In yesterday’s post about “formal” learning in retirement, I mentioned that I am interested in photography. I confess that it is, in part, a holdover from a coworker, Alan, who retired a few years ago. He was taking a full-fledged photography program somewhere local, with tests, and portfolios, and credits, oh my. And the results were stunning. My nephew did a full program with the local college in Ontario, also with stunning results.
Most of the stuff I have seen out there is at a place like Henry’s or individual photographers offering courses. I didn’t even know there were local “full programs” related to photography. The idea of better approaches to photography is compelling, whether it be for landscapes, nightscapes, astrophotography, fauna or travel. I should at least see what is available, no?
Local programs
From what I can tell, the largest local program is offered through SPAO. Originally called the School of the Photographic Arts: Ottawa, SPAO followed the path of other acronym-based orgs that kept the acronym-like name and dropped the breakout of the actual words. So they’re just SPAO now.
They advertise as a college, regency and gallery all in one, although I guess I am mainly interested in the college component. They offer a 2-year college diploma in photographic arts and production, which they state is the only one of its kind in Canada. Which no doubt is true as almost everything else I see is photography only, and tends to run a single year or a year and a bit. If they are even standalone full programs instead of “minors”. But I digress.
The program (https://spao.ca/diploma) is split across the two years, with 7 “courses” in the first year (although some are more workshops than courses). Five of them are genres — landscape and architecture, still life, portraiture, documentary, contemporary + experimental — plus another two for community engagement (aka projects) and an “intro to creative outcomes” (aka portfolio presentation). Year 2 is more advanced planning and implementation of techniques.
Now, here’s the thing. I looked at the full program; I read all the course descriptions. And for the 13-15 courses? Almost none of them interested me more than about 20% of the content. Put differently, in each course, I was attracted to only about 20% of the description. Which helps me realize that is NOT what I’m interested in doing. Yes, I want to take better photos, but I’m more interested in going from random amateur to gifted amateur, not professional. So do I even need a diploma?
But wait, there’s more…SPAO also offers some “recreational” classes. For example, starting in the winter, there is a “Digital Photography I” class that runs 10w, but at a cost of $500 per course. 30 hours worth of class time, no indication if they do anything outside the lab itself.
There are also DP II to go beyond the basics, darkroom techniques, bookmaking, etc. I might like the first couple, not sure if my interest would sustain me to the more technical ones.
Other options
There is a ton of stuff online including a decent one through The Great Courses. Sticking with it is a bit of a challenge, a bit non-interactive of course, but the price and access are better. I really like the ones through TGC or master classes. Plus, there are a few others online that offer a course here or there for $100. Or even just really long and involved options through a hundred YouTubers. That is a rabbithole all on its own.
I do, however, need to separate out the three parts of the photography world.
The first is planning the shot, composition, etc. I know some basics, but it would be great to do hands-on with a photographer here in Ottawa. I followed a couple from MeetUp who regularly do outings with models, such as two or three models in five or six costumes or changes for a theme — wedding, cosplay, etc. — out at a location like ruins, forest, etc. While the online courses can teach the theory, it’s hard to apply it to a real-world scenario. Same concerns with lighting.
Then there is the actual shot-taking. I’m fine learning many of the technical elements from YouTube or online courses.
And, finally, there is the post-processing. Just about everyone defaults to assuming everything is done in Adobe, and well, I hate Adobe with a passion. I have a whole course that I bought some time ago for processing everything in GIMP. Not qutie Adobe-level, but it will get the job done. Oddly enough, I suspect that is the astrophotography work that will teach me the most.
As I said in the title, it can be a very deep rabbithole, even just on YouTube or Reddit. But starting with the formal big program, I realized that my interest is not deep enough to sustain a two-year program. I want something simpler. Which means I don’t need to figure out if I retire with an educational support package, photography will not be the study area.
