David Daly

This is part of a series on job loss and identity. www.daviddaly.me/2025/09/maki...

Re-Learning My Identity – Step One (Author’s Note – This is part of a series focused on job loss and is the first of three posts focused on identity. I wrote this post in Dec...

It is easy to define ourselves in terms of our jobs and careers, but this is a very brittle sense of #identity. One that is easily threatened by job change or loss. I found this out the hard way last year.
www.daviddaly.me/2025/10/re-l...

#jobloss

Congratulations Katie!

Your grace, you read my mind. I was thinking the other day how much I would like a shipment of silence from the Crooked Path monk. I will deeply enjoy.

This is the second post in my series on losing my job.
www.daviddaly.me/2025/09/maki...

Trying to Take a Break It was a beautiful Monday morning last summer as I sat down on a lounge chair to relax. I had lost my job five days earlier, but was in no r...

Today I continue my blog series on job loss with my second post: "Trying To Take a Break". It addresses the unexpected fear I faced when I suddenly had the freedom to do anything I wanted with my time.

www.daviddaly.me/2025/10/tryi...

Also, your Grace should know that I'm more regularly on this site after @oritdaly.bsky.social told me you had established yourself over here. I had missed your presence.

Now if I could only say the same thing about myself :)

The second post dives into the first topic: The Scariness of Getting What You Want
www.daviddaly.me/2025/09/the-... 3/3

Today I introduce the first two posts of a series focused on this change. The first post, Making Sense of Disruption, provides an overview covering the full scope of this series on disruption. 2/3

www.daviddaly.me/2025/09/maki...

My professional life changed suddenly last year. I have always tried to deliberately craft my career, so this sudden change was jarring to me. I've spent a lot of time since then reflecting on that change, covering topics of success, failure, taking time off, and my sense of identity. 1/3

I’m Starting a New Job Tomorrow (January 2nd, 2024) I start a new job. Five months ago I left my previous job with no idea of what would come next, beyond taking a...

I started a new job today! www.daviddaly.me/2025/01/im-s...

Reading to Answer Questions Putting down my book, I stood up from the bench and walked over to my 10-year-old son by the water. His fishing line was tangled. Again. Thi...

My latest post covers using #books to solve problems, such as helping my son catch fish. There is a lot of knowledge stored in books. This post focuses on some of the ways to find the right knowledge for what you need. www.daviddaly.me/2024/06/read...

Many years ago I wondered if I was good enough at #reading #papers. No one had tought me how to do it well, and many of my peers seemed to be much, much better at it. I’ve written up how I currently read papers and what I wish someone had taught me long ago. www.daviddaly.me/2024/03/read...

2023 was a productive year for me. I drove a lot of change in my life, spanning my career, how I organize information, and my writing. I was helped by several books and other resources. I wrote about the most impactful ones and how they helped me. www.daviddaly.me/2024/02/writ...

This was a challenging piece to write, as it really is the nerdiest thing I do. And we don’t normally talk about the nerdy things we do. Maybe we should do that more.

I don’t have a good memory for names, facesr, and details. I’ve built up a system of note taking and #memorization to work around my limits, and now I’ve written about it. www.daviddaly.me/2023/12/the-...

Her father was talking about writing, but the idea also pops up in writing about habit change and expert performance. Which is appropriate since Anne was building a writing habit, to become an expert writer.

I love this quote: "“Do it every day for a while,” my father kept saying. “Do it as you would do scales on the piano. Do it by prearrangement with yourself. Do it as a debt of honor. And make a commitment to finishing things.”" (Anne Lamott, Bird by Bird)

It resonates with so much I've read.

Learning and Growing in Tech Photo by  Julie Kertesz Welcome! Come Learn and Grow with me. Today I am re-introducing my blog and what you can expect from it going forwa...

Trying this new place out. I miss the communities I was part of (or listened in on) on Twitter in the before days. I regularly write to my blog. See www.daviddaly.me/2023/03/lear... for a description of my current writing.