2016 – Progress on my goals after two months
| 2016 – The Only Way Out Is Through | |||||||||||||
| Goals | J | F | M | A | M | J | J | A | S | O | N | D | Current Status |
| Live Blue or Die! | |||||||||||||
| Astronomy Moon Filters Photos | x | x | x | x | x | x | x | x | x | x | x | x | Nothing yet this year, although I’m a bit of a warm weather astronomer anyway. I did, however, order a new case to hold my eyepieces and filters. |
| Courses Video games Psychology | x | x | x | x | x | x | x | x | x | x | x | x | I did a little bit on the video game course in February, but not enough to move it to yellow. Will finish that before the Psych course. |
| Reading Kindle Unlimited Reading challenge | √ | √ | x | x | x | x | x | x | x | x | x | x | I tried the Kindle Unlimited option, but there wasn’t enough to hold my attention. In addition, most of the books on my reading challenge for this year are not available through Kindle Unlimited, so kind of a waste for the year and Andrea already has lots on her TBR pile. For the reading challenge, I’ve re-read the Harry Potter series, started in again on Crime and Punishment, and began reading Lawrence Block’s “Writing the Novel: From plot to print to pixel”. Quickly realizing that I won’t likely finish the reading challenge this year since many of the titles I chose are actually multiple books in a series, and I’ll likely read other stuff too. |
| Writing Blogs HR Guide Non-fiction guide | x | x | x | x | x | x | x | x | x | x | x | x | I’ve been blogging a lot this year, albeit not huge pieces. Plus I added humour and quotes. Somewhere around the end of April, I should finally surpass my 500K goal. I’ve also noticed people are staying on the site longer when they visit, and I’m getting a few more comments than normal. |
| Photography Course Setup cards | x | x | x | x | x | x | x | x | x | x | x | x | Nothing really so far, a few pics here and there. Great opportunity this past week along the parkway driving home, but I only had my camera phone with me. |
| Reviews TV episodes Book reviews Season reviews Movie reviews | x | x | x | x | x | x | x | x | x | x | x</t d> | x | The TV episode reviews are still going gangbusters, although I have scaled back a bit to focus on 15 shows that I watch regularly. The rest shifted over to catching up at the end of the season. Not quite ready for season reviews, but I have created the template for the layout, and the movie reviews one will be only slightly different. However, my big accomplishment is my book reviews — I finally have all 36 of my original ones up on the site, along with updated indices. |
| Organize New apps Redo bucket list Family passport | x | x | x | x | x | x | x | x | x | x | x | x | I’ve switched over to using TickTick for my to do list and that seems to be going well. Andrea and I are even using it for our grocery shopping list. Sunrise is my new app of choice for calendars, and except when I have to re-login from time to time, it’s working perfectly. |
| Cyber Sort photos Scan photos Sort music Backup options | x | x | x | x | x | x | x | x | x | x | x | x | Photo sorting is continuing, at least insofar as I’ve done the basic setup for 2015’s photobook. I haven’t done any more scanning or sorted music yet. Backup is in process at present, and once I’m done that next version, I’ll move on to NAS and CLOUD options. |
| Honey do list Establish list One item per week | x | x | x | x | x | x | x | x | x | x | x | x | Well, I established the list, and we’ve even accomplished a few things off it (like taking stuff back to Ikea from our kitchen reno). But I’m not in full mode yet. |
| Stick To The Knitting | |||||||||||||
| Andrea Date nights out Game nights Family trip | x | x | x | x | x | x | x | x | x | x | x | x | We did do a date night at the NAC, but we’re not fully set up yet for the future. Working on it. |
| Jacob Boys nights Video games Summer excursions Sports “practice” | x | x | x | x | x | x | x | x | x | x | x | x | A couple of boys nights in there, taking Wednesday off this week for March Break to spend it with him. I think we have a good line on the summer, working out some other details though. And I’m optimistic on the rest. |
