As part of my plans for the year, I have been reading the latest tips and tricks articles on goals, time management, etc., and one thing that frequently happens is evident in my list for the year. I have too many commitments, in short. Almost 100 big and small ticket items for the year. Some are huge, like building an observatory; others are small, like doing a backup. But it’s a huge list for a year.

If they were all the same size, I would have to do one every three days to get through it all. And if I did them all? It would probably take me close to 2 years of solid work, assuming I wasn’t actually working for a living at the same time. They’re big and ambitious plans, deliberately so. “Unrealized potential” and all that.

One thing that has been niggling at me is that I also try to update things weekly, which is often too short a timeframe. I can parse out, say, 15 steps to building an observatory, and one of them might be the design phase which itself could take 2-3 weeks, with several sub-activities for it too. And thus, on a weekly basis, the pieces are too big and numerous, and the timeframe is likely too short. One of the tips articles talked about the difference between work goals and personal goals, particularly when you are balancing work/life on a daily basis. It noted that while work activities might break down into week-long or even daily progress tracking, personal goals might be better grouped around the month. And without over-committing. It got me thinking about the difference between larger projects (like an observatory), ongoing repetitive tasks (like exercise), or one-off tasks (like cleaning up the basement). Is there something in there that will help me plan more effectively on a monthly basis?

So what would happen if I picked a small subset of the 100 yearly goals to focus on in January? And then perhaps grouped them as I said above? Well, you’d end up with this list.

Hmm, a subset of 29 is probably too high a commitment. But I am off for another week. Some of them are also for delegation, like hanging stuff around the house — we’re using TaskRabbit to do that, not doing it ourselves. Plus 14 of them are virtual computer thingies.

I think it’s doable. And, not for nothing? Two of them are already done. 🙂 Happy January!

I mentioned in a previous post that I’m often looking for metaphors to help me describe an experience. When I read the book Change by Jeffrey Kottler, one of the things that resonated with me was the idea that much of what you get from a negative or positive experience depends heavily on what you tell yourself. Sometimes even while it is still happening to you. The story you tell yourself shapes your reality, it defines your narrative.

I was recently reading an interesting article from Entrepreneur entitled “How Are You Measuring Your Success in 2022?” by Kate Isler and while it is hardly revolutionary, it got me thinking. In the article, she talks about framing your narrative around celebrating the wins, knowing when to pivot and where to focus, and identifying the real measures of success. As I said, hardly revolutionary headings. But the prose resonated with me as she frames it around building a sustainable business model, a resilient organization that will deliver on its core mandate, not a simple profile / loss measure nor even success / failure model.

I regularly fail to celebrate wins. For me, life is often about “what’s next?”, similar to the way the phrase is used in the show the West Wing. One of the classics is an episode worrying about the Bartlett administration’s approval rating. The whole episode is about how big the “bump” might be, fearful it could have gone down but hoping for one to three points up. The final numbers are revealed in the last 2 minutes of the show, and Bartlett is up nine points. They all smile at each other, Barlett nods to CJ, and then says, “Okay, what’s next”. There is no victory lap, there is no self-congratulatory pat on the back, there is just a small nod and then you move on to whatever is next on the horizon.

When I finished my MA degree at Carleton, my brain and life treated it as “what’s next”. So I forced myself to go to graduation. To take the photos. To take the victory lap, so to speak. To acknowledge the accomplishment after the work was done.

As I was reading the article, and reflecting on my last year, I realized in part that much of my “review” approach each December is a bit too focused on the overall picture, and not enough on the successes. I’m not celebrating the wins enough. I need to “flip the script”, “change the narrative”, etc. Whatever cliché floats your boat.

Everything I said in the previous two posts was true. It just isn’t the whole truth nor the only perspective.

Focusing on the wins

A. My stint as Acting Director

I went after, obtained, and completed a stint as an Acting Director in my old planning division. I handled all aspects of the job, proved to myself that I could do the full job that I had always believed I could do and, more importantly, delivered on a major project during the eight-month stint. Was it an unqualified success? No, but it WAS a success. And I did it while there were a lot of competing pressures.

B. A 3D printer

I worked through all the parameters that I could for a 3D printer and chose one. When life intervened and I couldn’t get to setting it up, I set my ego aside and paid a local expert to do it for me. I’m set for the new year.

C. Reading, book reviews and TBR lists

I found a bunch of new online fora discussing books which have introduced me to some new ideas and books for 2023. I also republished all my book reviews on the PolyBlog site, while also copying them all into a OneNote setup that I can access on the go. I’ve even got a good handle on my enlarged TBR list in the same tool.

