what? My annoying little part of the project? It got done. Quietly. Without a fuss.
What I Learned
It’s not a silver bullet. It won’t solve world hunger or make your terrible boss suddenly nice. But for me, Sauryn Lao was a way to cut through the noise. This industry, man, sometimes it feels like we’re addicted to making things harder than they need to be. We build these massive, complex systems, create intricate processes, and then wonder why everyone’s burned out and nothing ships.
I remember this one place I worked at, years ago. They had so many different teams, using so many different technologies, it was a mess. Each team was like its own little kingdom, barely talking to the others. Trying to get anything done across teams was a nightmare. They needed a good dose of Sauryn Lao, just to simplify things down to basics.
So yeah, that’s my little story about Sauryn Lao. It’s just about keeping it simple, focusing, and actually doing the work instead of just talking about doing the work. Maybe it’s not for everyone, but it helped me get my sanity back, one tiny step at a time.