I follow Kristine Kathryn Rusch online as a “working author”. While I have read some of her books, as well as those by her husband, Dean Wesley Smith, I am far more interested in her nonfiction posts about a career in the writing business, emerging themes, etc. One thing I really enjoy about her blog and feeds is that, in her 60s, she is taking courses at the university for fun. Not because she needs a degree, but rather as a commitment to lifelong learning and a desire to learn about specific topics.
So, with some possible WFA options for retirement, including up to $17K in tuition for formal education, I’ve been wondering whether to take some courses if that is the retirement/separation route I take from my current job.
Do I need a formal education option?
I have a mixed view of formal educational institutions ever since I finished my Master’s. As a quick recap, I did my four-year undergrad at Trent University in Administration and Policy Studies — the equivalent of a commerce degree, with political studies and economics thrown in. Then I went to the University of Victoria for a year of law school, followed by a law co-op and a semester of public administration courses, and then a public administration co-op in Ottawa that has never ended! I did 8m co-op, formally, and then I just…stayed.
I eventually took some courses at Carleton, then some more, and then finished my Master’s in the School of Public Policy and Administration in 2004.
If you’re doing the math, I took my first grad courses in ’91 and finished my actual and different degree in ’04. A thirteen-year program to get a Master’s. I regularly joked that it was the “tenure track” equivalent of being a professional student. I also told Ph.D. friends that if I ever talked about doing a doctorate, I was to be shot immediately.
Yet as I was finishing up my Master’s, I had a small niggly thought about law. I started my law degree in ’91, an LL.B. now J.D. in Canada, and while I promised myself I would finish my public administration degree, I did feel a bit of a twinge of something in not finishing my law degree. Not regret exactly, as I don’t regret not becoming a lawyer nor even of not finishing law school. More that I felt that I missed out on some learning related to law itself. I briefly considered maybe finishing my law degree part-time, if I could, or maybe a separate Master’s in legal studies or something equivalent. But I chose “no” relatively quickly. Primarily, I didn’t need the degree. And I was tired too.
But over the next ten years, that “itch” changed somewhat, evolved if you will. I realized that it was not just that I didn’t need the credential. I also didn’t need the full school infrastructure just to learn. I did two courses through Coursera, including a pretty interesting one about the nature of games. Another was about meta-literacy. I could have done either one or both as a formal course with tuition and credit, but it was just learning for me, and free curation of the material was readily available. There are 1000s of courses on Coursera and elsewhere, plus options like The Great Courses. I’m slowly doing a psych course, and have worked through parts of a photography course. It’s hard to stay committed to them when working full-time and other parts of life intervene, but that’s more about time management than a failure of the material/course.
Yet, even though I don’t NEED a formal degree program, if I were given free tuition for some courses, maybe I might do something formal?
Creative writing options
Obviously, from my posts, I intend to write a lot in my retirement. An obvious option might be an MFA program with a focus on creative writing. There are about 8 MFA programs and 6 MA programs that are decently ranked in Canada. The downside, however, for most MFAs is a residency requirement. Of the 14 programs I found, 11 assume that you’ll be on campus full-time, most are 1-2 years, and none are in Ottawa.
UBC lists their residency component as optional, 2 years long, with a cost of about $1900 per term/5700 per year. King’s College and Dalhousie University have an online option with a low-residency requirement, also 2 years, and a cost of about $9400 per year
The UBC distance education MFA is focused specifically on creative writing. It is 36 credits in total, with 24 credits for creative writing coursework, another 6 credits for electives or coursework, and a thesis worth 6 credits. Most of the courses are 3 credits each, so basically easier to view it as 10 courses (8 in program and up to 2 electives) plus a thesis counting as a double-course. The courses include poetry (I like it more when it is treated as lyrics, not poems per se); new media (might be okay); writing for children (not high on my list); creative non-fiction (yes and no); drama for screen (yes); fiction (yes!); television (yes); speculative fiction (sure); career support (meh, not really what I’m looking for from them); and teaching creative writing (?). It’s not bad, and online is attractive. For distance, they charge per credit, not per term, which means more expensive and I have up to 5 years (probably $2100 per course); unfortunately, if the $$ is from my education support measures upon leaving the government, I would have to do it in two years. The final thesis details are a bit scant in places, but it seems to be a full-length product (easy peasy).
