Hello world 👋

Hi! My name is Marcin (how to pronounce it). I use he/him or they/them pronouns. I live in Warsaw, Poland, and this is my personal README.

I got my education in teaching English as a foreign language, and worked as an English teacher for five years. Since 2017 I've worked as a Technical Writer. I joined GitLab in 2019.

In the meantime, I've volunteered at a non-profit, where I organized youth camps and weekend workshops, leading educational exercises on human rights, diversity, sustainable development, and peaceful conflict resolution. I've also co‑organized PyLight Waw, a beginner‑friendly Python meetup and have given talks on software documentation.

No matter my future job title, I'm a documentarian, a person who cares about documentation and communication in the software industry. I'd like to learn more about software UX and designing experiences in general.

I care about open‑source software, the welfare of humans and other animals, and, broadly speaking, building bridges not walls.

Working style 💻

I prefer a work environment that is structured, and defaults to asynchronous communication, but I enjoy 1:1 syncs when it's more efficient.

I can deal with ambiguity well, but don't enjoy it too much. I'm an Asker and have a low level of shame, so I'll let you know if I need additional context or help.

I can manage multiple tasks well, but need to block time off for deep work to feel fulfilled in my work.

I work off of to-do items and mentions. 👁️ If you want my attention sooner - assign me as a reviewer on your MR rather than only mentioning.

For my first 4 years here, I used to rely email notifications and make heavy use of Gmail labels and filters (see below). After a full year of being to-do-only for most projects, I'm very glad I switched.

Schedule and prioritization

I work best in afternoons (UTC+2), so I often work 11 am - 7 pm. It syncs nicely with folks in American timezones being online. It is the time when I am most productive.

Normally my day starts with MR docs reviews, which, depending how many I have, can take a few hours. Personally, I find it most important to unblock others first, as I know the pain of waiting for someone else before I can do my work.

After reviews, I get to my own work, prioritizing feature docs for the groups I support and Technical Writing OKRs.

When I have time, I like polishing GitLab UI text, like error messages, empty states, or field descriptions.

Knowledge of GitLab 🦊

Over my time at GitLab I have gained expertise on some features from the Plan stage, like:

• Issues, epics, and boards
• Quick actions
• Markdown
• Emoji

I'm also good at Git and okay at fixing GDK, and have often helped people fix messy situations.

Setup

Gmail configuration

I've finally moved to GitLab to-dos and now check my email only occasionally.

Back when I used email notifications, this was my over-complicated worflow:

I use a mix of GTD and Inbox Zero Ten ¹. My starting point was this blog post: https://dansilvestre.com/gtd-gmail/.

🖼️ See screenshots:

• My Gmail inbox
• Multiple inboxes config

If you want, you can download my exported filters, and import them into your Gmail. Some of them are specific to my role/team, so delete or adapt them for yourself. I also don't know what happens if you import them but don't have the labels they use (let me know when you find out).

¹ Inbox Zero is unrealistic and too stressful ¯\_(ツ)_/¯