I’ve posted previously about the # of days, such as 1500 or 1400 or 1300. I forced those milestones, tried to organize my thoughts around 100 day increments. It didn’t really work as a ritual.
However, if I glance at my countdown clock on the page to the right, I see it saying 1094 days and some hours as change, which doesn’t mean much. Well, until you realize that it is three years from today. That will be my last day of work. I’ve mentioned already that I chose my father’s birthday as my target date, the day he would have turned 100. There’s a symbolic element in there that helps crystallize my thoughts.
In the meantime, it now divides my remaining time. Over the next year, there are a series of things I need to prepare, organize, figure out, etc. in order to be in the right spot financially, intellectually, emotionally, spiritually and physically when my last day comes. I want to give myself the maximum chance of transitioning “well” to retirement. However I choose to define that, in the next three years. One obvious thing is my physical health, particularly for my lower back and the ability to be able to do certain movements when I do certain activities like kayaking.
I’m spending a lot of time right now on rituals, as a couple of the goals in the next year are going to challenge me. In the same way that I need to make some new investments over the next three years, I also want to combine some of my traditional approaches to goal-setting and achievement with extra enhancements through ritual and ceremony. Some don’t need it; they’re easy; others would benefit from a full-court press.
Tonight, I treated myself out to simple nachos at a restaurant by myself. I’ll do something similar 35 more times until I get to the last day, taking stock as I go. Wish me luck.
I mentioned in a previous post that as I gear up for my retirement planning, I want to revisit the idea of rituals and ceremonies (R&C). I don’t think I have given enough thought over the years to using R&C to increase my motivation or commitment, or even to improve my delivery and attainment.
There is a ton of research about various “rituals” in terms of cultural, religious and community groups, and they focus heavily on the particular type of goal that goes with it…teaching responsibility, indoctrinating or inducting someone into a group, promoting kindness or compassion, increasing a sense of self, or more often, increasing the sense of belonging to a group in the form of shared rituals. Those are powerful, but they’re not really what I’m talking about…I’m not dressing in robes, for example, or starting a cult.
Instead, I’m talking more about adding a prescribed frequency or form to an otherwise regular activity or goal. An “enhancement”, if you will, to give it added meaning and thus increase the likelihood of doing it. Some of my reticence in delving too deep into them in the past has been that various articles that combine rituals with goal-setting for personal development often inadvertently confuse different aspects of goal-setting for where the “ritual” should come into play. When they do, the advice isn’t that useful.
Understanding the basics of goal-setting vis-a-vis rituals
For example, there are lots of articles and advice out there for goal-setting and rituals that revolve around three main factors:
A ritualized process of making a formal plan
A scheduled event formally set and conducted, with a relatively fixed frequency
A ceremony to note when you have accomplished it
They take the “plan – do – review” mentality of any sound planning system and add a ritual aspect to each and every element. In my view, the ritual portion only really helps achieve something if it is attached to the “DO” portion of the system (#2), not the first or last phases.
Don’t get me wrong. Planning (#1) is a prerequisite, a primal foundation. And if adding a ritual helps you improve or regularize your planning, I’m all for it. It can be quite enjoyable designing new trackers, setting a schedule for when you’re going to “check-in,” setting up checkboxes, buying dot journals, making layouts, etc. The hidden nuance though is that this sort of ritual reinforces the “planning”, not the “doing”. Anyone can make a great plan and update it daily. That doesn’t necessarily mean they will do the items on the list. To me, it is like the idea of someone deciding that they speed too much, so they set a goal of driving more safely. If you’re going to drive safely, you have to have something to drive…so having the car is a prerequisite, but simply having a car or decorating the interior or adding lights to the underside doesn’t mean you’re going to drive safely. Those “enhancements” have nothing to do with your goal. It just enables you to do the activity at all. Like a to-do list…it enables you to plan what to do, but it doesn’t mean that you’ll actually do it.
For those who want to argue semantics, another way of thinking about it is to make your first item on your to-do list as “updating the list”. If you attach a ritual to it, it is ONLY good for that item. It will help you update the list; it won’t necessarily help you make progress on other items.