King’s College in Halifax has a two-year program, much of it online with two annual “residencies” — online (January for six days) and in person (June for nine days). The MFA for KC is a more guided mentorship with one class in a semester on structure and fiction plus mentoring, then another class in the next term plus the mentoring, etc. Everybody follows the same curriculum with a goal to writing a book, as opposed to the UBC “multiple types of writing” approach.
Oh, wait, the Dalhousie one? It’s offered jointly with King’s College. Same program. Oops.
I was curious, though…are there any BFA programs? Well, yes, there are. But none are offered as online only, and most are offered more as adjuncts to other programs (as minors, for example).
Now, I **could** consider doing something purely online as an MFA from other universities in the US, but the tuition money from my retirement would not apply to those institutions, so that’s out.
What about courses just at Algonquin?
The college is only a few blocks from my house, so I went through their course catalogue to see what interests me. Whether online or in person, it would be relatively easy to do.
In their Advanced Technology faculty, they have a 1-year program in AI software development, but I suspect that I would find it too structured for me. That’s hard to describe, but I mean that the college’s curated approach would not likely match the parts of AI that interest me. Possible, but not a high-demand option. They have options for computer programming, with some stuff that is both mobile and web-linked, but honestly, I feel like I’d rather just learn on my own online. There are tons of materials available, and I could pick and choose what interests me. I have two apps that I want to build, and they’re on my to do list for “sometime”. But again, not sure I would want to do 1-2 years online learning programming (one of them includes COBOL????) or two years doing mobile application design and development. Their web development and internet app courses are a bit more flexible and offered online.
They have a Creative Media and Communications faculty too, which includes a very simple creative writing program. It’s offered online and part-time, but basically is a simple set of five to six courses in total. Could be fun, although I don’t know that I would get much out of it. They have a much more rigorous Film and Media Production program, 42 weeks on campus…I don’t know if I would enjoy all of it, but well, there ARE some interesting elements. They also have a Social Media program, online, part-time, and heavily focused on marketing. Not really my jam. But that could be the point.
I confess I was surprised to find anything of interest to me under the Culinary, Hospitality and Tourism faculty. But there it was…baking and pastry arts! A one-year hands-on program. I don’t care too much about the pastry learning, but a year of baking? Hmm…although, sure, I could do a lot of baking on my own with recipe books and YouTube channels.
I am really disappointed though with the Public Safety and Legal Studies faculty. I was sure that they had a “private investigators” option that I was interested in. I read about it a few years ago. If they did have it, it’s gone now. The only thing available is Police Foundations, which could help my writing career. But it’s full-time, online, and has a LOT of courses that do not interest me at all.
My feeling is that if I’m looking at various college courses, there are other ones in Ontario (and elsewhere), many are offered online, and my search might have been a bit narrow to start only with Algonquin.
The weird side of Algonquin, though, was that they also have their “general education electives”. A few years ago, they culled some public offerings that were pushed annually, sort of “Adult Learning” for fun. But there is still a long list that is offered on the website as courses you can take along with your regular program. Or all on their own. If I weed the list down, here are the ones that surprised me:
Theme 1: Arts in Society
GED5005 Greek Mythology
GEN1957 Science Fiction
Theme 2: Civic Life
GED2200 Free Speech and the Challenge of Social Media
GED5301 Death, Dying, and Medical Assistance in Dying (MAID)
Theme 3: Social and Cultural Understanding
GED5006 World Religions
Theme 4: Personal Understanding
FIN2300 Introduction to Personal Finance
Theme 5: Science and Technology
GED5003 The Science of Play
AST2000 Introduction to Astronomy
Degree Breadth electives
PSY2100 Introductory Psychology
ENL4016 World Literature
ENL4100 Creative Writing
ENL4200 New Worlds and Alternative Realities: Speculative Fiction
PHY4000 Black Holes, Big Bangs, and the Cosmos
So where does that leave me?