| Website support Briargreen PS Astropontiac | x | x | x | x | x | x | x | x | x | x | x | x | I’ve done the basic setup for Briargreen, now working on a Parenting resource. AstroPontiac was upgraded recently for WP version but need more text. |
| Focus Your Energy, Be Prolific | |||||||||||||
| Writing Fiction Posting Creativity challenge | x | x | x | x | x | x | x | x | x | x | x | x | I’m being a bit generous in rating this yellow as I haven’t got the metrics to support it…more like “activity” without “results” yet, but working on it. |
| Cooking Wings and sauces Mom’s recipes Dad’s baking Friend’s recipes | x | x | x | x | x | x | x | x | x | x | x | x | I haven’t done anything on this yet. |
| Photobooks Year in review Targeted themes Astronomy | x | x | x | x | x | x | x | x | x | x | x | x | I completed a photo book for 2014, plus a short one for 2015 for Ron and Marney. I have all the photos sorted for 2015, thanks to Andrea’s 2nd tier vetting, and I’ve completed about half of the layout for the book. |
| Be Bright, Be Bold, Be Direct | |||||||||||||
| Stretching Muscle groups Yoga Chiro and massage | x | x | x | x | x | x | x | x | x | x | x | x | Doing a bit better job on my chiro and massage, and working out which exercises to be doing, albeit not actually DOING them yet. Sigh. |
| Exercise Walking at lunch Martial arts kata Weekend excursions | x | x | x | x | x | x | x | x | x | x | x | x | Got my app going on my phone, but my big accomplishments in here are more general health — health checkup, sleep / Apnea machine, booked dental appointment, a bit of walking at lunch, and bowling yesterday. |
| Career Re-certify french Publish guides | x | x | x | x | x | x | x | x | x | x | x | x | Not much done so far, just some planning. |
Summary for January
- Blue: 4/9 are green, 2/9 are yellow, 3/9 are red — overall: Yellow;
- Green: 1/3 are green, 1/3 are yellow, 1/3 are red — overall: Yellow;
- Yellow: 1/3 are green, 1/3 are yellow, 1/3 are red — overall: Yellow;
- Red: 0/3 are green, 0/3 are yellow, 3/3 are red — overall: Red;
- Overall: 6/18 are green, 4/18 are yellow, 8/18 are red — overall: Weak Yellow
Summary for February
- Blue: 4/9 are green, 2/9 are yellow, 3/9 are red — overall: Yellow;
- Green: 1/3 are green, 2/3 are yellow, 0/3 are red — overall: Green;
- Yellow: 1/3 are green, 1/3 are yellow, 1/3 are red — overall: Yellow;
- Red: 0/3 are green, 2/3 are yellow, 1/3 are red — overall: Yellow;
- Overall: 6/18 are green, 7/18 are yellow, 5/18 are red — overall: Yellow
From January to February, same number of greens, but three reds went to yellow. Making progress! Onward in the quest…cuz the only way out is through.
I’m super frustrated with work flowy for my to do lists. Is TickTick an app or a web site? Does it work with Blackberry?
TickTick is a bit more streamlined than most, which was a good thing in my view (lots of ToDo lists want to give you 20 fields to input for everything). The benefit for me, and what I was looking for, is that it has:
a. Website option (and I can log in from work);
b. Android option (full app);
c. iOS option (so my wife can access same account).
Sharing is a little more complicated i.e. if I want to share a link with you — most are like Google Drive whereby you set it to OPEN IF YOU HAVE THE LINK as an option, and this appears to, but after I invited Andrea to see it, and she accepted, I had to then ACCEPT her again in the app. Double authentication is the technical term, but not configurable as far as I can see. Some quirky stuff in it too — if you want to create an upper level folder with sub-elements, you have to create one, move it under a second, which makes the two now a sub-folder of a larger unnamed folder. Overall though it updates quickly, allows sorts on multiple fields, has “global” folder views if you want to see a bunch of stuff in there. All of it works, sometimes just have to tweak it a bit to your liking.
Downside — I can’t remember how many lists you could do for free, I ended up buying “pro” version although it wasn’t that “pro”, nor expensive.
It would work with BB as a website, don’t know if BB has an app or the Android version would install.
Paul