Continuing that vein, I believe #3 (review) has the same problem. Tracking is great. In fact, there is an entire mantra of “what gets measured is what gets done”. Except without the “DOING” in the middle, tracking means nothing. Many people set and track goals, like weight loss, with no change. The acts of planning and tracking are, in themselves, necessary but insufficient.
Admittedly, there are half-measures for each that CAN contribute to progress, buried in there, sure, but not enough. Like many hobbies, it’s almost like planning, doing, and tracking are three separate activities. And I’m only interested in the “doing” portion right now, I already know how to plan and track.
I’ve done a deep dive into the various options for rituals, and I’m grouped them into five different “tiers”. Today’s post is just about Tier 1, simple rituals.
Tier 1: Simple rituals
Let’s take the simplest ritual: the checkbox ritual. Within the “plan – do – review” process, you put something on the list and check it off when done. Putting it on the list — in the “plan” phase — is a partial ritual. Deciding it is important enough to put it on the list and reminding yourself that you’re committed to it is a (soft) ritual. You don’t put “breathing” on the list, you just breathe. So, if you put walking around the block on your list, that “ritual” of committing to it enough to put it on your list is a half-measure. When you’ve done it, you get another half-measure by checking it off. It’s a start, but not much of a boost from the ritual. It keeps it top-of-mind, which is why you make the list.
For those with a very strong “list” mentality, putting it on the list may, in fact, be sufficient. There is a danger that people start to make “simpler” lists over time so that they can keep checking things off. Like:
Wake up
Get dressed
Go downstairs
Make breakfast
Eat breakfast
Go to the bathroom
Etc.
It’s similar to putting “make / update the list” on the list just so you can check it off and feel momentum. Most people limit themselves to putting things on their lists that are meaningful. “Buy milk” is great for your list of chores for the day, but rarely is it significant enough to consider adding a “ritual” to it so that you do it.
There are exceptions to my mocked list above. For example, if you are newly retired (3y and counting down) or on summer vacation, it can be easy to stay in your PJs. But if you feel you lolly-gag too much, and you want to be more productive, you might easily add “Get dressed” to your list. Or if you always eat pre-processed breakfast or buy your breakfast pre-made at a store or skip breakfast completely (cough), then “make breakfast” could easily make your to-do list as something significant enough that you MIGHT not only put it on the list, you might need help doing that task. Or perhaps if your doctor tells you to drink more milk, adding it to your list might be significant. But, for now, let’s just leave it as “put it on the list, check it off”.
The next three rituals are relatively tied for usefulness, commonality of use, and general methodology — scheduling, duration, or quantity rituals. For writers, they often use a scheduling ritual they nickname “butt in seat” where they say, “Okay, every morning at 9:00 a.m., I am going to sit and write.” They disconnect from the internet, turn off their phones, ignore the doorbell, find a quiet place to write (usually the same place every day) and they put their butt in the seat. And they write. Or people will say, “Every morning at 6:00 a.m., I’m going to go for a run”. Again, rigorous scheduling of the activity. It doesn’t have to be daily, some people will sign up for fitness classes two days a week, like spinning every Tuesday and Thursday at 4:00 p.m. after work. Scheduling is the most common of all rituals. It adds a bit of “planning” to the mix, as it ties into their daily list of activities, blocking off the time to do that activity.
Alternatively, people will go for a duration ritual, although often combined with scheduling. “I’m going to write for a minimum of 2 hours!”. “I’m going to work out for 1 hour!” “I’m going to ride my stationary bike for 35 minutes three times this week!”. Again, fairly obvious, fairly common. As with scheduling, there’s a half-measure from planning that helps, too, as they are tying it into their daily schedule, but not necessarily at a specific time. This is great when something might need to move around (early morning, afternoon, evening) if you have a varied schedule already.
The last one, a quantity ritual, is very similar to the first two. It is basically taking the duration ritual and substituting a quantity element to harness a bit of tracking to the process. “I’m going to do 5 push-ups, 10 sit-ups, 10 burpees, and 2 sets of dead weightlifts.” Or “I’m going to write at least 1000 words”.
