Why my messages have slowed down.
I love to create and maintain open-source software. It is a joy to write code to solve problems, release solutions for everyone, and keep packages working so problems stay solved. I want to keep developing and engineering for as long as possible.
Although I value and grow from user feedback, I now face an overwhelming volume of questions and requests about the projects I maintain. Requests come at all times of day on all days of the week, and each response is a context switch. The high throughput of constant communication wears me down.
Late last month, I created digital boundaries to protect my mental health and productivity. My GitHub notifications, social media, and package maintainer identity now use a special email account that I only check on certain days of the week. The benefits were immediate, and the changes are here to stay.
I send most of my messages during the middle part of the week, usually Wednesdays. I may be slower to communicate than in previous years, but I am still committed to helping users. And I am not slowing down at all when it comes to actual software engineering. Far from it: these communication boundaries are giving me more time and energy to fix bugs, add new features, and create new packages.
If you use targets, crew, or any of my other packages, I would be grateful for help answering GitHub issues and discussions, especially at https://github.com/ropensci/targets/discussions. And if you are posting a request yourself, please respect the communication and reproducibility guidelines that I describe at https://books.ropensci.org/targets/help.html.
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