I still need to pursue more info on the PI side of things, as I’d love to learn some of the skills to aid in my writing. Plus, I have done NO searching into photography programs. And maybe I should look into online legal studies or even physics. Hmm…I guess I’m not as far along as I thought. It’s good to have options.
What I really need is for the government to pay for me to learn how to kayak. 🙂
I have been planning my retirement for just over 2 years, with the original plan to go in August 2027. I even put a countdown timer on my website that shows 628 days left (a little over 20 months). Back in August of this year, I noted that with two years to go, I did NOT have everything on track for my planning. I’ve been doing more work since then on my original plan of touring across North America, trying to wrap my head around the possibility of a single RV unit or a towable trailer behind a truck. Andrea and I even went to an RV place and checked out some RV options. It still seemed doable.
I also went to a writing conference in New Orleans in September, loved both the city and the conference, and came back jazzed about writing. I don’t have kayaking, astronomy, photography, the fitness side in general, or continued learning locked down yet. But with 20m to go, it seemed doable.
And then work decided to confuse me with potential incentives to retire earlier.
A positive incentive to go earlier
The first announcement was a positive incentive, the Early Retirement Initiative, unveiled in the fall budget.
For those not familiar with the public service pension, you basically can work until 30 years of service AND age 55 or over, and you’ll get what they call an unreduced pension at 60% of the average of your best five years of salary. If you DON’T make it to 30 years, every year under that is reduced by 2% not earned plus 2% penalty. In other words, for me, I’m at 29 years. If I go now, I would have “earned” 58%, but would pay a 2% penalty to drop it to 56%. If you want to see it in action, you would get:
30 years –> 60%
29 years –> 56%
28 years –> 52%
27 years –> 48%
26 years –> 46%
The ERI waives the penalty and makes it:
30 years –> 60%
29 years –> 58% (save 2%)
28 years –> 56% (save 4%)
27 years –> 54% (save 6%)
26 years –> 52% (save 8%)
On the face of things, I could go now and save 2% penalty. Or wait until August and have no penalty. But I also have some pension paperwork in the works that would transfer money from my RRSP into the public pension, and thus I don’t need the waiver. I’m nominally above 30 years already. I could work another 4-5 years and get a 70% option, but that isn’t in the cards. My “plan” above aka the original one that is now in doubt was that I would likely finish with about 31.5 years and get 63% for my pension.
On the finance side of the equation, the Reddit forum Canada Public Servant has a really good post by one of the moderators, u/HandcuffsOfGold. You can find it here:
His first example is for a public servant earning $100K and considering the ERI, with 30 years of service. He shows that from the original $100K gross salary, you pay federal income tax, provincial income tax, public pension contributions, CPP/EI, union dues, disability insurance, and supplementary death benefit for a total of $34K in Ontario in the CAPE union leaving $66K in take-home pay. By contrast, the pension would be $60K gross, of which you would pay federal income tax, provincial income tax, health care plan, and dental care plan for a total of $9720, leaving $50,280 of pension. The difference is $16K a year which they could potentially make up through part-time work, gig work or RRSP/TSFA, or income+pension splitting (about $1300/m).
He also did the same calculation with 25 years of service. $66K in take-home pay from working remains the same, but pension would drop to $50K per year (instead of $60K). Total deductions would be $7522 (instead of $9720) leaving $42,478. As a result, they would need about $2K a month to top up.