The third level of simple rituals is the chain ritual. One of the most “famous” is the so-called Seinfeld chain (although Seinfeld disputes attribution). The idea was that Seinfeld was writing jokes, and he made a “ritual” for himself that every morning, he would sit down and write jokes (for so many minutes or so many jokes). And the goal was to keep the daily chain going as long as he could. If he missed a day? No biggie, he would reset the count, and start again. But the ritual of extending the chain was an extra reinforcement for the goal.
Anyone who has used DuoLingo knows the same schtick. Every day, it asks you to extend your daily training streak. Many games now add various types of chain-ritual-type gamifications to the game, challenging you to extend your “streak” to encourage you to play more often. Puzzle games, in particular, want to see you “learning” (as they claim), which means you’re playing regularly and likely buying power-ups as needed. Many apps regularly add rewards now as you extend your streak, giving you special avatars, badges, or even access to extra areas of the app like a VIP section.
Some so-called goal-setting experts argue that these types of rituals are really not rituals at all. They’re simply quantifying the goals. So they want to argue that a goal of “writing” and a goal of “writing every day at 9:00 a.m.” are really just a nuance of specificity. I disagree most strongly. The goal of writing is the same, but adding a time or quantity or duration changes the goal, or more accurately, changes the “how” of the goal. The ritual changes the delivery. Which is the whole point of adding a ritual.
If you could have done the goal of “writing more” or “writing regularly”, you would have already done it. Quantifying it would make no difference; you would have simply tracked that aspect. Changing the specificity here also changes WHAT and HOW you are going to do it, not just the outcome.
Does this help me?
To be honest, this initial list doesn’t help me much. I already use checkboxes, duration and quantity constantly. I might not use scheduling enough, and although I would LIKE to use chain rituals, my challenge has often been that the easy goals don’t need their help, and the hard ones are difficult to schedule appropriately.
For the scheduling, I’m reminded of the story of the Harvard professor asked to teach his students about time management. He came into the class, bringing along an empty vase and some rocks, gravel, dirt and water. He tells the class that the vase is a metaphor for their schedule. First he puts rocks in, all the way to the top, and asks them if it is full. They all say yes, so then he starts putting gravel in, letting it filter down and settle. Again he asks if it is full, and most say yes, a few are hesitant. He proceeds to add dirt or sand, and it settles all the way down. This time when he asks if it is full, they all say no. So then he adds water, and declares it full. When he asks what this teaches them about time management, one brave soul states that no matter how full your schedule is, there’s always room for more. The professor shook his head and handed his life lesson. “The rocks have to go in first or they won’t go in at all. So, what are your rocks for your schedule? What’s most important?”
The metaphor is strong, and for a long time, I’ve used it for tracking my goals. What are my rocks? The downside though is that my biggest rocks — work and generating income, spending time with Andrea and Jacob — eat up a lot of my day, leaving me little to no time or energy for other rocks, no matter how “big” I think they are or should be. Which is not really true, of course. I just don’t give them sufficient priority to schedule them. I don’t put the other rocks in first.
Meanwhile, I use the simple rituals where it helps, or skip it where it won’t.
However, knowing how it works can also remove the incentive/motivation factor. I can’t often manipulate myself by simply adding a quantity ritual, for example, as I know that 1000 words of bad writing doesn’t really meet any goal. Similarly, for duration. Scheduling rituals can help, if I have control over my schedule and there are no outside forces nudging my schedule out of whack (as I mention above).
But, for now, I have my initial list of five options for tier 1:
Happy Sunday. I’m doing 100-day incremental countdowns to my expected retirement date. When I started the last count at 1400, I was full of goals, thinking I would accomplish a bunch of things, mostly around writing, etc. And the increments are intended as a bit of a test drive for my future retirement.
Now, I know that when I retire, one of the first things I’m going to do is take 100 days off. A 3-month vacation where I do basically SFA. It’ll be August, Jacob may be starting school still and Andrea will be working. But as that fall kicks off, I’m going to chillax like a MF. I’m going to read, I’m going to walk, I am going to NAP like crazy.
I intend to do almost no work during that period, even though I have lots of writing projects lined up. I’m struggling if some of those writing projects will start sooner than that, juggling some stuff, but as far as I know, they’ll be lined up waiting for me to pull the trigger over the late fall and early winter.
So I wondered if I should use this first big 100-day increment to work/plan/adjust or just to chill? And the decision was almost made for me. There has been a LOT going on even without my goals.