D. Purging and sorting the basement

While the pace could be faster, in the next week I will complete my sorting and purging of a ton of disorganized crap in my basement. I’ll have the electronics area re-established, plus I have a crafting area for 3D printing and other projects that I’ve been wanting to do. It has been an albatross around my neck for the last 3 years, and even though I dread the project, I have made extensive progress this year, with Andrea’s help and painful drudgery.

E. A new financial advisor

Andrea and I have been looking to move to a new financial advisor, probably going on for ten years now. We have the basics covered, but we are not doing what we can to maximize our returns. We finally got our sh** together this year, moved all our RRSP investments over, and feel like we are in a much better place than we were a year ago. Almost like adults.

F. I redesigned my websites…again

At first blush, I could dismiss that as just noise. Except that the trigger for the change was a “dropping” of a lot of other things I was hoping to do, which allowed the two websites to crystallize into a better division of content. For lack of a better word, I simplified my approach for the long term. It created some short-term challenges, sure, and some extra work I would have rather not done. I even had to “undo” some successes from previous years. But the new model is way more stable.

G. I took on a challenging new job

Way back in 2017, when I went looking for a new job, I had very little luck finding the type of job I was looking for, and it was demoralizing. This year, it’s five years later, and I had divergent paths in front of me. I could have taken the easy path and just gone back to my old area; instead, I put on my big boy pants and put myself out there to see what was available. Unlike in 2017, I got lots of nibbles really fast. Within four days of making the decision to at least see what was out there, I had six soft offers. I could have firmed them up, and I would have had what I think were two challenging offers, two moderate offers, and two easy offers. Of the challenging offers, I pursued, was offered, and accepted the most challenging one of the bunch. For someone who thinks he is 3-5 years from retirement, that wasn’t the most obvious of moves. And it surprised me that I really wanted it. And while I haven’t felt at the top of my game, my bosses are happy with my performance.

H. Helping Jacob with his health journey

I have felt that we have been failing Jacob over the last two years. He is back to school with his own little posse of friends; he is also actively gaming with a different subgroup of friends. So he is doing pretty well overall socially, a previous and ongoing concern. But where I have felt like we are failing him is on his legs. He can’t wear his ankle-foot orthotics right now because the post (aka heel) would be too high for him to remain stable. They could make one, but he’d likely be falling often. So, that’s not a great solution. The best solution is surgery, and we’ve been on a waiting list. We met with the surgeon in early December, and Jacob is now confirmed to be a “go” for surgery, likely sometime in the next six to nine months. The type of surgery and timing are still to be worked out, but we have a more definitive plan.

In the meantime, we tried to treat the symptoms through massage and increased the frequency earlier this year. It helps him, even if it isn’t “enough”. Exercises help too, and it’s all we can do until the surgery.

But there is a mental health component to his journey too, and earlier this year, I reached out to EAP and got a referral for him to the woman that I talk to sporadically for my own mental health. I didn’t know how it would go, she’s an older therapist, and I wasn’t sure how he’d find her for chemistry, but she has a lot of experience with his issues and situation. He liked her just fine, and he’s done several conversations with her since. He’s maturing and growing, and he’s handling things pretty well these days.

I know what I did helped him, and while it isn’t much in the grand scheme of things, and the journey is still his, I’m counting my involvement as a success.

I. Helping Andrea with her health journey

I cannot take Andrea’s journey for her. Nor is there any credit to be shared with me for the journey she’s on. It is, by its nature, primarily hers. All I can do is be along for the ride and help where I can. It has been hard and long, and the journey is far from over. But I have helped.

J. I survived the year

Back at the beginning, I mentioned one version of the year’s storyline is that it sucked canal water. And it did. I hoped for rebirth, but I had to settle for mentally defragging my cerebral hard drive. At one point in the fall, I thought survival was going to be a literal issue. I had a massive digestive attack that felt like a heart attack, way stronger than the digestive issue I had back in 2005 or so. It freaked me out, thinking I was going to leave Jacob and Andrea without help. That feeling has stayed with me, but with everything going on over the last two years, and this past year again with the added non-COVID stuff, survival itself and not even buckling too much are both wins.

Flipped

I don’t know if the script above is enough to counteract some of the other thoughts from the previous post. But it IS a different narrative. One of real success, one that I can be proud of when I have moments where everything is racing at once. It has also given me some ideas for the new year. I’ll see where it leaves me.