The whole point of the calculation is not the exact amounts — it is showing that if you are close to 30y, and you have RRSPs, the difference might not be as huge as you think. In example one, while you lose $40K in income, your take-home pay only drops by $16K — because you also lose $24K in deductions. It’s a sobering set of numbers to see.
A negative incentive to go earlier
The new option, though, is normally a negative incentive. The Government announced that they are going with Workforce Adjustment (WFA) in the new year at my department, as well as lots of other departments. We received the formal heads-up email this week that letters will be sent to individuals in January. The WFA is basically a layoff notice, but with some big options to help you manage the possible transition. In effect, the notice says your position is being eliminated, and since you’re in it, you’re being laid off. While you can’t change the first part (the elimination of the position), there are ways to eliminate the layoff effect. Once you’re WFA’ed, you have 120 days to decide what to do. The official options are listed here: https://www.njc-cnm.gc.ca/directive/d12/v239/s669/en#s669-tc-tm_2.
Option A, as it is referred to, is basically that you have a year to find another job within the public service. You keep working, theoretically doing assigned work AND looking for a job. Still, the assigned work varies by group… some people do NOTHING but look for a job, others are given non-urgent work, others are worked hard. The priority is clearly on finding a new job. There are options if you change your mind halfway through the year or don’t find anything, but it mainly revolves around being paid at your current salary for a year to find another job. So basically PAYx1Y.
Option B is the “severance plus TSM” option. Basically, there is a transition support measure that will pay you approximately one year’s pay (52w if you are between 16y and 29y of service, and then 3w less for every year over 52w i.e., 31y = 49w of pay). Plus you get severance, which is about 4w for the first 20y and 1w for every year after 20. If you’re close to 29/30y, that would mean 13w of severance. And they code you as laid off, so you’re eligible for EI. While it isn’t completely linear, and you have options to play with WHEN the pay and severance are given to you (up to 2 payments over 2 years), assume you wipe out 13w of EI, leaving you with .75 of a year of EI remaining. PAYx1.25Y+EIx.75Y.
Option C is the “education” option, and it splits into two sub-options depending on whether you want to return after the educational period. If you do wish to return, you basically get up to $17K in education, go on leave without pay for 2 years, and, at the end of 2 years, go on a priority list to return to the government. A coworker did this back in DRAP, and it worked out PERFECTLY for her. An amazing option for her, and she returned to full-time work after taking two years to go to school.
Or you can just leave immediately, with no plan to come back, and it is basically the same as Option B, with some potential hiccups related to EI but a tuition bonus. (For EI eligibility, you are supposed to be both actively looking for and available for work, which would normally exclude full-time university attendance. However, there are some options for referrals through the province which might allow it to happen). As such, you can potentially get the TSM (PAYx1y + .25x1Y + EIx.75Y + $17K in tuition.
That’s not chickenfeed
If I get a WFA letter, and opt for Option B or Option C, I could potentially get as much as $200K in salary and EI, not including the education allowance. I would be giving up 1.5y of service and thus losing some on my monthly pension, but at the same time, I’m also not working for the next 20 months.
Which is a long way ’round to say that the government is messing with my verb tenses. Original plans, current plans, and future plans are all in a state of flux. And some people might look at it as either a #FirstWorldProblem (to which I agree) or a “wait and see” situation, i.e., wait to see if I get a WFA letter. Except there is a flexible component in there that if I know there are going to be SOME letters handed out in my area, I could volunteer in advance informally to WFA me. It saves someone else from being whammied. Or even if I’m not whammied myself, I could look at potential alternation options (where people who were whammied change jobs with people who weren’t but were hoping to be). And if I do get whammied, I would still have 120d to figure it all out.
I have to say…I have thought of little else for the last week. And don’t get me started on whether Andrea could retire too, and what that would look like for our finances. Likely workable, even if it wasn’t the plan, and I’m happy to have options; it would be great if they were a bit clearer.
I am somewhat obsessed with methodologies for goal-setting, performance measurement, tracking, and motivation.
