It is funny how the mind works. I get a spark of an idea which then is crafted and twisted into some sort of pseudo philosophical persuasion. Things can’t really be as they seem, or can they? Today I am talking about getting your mind right about perspective of life and career.
Tag: goals
December 29, 2022 – AltF4.co Year In Review
It’s that time again. We need to celebrate our success and condemn our failures. I talk about the things that I think are the highlights, places that didn’t go the way I expected and plans for next year.
End Your Programming Routine: I am a big believer in checking in the rear view mirror. You cant drive forward that way but you can sure see what you have run over. I suppose the goal for every content creator is to do more of what worked better, try hard to do what you plan or say and figure out what you are going to do next. That is what this is all about
August 22, 2022 – Summer 2022 Status Report
There are a lot of twos in this title. As fall is right around the corner it hit me that we are trending toward the year wrapping up. It is nearly over 2/3 over. With summer ending and fall in sight, I felt like I needed to take stock of where I am at with things.
End Your Programming Routine: Goalsetting is integral to getting stuff done. I don’t get too down not meeting my own expectations as this is a busy family season in life. I don’t want to totally dwell on the downside because I got stuff done too. I think the key is to improving is to do a more frequent goal assessment and do things in the right order. I am looking to get better at that.
December 22, 2021 – We Are On the Upswing
Yesterday was one of the days I anticipate starting about the first of November. Since it was the Winter Solstice, all the days from here to mid June start to get longer. I say this because this is a mental as well as physical transition point. It is the wrapping up of the previous year and looking forward to starting the new one.
At the 45th parallel, sunrise is 7:48a and sunset is 4:34p . That means we have a little over eight hours of daylight. I noticed it acutely last year when I was delivering packages for Amazon when daylight was precious and made a huge difference in productivity. Of course, I notice it now because I am alive and observant. I will say that I start work around 5AM most days so I still get a couple hours of daylight most days that seem to make a big difference on feeling like it is dark all the time.
I thought I would take a look at the year that was and look ahead to the year that is coming today. There were probably two themes within my control that dominated the year, those were restarting my career and basement cleanup. Those two things seemed to go hand in hand as I built my office in the mess of the basement. As I end the year, the cleanup job is finally done.
Ironically, I think the death of my father-in-law and the estate clean-up as much as it interfered with what I wanted to do, it also helped. The cold, binary function of keep/toss was just a task. Loads to be donated and to the dump were combined and executed.
As the rains come each winter, I often haphazardly move items around to get them off of the floor. That behavior often leaves things more disorganized than they were before I started, protecting my junk. This year, I had one small area that I finished last week to make room on my bench so I could wrap presents. Now, the basement is as organized as it will be and protected from the flooding that is possible each year.
I talked a lot about my office build throughout the year. I still have things that I want to do but for all intents and purposes, that is done. So, that was two major things that I accomplished this year.
I did have other plans before my new employment, like I was going to build a wine cellar space in the basement. I wanted to build a front yard garden, that never got started. I wanted to spend more time developing this platform and a business plan, that never happened. I only got a fraction of the range time, hunting, fishing and outdoors time that I wanted. Those were some of the things that I thought I was going to do, but didn’t like build a new table for the kitchen area which is now a TV lounging area.
Looking forward to next year, there are things that will carry forward. I think the wine cellar and front yard garden of some sort are some of them. For sure, I am going to spend time exploring podcasting. Part of my audio insert yesterday was getting started with that.
New and easier things… I want to build the sofa table for my office so that I can move the stereo back into the office. I want to brew some beer and optimize the keezer for fun. I have a chainsaw that I want to get running and then get rid of. I have more antenna designs and testing that I want to explore.
End Your Programming Routine: I heard a very insightful comment last week. That was, the danger with a roadmap is that people take it as a promise with a due date. I do believe that publicly stating is a form of accountability. I did a great job of stating goals last year, but a poor job of following through. Goals and purpose change, at least my life did last year. It doesn’t mean that I don’t want this to be a growing concern, but I need to find my own way through it.
November 6, 2020 – Feature Friday
I only have a couple hours a day permitted in my schedule to explore, learn, post and market and then life starts to move in. It is part of the reason why things move slower than I would like. It also means that I need to use my time as effectively as possible.
Today, I have started with researching and adding some new plug-ins. The choices are wide to a point where this is an ala carte endeavor. Each thing can add a couple dollars a month, but what is the return on investment? For instance, I am researching adding a mail client to get more in line with the ‘true fan’ structure. The suggested option from my hosting service is free for the first 500 email addresses and is tiered from there in cost/month.
I can surely get down with free. But will five hundred interested people translate into meaningful revenue to be worth the cost? I don’t know and I don’t want to get locked into something only to switch and lose what is already started. So, I guess I will take it slow.
Another feature I need to explore is the ability to post to other platforms. I am almost a zero adopter of social media, for a good reason I will talk about some other time. But, that being said it definitely has inhibited the ability to leverage some of the most popular and low cost marketing out there. I am lightly active on LinkedIn and Nextdoor but that is really it.
From a principle standpoint, I want to start and grow into spaces that are more concerned about privacy and security. So, using the the platforms that are in line with those concepts are much more appealing to me and I would be much more likely to participate. I have held back a bit as well because I don’t want every post going to LinkedIn for example. They are not appropriate to the landscape of the platform.
Again, today’s post is another snorer. I am testing some features that I added this morning. I promise that I will get back into a better rhythm as the dust starts to settle here. I probably need to set some smaller and more structured goals like adding one feature a week so I can stop writing about dry and technical details and making excuses.
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