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2015 – Communicating my goals to myself

January 11 2015

One of the things that is a bit odd about setting goals and doing all this work is that when I’m done, the list isn’t the sort you just memorize. You need to work on it regularly to make progress, and you need a way to remind yourself what the goals are so you don’t skip one. I hesitate to say “see the big picture” as it isn’t exactly about the bigger picture. It’s about seeing the details. So I’ve put them all in a single graphic for myself. Eight overarching goals, 25 ongoing, and 11 bucket list items. I know, 44 sounds like a lot. But PolyWogg 4.0 can handle them. I’m committed to the quest.

The other thing I want to do is give myself a separate logo for the year. Given that I’m pitching it to myself as a quest, something a little “knight”-like seems in order. So I went back into the archives and found a crest that resembles the Sadleir crest, which is the closest I can find. Add in my 2015 stuff, and I’m good to go.

I’m tempted to put those on a mouse pad or something. Maybe even a T-shirt for the knight logo. I like it a lot. Not that it is amazing artwork, or stellar creative work, but rather that I have something “different” than usual. Something unique to the year that reminds me that it is not business as usual. Whether or not it will help me visualize my goals or not is another story.

I’m still working on my detailed tracker though. I did find a nice planner over at ProductiveFlourishing. They have some of the best planning templates for personal use out there, and they’re all free. They update them every month, just click and download. They’re in editable PDF so they’re pretty good to use right out of the box. Unfortunately, I’ve been at this awhile so out-of-the-box options don’t usually work well for me, but they were enough to give me a good template that I replicated in ExCel and could then move things around, edit, tweak, etc. I’ve done the one for work, just trying to figure out what exactly to do for the blog tracker for the month/year plus my own goal tracker.

In the meantime, I’ve got my logo to keep me focused.

2015 – Men who like meat

January 9 2015

On my vaguebooking list, I had an item for men who like meat, and tagged a bunch accordingly. This probably wasn’t that vague for most of them as I started an outing a number of years ago called “MMMMM”. It stood for “Mid-Month Movie Madness for Men”, basically a guys night out to grab some dinner beforehand and then a movie. But attendance varied depending on the movie, location, timing, etc. I tried kickstarting it a few times, but it never really gelled as an outing.

Later, it morphed into an occasional wing night here and there, and the MMMMM transformed into “Mid-month Madness for Men who like Meat”. Why limited to men? No real reason other than that I frequently get to do outings with friends and couples, but rarely just the guys. It isn’t just about seeing friends or eating wings, it’s also an opportunity to just have a guys night regularly that I won’t do if I don’t schedule it. Which is weird in a way. It’s not like we’re talking dirtbikes and power tools, there’s nothing about it that makes it “guy”-ish, it’s just guys that are invited.

But I feel like I don’t put enough energy into it, despite liking the time. People don’t know about it far enough in advance, other things crop up, etc. So if I want people to be able to attend, it helps not to spring it on them 3 days ahead. Of course, by contrast, if it is a regular thing, it’s easy to say no one month and come the next. Which is fine too. I really won’t be hurt, sniff sniff. 🙂

But I do want to give different people a chance to participate, and some can’t make Mondays or Tuesdays or Wednesdays, so I’m going to rotate it through a bit:

Monday January 19th
Tuesday February 17th
Wednesday March 18th
Monday April 13th
Tuesday May 12th
Wednesday June 17th

If all goes well, I’ll schedule the next six months too! Now I just need to post, and copy the guys who are invited (although open to other guys too). Maybe if there’s interest, the women could come one of the months (March maybe?).

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2015 – Communicating my goals to myself

2015 – Men who like meat