When I kept seeing an interesting clip from the movie, Rebel Ridge, starring Aaron Pierre and Don Johnson, I had to watch the whole movie. In the film, Pierre is trying to get his cousin out on bail, not realizing that the system is rigged and nothing he does will work. When he does realize it, he goes to the police station to talk to the Chief. In the clip (attached below), we learn that he is a military instructor who has to deal with a lot of acronyms. The one he’s most interested in is PACE, which he explains was originally designed for Comms systems — priority, alternate, contingency, and emergency.
And it is relatively easy to understand for Comms, even without a military angle. Say, for example, that you are looking after your aging parents and need to stay in regular contact with them. Your primary communication method might be a cellphone if you’re in a city. Your alternate method might be a landline, your contingency might be email or text, and your emergency option might be in-person. Easy-peasy.
However, Pierre’s character notes that it can be used as a planning methodology for various purposes, including his specific goals. In the movie, the Marine’s primary means of retrieving his cousin was to take cash to the courthouse and pay his cousin’s bail. Except the cops intervened and confiscated his cash, at least temporarily. His alternate was a special deal with the Chief, who basically reneged on the deal and f***ed him over. Contingency was an alternate way to replace his cash through other means, but the Chief messed that up, too. Which has the Marine “burning through letters” and they don’t want to see what happens when he gets to E (emergency). As an aside, I keep seeing references to how Rebel Ridge is an homage to First Blood with Pierre as Stallone’s Rambo character, and Johnson in the role of Gault; while the movie’s okay, it’s no First Blood.
Here’s the clip of the scene:
Understanding the elements for planning
While the acronym is a plot device for the film, it is actually a real planning methodology. In the example I used above, there are four methods for communicating with the person’s aging parents on a daily basis:
P: Primary — Cellphone
A: Alternate — Landline
C: Contingency — Maybe email or text
E: Emergency — In-person
For the movie, it was:
P: Primary — Cash in backpack
A: Alternate — Deal with chief
C: Contingency — Alternate cash being wired
E: Emergency — The second half of the movie
You can easily see how that would/could also apply to a military or rescue system for communications. Essentially, sliding down a scale of expected utility and effectiveness to what may be a last-ditch method:
P: Primary — Top of the line encrypted comms
A: Alternate — Cellphone
C: Contingency — Public systems
E: Emergency — Short-wave radio
In different scenarios, the order might change or there might be totally different options including walkie talkies, flags, etc.
It seemed awesome and fairly robust as a tool. When I searched online for other examples where it was being used, I found a bunch of suggestions, with probably the most likely one being fitness. One example of this use is shown below.
P: Primary — Full gym workout + fully controlled diet for all meals and snacks
A: Alternate — Home workout with hand weights + pre-prepared meals
C: Contingency — Rest day + healthy meal choices for take-out
E: Emergency — Minimal activity + multi-vitamins
Again, it looks good. And with its focus on “other options”, it would work well where goals might have multiple paths to achieve them on any given day. Scalability seems baked in, hierachy/priority preference, etc. And if the military is using it, that’s an added plus — not because it’s the military, but simply because they can test it with people of different mental attitudes and approaches, and see if it works.
But can I use PACE for other types of goals? Let’s start by recasting previous examples into an easier-to-compare tool.
(example)
P Primary
A Alternate
C Contingency
E Emergency
(comment)
Comms
Encrypted state-of-the-art system
Cellphone
Public system
Short-wave radio
Can vary by circumstance
Bailing out cousin (movie)
Cash in a backpack
Deal with chief
Money being wired
The rest of the movie
Popular exercise example online
Full gym workout + fully controlled diet
Home workout + Prepared meals
Rest day + Healthy takeout
Minimal activity + Multivitamins
It starts to look like you CAN, indeed, use it for other goals. Except when you start looking at rows 1 and 2 against 3, you notice some differences.