Work is not going as smoothly as I had hoped, and I honestly don’t know what my long-term plan is for that. I’m engaged in some e-scanning with mentors, and enjoying the conversations with nothing major hanging in the balance. Planning without consequences, in many ways.
My home life has been a relative stress ball though. Jacob has had a bunch of health stuff going on over the last 4 months almost to the day since I last wrote about my 100-day plans. And with no real resolution in sight. It’s better than it was, but still not sustainable in its current form. So we continue to push.
Both Andrea and I have little room for an additional mental load. So last week, when I happened to notice at first a line on our ceiling, I didn’t really enjoy discovering that the line was actually more than a line. It was about a half-inch wide and about six to eight feet long. Obviously along a beam, directly below where we had work done on the bathroom last year. Dun dun dun.
I checked around, and sure enough, there were other areas with rippling and shifted surface tension on the drywall. It looked like obvious water damage and was even a bit spongy (albeit dry) to the touch. Well, frak. Andrea was home the next two days while I was at the office doing mentoring stuff, so she had the plumber come in. His reaction? Yep, obviously water damage from above.
Except when he started opening holes in our kitchen ceiling, there was, in fact, no water. It was exactly along a beam, where two drywall areas had overlapped. Something shifted, the tape slipped, and the line formed. I don’t know what happened to the other areas. But no water. He had to make six or seven holes to find out though, yet didn’t have to break tiles upstairs in the bathroom. Yay. So all we need is the drywall in our kitchen ceiling fixed. Do you know how much MESS that makes? A lot. Just the holes in the ceiling left a fine coating of dust everywhere. And even some in our toaster, which we haven’t figured out how to clean out yet. We’re hoping compressed air does the job.
When I focused on the “day” last time, I used today as a microcosm of the types of things I’ll do in retirement. Laundry, of course. Reading, of course. Some internet stuff, the black hole for time. And some HR work (I was coaching someone this afternoon). Followed by groceries. Just “being” without trying to push myself like I don’t have time for things.
I don’t know if it is the perfect way to celebrate the 1300-day mark or not, but it worked. I still have some stuff to do tonight that is a holdover from my week, and I’ll have to do it tonight unfortunately. I’d love to dump it to tomorrow, but I’m not retired yet. See you in 100 days (Tuesday, May 14). In the meantime, 185 weeks and 5 days to go.
I don’t often talk about other people’s goals on my blog, only my own. Maybe others’ goals if they are on a similar journey, like a reading challenge or working out. But even then, it’s almost always about my own experience; I try not to tell other people’s stories, leaving them to do so if they wish. Maybe to the extent they inspire me, often I have my own take, but it’s rare I see a goal and want to do the exact same thing.
But I caught an article on CBC two weeks ago about a man who is rating club sandwiches in Ottawa to try and find the best one. Of course, it’s on the news, so there has to be a hook, which is that he has stage four cancer (colon, liver, lungs). The prognosis is dark, no doubt, but as he describes it, he’s “living with cancer”, and part of his mental therapy is to distract himself by finding the best club sandwich.
The goal resonated with me. Not because I do reviews, although perhaps that is part of it. Not because I like curating things, although that is part of it, too. I eat out a fair amount, well above average, and I, too, have thought of reviewing “something”. Curating a specific meal, perhaps, or a specific dish. Maybe in Nepean. Maybe in Ottawa. Maybe in the world. Hah!
Pizza has long been an obvious choice for many people. Yet, IMHO, pizza is almost impossible to be definitive about, well, almost anything. Suppose I choose a chicken pizza from Colonnade Pizza, a worthy choice no doubt. But too many variables are subjective…thick, stuffed or thin crust? Are they all the same ingredients or different? Is it a chef’s unique favourite or something common to all pizza shops? I like anchovies, but I likely wouldn’t order it often nor with other people who likely wouldn’t. I am amused by the advertising where people tout that they were chosen the best pizza in a competition but then don’t explain WHICH pizza variety / combination they had as their entry. Was it a Mediterranean with a thick crust or a simple pepperoni with thin? Obviously, not EVERY pizza combo they sell “won”.
