Hi! I’m Humphrey, a medical student based in Sydney, Australia and Work In Progress is my blog for curious minds. I started WIP because I love applying my mind to learn meaningful things and I wanted to share that passion with others.
WIP is my way of documenting and sharing what I'm working on. By putting myself in the learner’s hotseat I’m hoping to entertain and inspire you, the reader.
A bit more about myself:
My motivation for WIP: to inspire others to learn
I spend much of my spare time outside of medical school on various skills and side hustles, and then document that journey on WIP. Here's why:
- To highlight the power of self-teaching - one of the benefits of having a digital world is that there are resources for almost every skill we can think of, often for free!
- For self-improvement: to learn skills that help me in my life and career.
- To keep myself accountable for my own goals (see point 2).
- Because it's fun! Self-teaching stuff is still one of the most empowering, amazing feelings I've experienced.
- To entertain (this is a blog, after all) and hopefully inspire others to pickup their own side hustles and hobbies.
Everything I learn and share on WIP follows 3 key principles: it’s useful to me, it’s fun for me, and it’s valuable to others. More here.
Past and current life: an eclectic mix
Outside medical school, my career and activities have been much chaos and not much order. I’ve worked in an economics firm, started a not-for-profit organisation and taught myself how to play drums. The common theme in all of that? A curious mind and love for learning and exploring.
I decided to be a doctor after working in a bunch of corporate environments leading to a quarter life crisis. This blog is not about my journey as a medical student, although some of the things I learn may be inspired by my future medical career (see: languages).
Chaotic, curious personality
WIP helps me learn better and develop more healthy habits, as someone who has (is still) guilty of:
- Being an overthinker and being too analytical. WIP helps me put that excess energy into something useful.
- Being a perfectionist. Documenting the very imperfect process of learning and building on stuff helps to remove the perfectionism bug.
- Learning things without enough purpose or discipline. Of course this doesn't mean everything has to be documented and analysed, but there's a fine balance.
And if any of those traits sound familiar, then I hope my content helps you :)