First and foremost, the goal is changing from something concrete and discrete — communicate with someone, bail out cousin — to something more general like “exercise”.
Second, while all three have hierarchical levels between P, A, C and E, the exercise ones are not quite replaceable choices. With Comms, it doesn’t matter whether you use a full in-house solution for Comms or a cellphone or even short wave radio. While encryption and privacy were nice to have, they weren’t critical to the goal — the goal is communications. Any of the four options meet that goal. Similarly, for the movie example…any of the four options can get the cousin out of jail. While P is easier than A, C or E, they all accomplish the goal.
When it comes to the exercise goal, though, the solutions are not equal. A full gym workout is great, and is the primary method **if you can do it that day**. If you can’t, for whatever reason, you move to alternate which is a home workout with hand weights. It’s not as good, but sure, if your goal is exercise in general, it meets the criteria. But then you come to C being perhaps a rest day or D minimal activity when your body needs to heal. Neither of those are meeting the original goal. They are hierachical, definitely, but they are NOT equal alternatives. Similarly for the food, the first option is to do full diet control for proteins and minerals, and carbs for fuel. And moving to A or C could arguably be listed as “fuel without ingesting crappy food” that might work against your health goals. But by the time you get to E, and you’re down to just multi-vitamins, that is not an equivalent method to achieve the same thing. Or, more pointedly, you could take MVs on ANY of the four options too.
For the food, it might be more like Primary being fully self-prepared meals from healthy ingredients + portion control + healthy recipe; Alternate might be pre-prepared healthy meals that use organic ingredients + portion control, more steaming / less frying, etc.; Contigency might be that it may not be completely “healthy” eating, but it was all prepared at home, less processed foods, etc.; and the emergency food fuel might be takeout, but at least healthier takeout choices. They are NOT all the same, but at least they are meeting the goal of portion-controlled healthier fuel. If you want to add MVs to all four options, great, although that is no longer really a “goal” that is suitable for PACE as you are in a binary world — you either take your MVs or not.
So, while it looks like you CAN use PACE for multiple options, you may have to alter your goal or your alignment of options to the goal so they are all equivalent. Which is not often the way personal goals tend to work.
Now I have to figure out if it will work for MY personal goals. Wish me luck.
My wife sent me a reel from FB of Matthew Dicks talking about his 2025 goals, and reading it made even me think it was “too much”. The same reaction I have when I look at my huge goal lists of the past. But I admire the dive technique. Let’s pick some of them apart to see if they give me inspiration or can help me progress in my own thinking. There’s a video version, but his blog post has the content in a more easily digestible format (https://matthewdicks.com/resolution-update-september-2025/). I love the fact that someone else blogs about goals in a similar fashion to me — setting them, monitoring them, and holding themself accountable publicly.
Status
Career Goals
Career To Do
Home Goals
Home To Do
Progress
8th novel Advice for Kids book Write solo show 150 letters Homework for life app 25 more videos on YouTube, TikTok Perform solo show Revise Storyworthy Academy Storyworthy courses 6 Speak Up events Pitch 3 TEDx Attend 8 Moth events Attend MothSlam Win a Moth GrandSLAM
Pitch Marc Maron x 3 Newsletter x 50 Self-confidence course Anti-loneliness product
Don’t die Organize basement Clear garage
Lose 10 pounds Pushups Situps Planks Cycle Medical scans Replace backyard shed Refinish hardwood Travel to Europe Text siblings Photo children x 365 Avoid comments on bodies Play poker 6x Memorize lyrics 5x Read x 12 Digitize DVDs Memorize poems Monitor x 12
Stalled
Golf memoir 3 picture books Childhood memoir 3 Op-ed pieces 4 letters to father 6 letters to authors Pitch show to 6 theatres 24 Eps of podcast Standup x 6 Pitch American Life x 3
Eat new vegetables Golf handicap Get together with siblings Photo with Elysha x 52 Playhouse reunion Surprises x 12 Time with Bengi 6x Practice flute 4x / week Dinner parties x 3 Time’s list of children’s books Wedding footage
If you’re following along at home, my analysis isn’t about his goals or level of progress. It is more about insights into another dataset to see if I see any challenges. He includes both personal / life goals and professional / career goals in the overall list, some with progress and some without. Yet I find it interesting that many of the ones he made progress on seem more like sub-goals or metrics to me, not full goals.