Wings would be a popular choice, but like pizza, there are a lot of variables. You might not think so initially but there are, and no, I don’t mean the seasonings. You can do boneless or bone-in, for example. Very different flavours with the bone removed, often more like a cutlet or chicken strip than a wing. Others make them almost like popcorn chicken. Or they offer split or still-connected or drumstick-style, large or small, frozen or not. I prefer non-frozen, oven-baked, bone-in, but that’s just me. The REAL test most people think of for wings is the sauce. Which is a worthy viable consideration, but to me, I don’t really care that much. If I was rating sauces, sure. But if I’m rating wings, comparing a salt-and-vinegar dry rub split frozen wing to a suicide wet sauce fresh boneless wing makes almost no sense. Most people rating wings ignore that, they’re really just rating the coatings. Which as I said, is viable but doesn’t excite me. Perhaps if I was rating them all at one place, say all four wings in a pub for the best ones in that pub or the best combos at a wing place with 50 different toppings. It should be relatively comparing apples to apples, oranges to oranges, and across those two restaurants makes no sense but I could see it within one restaurant. If I were to do wings, I think I’d have to make it the same wing everywhere, likely mild or no sauce at all. I would want to rate the wing, not the sauce. As you can see, I’ve thought about this before. A little too much, but I digress.
I have also thought about doing wonton soups, maybe limited to Nepean. Or places designed for take-out, not dine-in. We used to frequent a Vietnamese place with awesome wonton soup, but alas, it was a victim of COVID’s decreased business. We were trying to order somewhat frequently, yet some nights, ours was the only order they had had by about 7:00 p.m. Not good. And so I no longer have a “go to” option for wonton soup. I’ve been tempted to find every place in Nepean that offers the soup for takeout and give it a taste test. I could deal with chicken or shrimp wontons, or pork, for that matter. I am not sure about those that leave out the bok choy as a “necessary” element, though. I suspect that shrimp wontons, with bok choy and green onions, along with a decent broth, would win hands down over just about any other combo for me. I don’t even know if I could rate one without bok choy above a 6 or 7 out of 10. Ah-hah! A standard!
So, since I have thought of something “similar”, I love both the premise of Jay’s goal and his approach. It is concrete, limited variables, and a relatively standardized menu option. I wish I’d come up with it.
Building off his two lists of clubs so far
Jay has a FaceBook group called “Clubbing with Cancer”, which is an awesome name too. A touch of whimsy in a bit of darkness. I only recently joined the group, and there are currently over 2000 members, with a lot joining as I did after the CBC article and podcast. Under his featured posts, he has his current running total / rankings of club sandwiches with 15 listed; there are six turkey clubs and nine chicken clubs on his “best of” so far. I managed to knock off two of them in the last two weeks (I’ll blog about them separately), and so far, both were solid options.
I don’t know if I’ll make it to Arnprior or all the south Ottawa ones. But maybe. I also don’t know if I’ll start a rumble ordering a club at a restaurant that specializes in smoked meat (#2 on the chicken list). Again, maybe. 🙂
Reference #
Meat
Restaurant
Location
My rating
1
Turkey
Kal’s Place Family Restaurant & Pizzeria
Kanata (Hazeldean)
8/10
2
Turkey
Royal’s Restaurant
Richmond
TBD
3
Turkey
The Village Cafe
Kanata (Hazeldean)
TBD
4
Turkey
Tony’s Chip Wagon
Richmond
TBD
5
Turkey
Antrim Truck Stop
Arnprior
TBD
6
Turkey
The Sandwich Factory
Kanata (N.Terry Fox @ 417)
TBD
1
Chicken
Country Fresh Food and Take Out
Beckwith
TBD
2
Chicken
Markie’s Montreal Smoked Meat
Kanata (North)
TBD
3
Chicken
Fil’s Diner
Westboro
7/10
4
Chicken
Tommy’s Dining Lounge
Kanata (by McQuade)
TBD
5
Chicken
Scotty’s Corner Diner
Bell’s Corner
TBD
6
Chicken
Busters Bar & Grill
Kanata (Hazeldean)
TBD
7
Chicken
STACKED – Smoked Meat & Grill
Bank St. South
TBD
9
Chicken
Zak’s Diner
Kanata (Hazeldean)
TBD
9
Chicken
Marlborough Pub & Eatery
North Gower
TBD
As I said, I really like the goal, and I’m happy to benefit from someone else’s curation. And, gasp, there might even be some controversy in the rankings. Some of the members were discussing if the turkey should be WARM in a turkey club (most say no), but there was general agreement that there should be warm chicken in the chicken clubs. We also can’t all agree on whether the sides affect the rating of the club itself or not. I think it’s an “also ran” item to talk about i.e., that the sandwich should live or die on its own.
