The PolyBlog

A strange confluence of thoughts merged in my brain earlier this week. When new governments take over, or even new Ministers within a Department, people inside government are often focused on the “first 100 days”. What is immediate, what needs to get done now vs. what can wait, that kind of conversation. Plus, “what can I do right now that will look like an early win”. Usually, it’s either low-hanging fruit or it’s an announcement of a plan over actual results.

It interests me a bit because, as you know from my blog, I’m frequently interested in anything that has to do with goal-setting, results, monitoring, etc. And right now, I’ve been thinking about my future retirement of late.

For some reason, the two collided in my brain, partly as I was thinking about the fact that is really hard to picture the time between now and retirement — 1433 days today, i.e., 204w and 5d or just shy of 4 years — as anything other than one big blob of time. How do I break that up into more useful “chunks”? Could “100-day mandates” do something for me?

What are the dates?

I threw some #s and formulas into Excel, working from my expected retirement date (August 27, 2027). From there, I worked backward in terms of 100-day “chunks”. I have a countdown clock on my website to help me keep track of the total number of days, just for fun, but it doesn’t do much beyond that. The chart above? It gives me some planning dates to play with.

If I time-travelled back to July 19th, my hundred-day “mandate” for myself would have been heavily weighted towards the trip to New England. I would have identified, too, my interest in processing all the pictures when I got back, but I wouldn’t necessarily have committed to updating all of my photo albums on the website for earlier years. I mean, it’s on my regular to-do list, but I’ve been thinking more about things tied to my 60×60 list than my regular list.

Which brings me to a small visualization tool that hit me. Technically, I’m using three sets of tools simultaneously.

First, I have my big 60×60 goals tied to turning 60 in 2028. They’re big, they’re ambitious, I’m making progress on them.

Second, I have my ongoing to-do list and goals, a rolling evergreen list out the wazoo. It needs trimming and updating, but it’s not a bad list.

And now third, I have my goals that are related to my retirement. Or, well, sort of. They’re not a different SET of goals, not really. More like they are a way of triaging the other goals into more concrete implementation steps. What do I want to accomplish on my various goals limited to the NEXT 100 DAYS.

Except I don’t have the full 100 days right now

My next “milestone” date will be Friday, October 27, 2023. That will get me on track for 14 “units” between then and retirement. That is just over a month away, which means I really only have 33 days until then. What do I want to accomplish in what is left of “this 100 days” that started 67 days ago?

If I look at my 60×60 list, I can see some that are well underway and will be completed in the next month:

• 01 Plan my life…this one is relatively self-explanatory;
• 03 Plan my retirement…this contributes to that, but won’t complete it, just move it along a bit;
• 04 Reading…yep still going;
• 05 Write 5 books…October is National Novel Writing in a Month (NaNoWriMo) and I’m going to break off some other things so that I can focus heavily on finishing my HR guide;
• 07 Exercise…we have the exercise bike assembled, so will restart those;
• 16 Cooking: Curate wings recipe…we’ve tried out some new rubs and spices and will keep going;
• 25 3D Printing items…I want to get my printer going at least ONCE this coming month;
• 35 Write new blog entries…well, this one counts too;
• 42 Travel…the trip to NE covered this for 2023;
• 49 Photography…I took photos of waterfalls during the trip, but haven’t written it up yet;
• 56 Fireworks…we saw the fireworks put on by Ukraine;

If I look at my regular list, I would prioritize the following (not including ones that overlap with above list):

• Finish Crime and Punishment;
• Setup video games in the basement;
• Assemble Lego Colosseum…well, keep working on it, at least;
• Restart upload of gallery…I’ve got up to 2004 fully done, and 2005 was already there, so I’ll start puttering with 2006;
• Assemble exercise bike…hired out and done;
• Assemble workout bench…hired out and done;

Soooo, what do I do with that?

My next 33 days

I already spoiled things a bit by noting that I’m going to do NaNoWriMo this year with a focus on my HR Guide. That’s my big deliverable.

Of the remaining 16 things on the two lists, I am committing to four more as absolutes.

I am going to set up my video games in the basement. This isn’t born of a big desire to be playing regularly; it’s about getting the stuff out of boxes, organized, and set up for use.

Once those are out of the way, I want to get my 3D printer going so that I can print some stuff for Christmas. But I need to figure it all out before then. If I don’t get going soon, it will be WAY too late.

For my website, I will slow my roll so to speak on getting new galleries up on the site, in favour of more time spent writing. But I’ll keep nudging along.

And while last in order, but not priority, I want to get working out again on the exercise bike, BowFlex and bench.

I can live with those items as potential major accomplishments for a month until I can set the goals for my REAL first 100-day mandate for myself. While the video games and galleries are more “regular” list, exercise + writing + 3D printing are all key foundations for my retirement planning.