For example, he says his goal is pushups+situps+planks+cycling, along with weight loss, and to eat 3 vegetables he’s never tried. While most people would treat weight loss as perhaps a goal, all of those to me seem more like “functional health and fitness metrics”. Maybe even put that under “don’t die!”. If you took the pushups as one of them, would it be “bad” or lack of progress if instead of doing pushups 4x in a week and situps 4x in a week, you accidentally did pushups 5x and only managed situps 3x? Different parts of the body, sure, but they are complementary activities not competitors, other than for time.
Maybe it’s clearer when it comes to writing. His intention was to write 1 novel, 3 kids books, and 3 non-fiction titles, as well as a new solo show. And 24 episodes of a podcast. These activities are NOT complementary — spending time on one is at the expense of the others. And there is only so much gas in the tank. An author at Bouchercon talked about how they are writing 4 different series currently, and as they schedule time for one, it comes at the expense of readers who want one from the other three series. I have had similar concerns about the different projects that I want to do…even with yesterday’s post about a new Quest of the Quill 2025 (trademark pending, hehehe), I designed it around any type of writing counts, not one specific form. Obviously, this author’s goal was to produce more written content, and I think that might be a better goal, with each of the 32 other products adding up to a single wordcount metric. And yet, with some of them down, maybe there’s a complementary metric for how many combined minutes the videos are + the solo show + courses + speak up/moth/pitches.
I also feel like some of the items that he did are more “to do” items as you only do them once. Like replacing the shed, in comparison with a more general concept like organizing the basement or clearing out the garage, both of which have sub-elements that are likely vague.
When it comes to family, it does seem like there’s some sort of overall engagement goal. Writing to his father. Texting his siblings. Getting together with his siblings. Photos with his kids and wife, even digitizing old stuff or making wedding footage. He shows progress on some, and not others, but some of the others are tradeoffs…similar to the gas analogy above, you only have so much social battery energy too, and it takes more to “increase” than to “maintain”. I found that when I disaggregated things as much, I felt like I was “not progressing” when in fact, doing ANY combo of the items counts as progress towards an overall “engagement” goal. You can’t improve all things at the same time.
There is one goal I find fascinating. He wants to win a Moth GrandSLAM. For most of his goals, particularly writing, he talks about “pitching” rather than “placing” articles, op-eds, etc. Because he can’t control the outcome, he can only provide the input and hope. For others, he’s focused on the “how” or what he can control, like texting or travelling. But this one, he wants to “win”. Having seen the Toronto Blue Jays just lose to the LA Dodgers after going the whole season and post-season, all the way past the 9th inning of game 7, and in the end, all the winners or losers can do is play their best to give themselves the best chance at winning. They can’t control the outcome, however much the sports rhetoric is after the fact, claiming that they “set a goal”, never lost sight of it, and landed it in the end. Yet a puff of air or an extra bounce, and the game goes the other way. So why isn’t the goal written as “get to a GrandSlam?” You might want to win an Oscar, so you take roles that lend themselves to Oscar consideration, and do your best, but after that, it’s beyond your control.
Did I get anything out of reading someone else’s goals?
I’ll check out StoryWorthy and his app, that’s pretty direct. Mostly, though, it was just cool to use a dataset other than my own to try and figure out how I would structure things. Of course, that doesn’t mean he should. Our brains all work differently, and what might work for me, wouldn’t work for him. I simply enjoyed seeing his thoughts and tracking…