Two down, thirteen to go from the best list. Despite the dark underpinnings of the group, the sandwich metrics are fun. Heck, Jay even had members uploading images of their club sandwiches, with ratings too, from Whitehorse and Cambodia. They seem a little far to me. 🙂 Fortunately, I don’t have to wrangle this group. I just have to watch and munch.
Ah, the lyrics from Cheers. A great theme song for the bar show, and one of my favourites. I’ve been thinking about the lyric, “Taking a break from all your worries, sure would help a lot”. I don’t need somewhere to go, and I don’t want to “get away”, I just need to take a break this month.
I was excited for NaNoWriMo, and I’ll still do it, it just won’t be THIS month apparently. Just as the month started, Jacob and I both got sick, although in different ways. J is fighting almost constant vertigo, so focusing isn’t really working for him, and he’s missed two weeks of school straight. Not a great situation, and we’re on waiting lists for appointments to see a new pediatrician, etc. We’ve already seen neurology with no luck. Poor little cub.
For me, the issue is simple cold or flu. I use a sleep apnea machine (BIPAP) and one of the general benefits of it is that with the hydrated air that comes from it, I skip most colds or they’re limited to short bursts. But then when I do get sick? It is enough to bypass the benefits of the machine and I tend to be down for 2-4 weeks. Not constantly ill during that time, but pre-pandemic, I had it every other year or so. J would go back to school in September and by week 2, I was sick. It would generally last part of a week, mostly headcold and coughing, and then I would seem to get better. A week of residual symptoms and then I’d get the second wave of it that would take me down. Coughing, wheezing, choking, sneezing, blah blah blah stuff. It would last a few days, with or without a fever, and then, it would dissipate.
Except I’d have a residual cough for another 6-8 weeks. I would go to the doctor about the persistent cough and they’d say after week 3 or so, “Yep, could last 6-8w”, tell me to take antihistamines (most decongestants are not recommended with my other drugs), and I’d annoy everyone around me for another month.
Through the pandemic, I skipped that experience. We weren’t going anywhere, so I avoided most colds or flus. I had one bout, as I recall, but nothing lingering. Then I got COVID in August which wiped me out for almost 2 weeks.
Going into September, I managed to get through most of it, although a couple of bad days of dizziness here and there, some headaches, etc. All good in total.
October was easy at first, and then another day or two here and there, and then bam, the cold hit two weeks ago. Just as we were about to start NaNoWriMo along with some other To Do list items I was hoping to knock off. I’ve been fighting it on and off for the last 2.5 weeks, and I’m still dealing with some congestion and residual cough. Plus a couple of times a day, I’ll get a hot flash or stand up too fast resulting in dizziness.
I’m working from home, so I can mute myself if I start coughing too much, but next week I’ll be in the office most of the week.
At home? I’ve kept up with some photo gallery work, although most of it is pre-programmed ahead almost a month. The rest of my priorities? Well, that’s a different story.
Normally, I would try to push through. Keep plugging away like my life depended on it. I wouldn’t want to feel like I wasn’t doing my “job” of pushing on some levers. Maybe because I’m thinking ahead to retirement, where I know I won’t have a schedule demanding my immediate attention to projects, I’ve been putting them off. I did what needed to be done now…put the cover on the gazebo, got most of the backyard ready for winter. Swapped tires on the car for winter ones. And I’ll clean up the garage this weekend so I can get the car back in.
But I took my foot off the gas on the rest of it. Just to “be”. Without beating myself up about it. I’m getting to the “maybe I’m slowing down a little longer than I should” stage, so I’ll get back to some of it next week. And J and I have already talked about doing NaNoWriMo perhaps a few weeks later this year. We already have the shirts. 🙂
Soon, we hope, we’ll both be back to full strength.
