Well, actually alot. This month we are frantically working on our Capstone project for the Data Science certification. I have been struggling with building a model that has a results score lower than 40. When I started, the first working model I had scored a 280. Not quite the direction I was going for.  Everyday I work on the models, make my maximum three entries and hold my breath that the score would come back below 40.

Yeah, I was stuck at 58. With the only movement between 58.83 and 58.63. I started over, from scratch, at least six separate times. My biggest fear through this whole process was that I was missing something or multiple somethings. Yesterday, my last effort took 8 hours to run through the Cleaning Data step. That is not a good sign. Out of sheer frustration, I sent a message to one of the other coaches and said I wasn’t going to get this done on time and what would the consequences be? She offered to Skype with me this morning to look at my model.

So we did. I showed her my collection of six and she told me to focus on Lucky 3 – all my models have names so I could tell them apart. That sounds weird. 😉 And then she actually told me to simplify my model. I had too much stuff because I was afraid that I was missing something. When I finished simplifying, I had 11 steps – which seemed far too small for this to work. She told me to try it. It worked really well with the sample data. The big test is the random data. I wasn’t having alot of faith in my work when I hit the Run button on my much smaller model.

The results? A very respectable 32.83.

So what is the point of my story? I overcomplicate things. Our entire group is doing it and it has a chain effect. If one participant submits 42 times, then there’s no way it could be this simple… And then the pattern of thought gains from there and transmits through our whole community. I know because I have had 4 conversations today regarding simplify, simplify, simplify 🙂 I think it also is triggered by the fact that women often feel that they have to prove themselves beyond any doubt.

I’m going to remember this the next time I tackle something that seems complex and I am definitely going to be asking myself if I am not making it worse by overthinking 😉

I’ve also been working on the move schedule. It is nearly August and I first thought I had too much time to get everything ready. Reality says otherwise. Look at how much time I have been spending with my models 🙂

I am also working on my visa request. Since I won’t have the same employer, I had to ask for a new visa type and that means 17 other forms and schedules. GG’s going to have to be my sponsor since that was the shortest form and the least dependent on an employer. I think that’s going to be a source of joke material for a long time. 🙂