azazil.net » Personal Growth

Groundhog Resolutions Redux Review Day 1

Gaz — Mon, 03 Mar 2008 21:33:00 +0000

In April of last year, I made a belated entry into Dave Seah’s Ground Hog Day Resolutions movement. Along with Dave and some of his disciples, I decided to do something similar again in 2008, but with some twists of my own.

Last month I resolved to start each week with a timetable of how I planned to spend time for the coming week.

How’d it go?

Right after I wrote up the resolution, I got caught up in trying to get ahead of myself with paid work so that I could comfortably take a week off to move house again. That was two weeks of pure work, eat & sleep with just enough time in between to take a shower. The next week went into packing up all my worldly possessions in Manila, traveling across the international date line via Guam and Hawaii back into Florida. It would have been nice to take a day or two to recover from the 14 hour time difference, and unpack into a new apartment, but first of all we had a 5 day bike ride through 4 states… more about that in another post.

Result: FAIL

What went wrong?

In short, I didn’t even plan a timetable, let alone try to stick to one. Bah.

What to do about it?

Next week — when things are settling down again, and I’ve actually got some kind of chance of setting up a routine at the beginning of the week that I’ll be able follow for a week or two — I’ll actually write up a timetable.

So, next month, I’ll have something a bit more interesting to report…

Ground Hog Day Resolutions Redux

Gaz — Sat, 02 Feb 2008 04:00:00 +0000

More years ago than I can recall, I gave up making New Year’s Resolutions because they always turned out to be empty promises to myself, and it was more honest to simply not make a resolution in the first place than maintain some kind of false pretense that I would keep to my resolutions for more than a month or two.

What went before?

I began following David Seah’s blog early last year, and in April found his genius Ground Hog Day Resolutions post. Dave argues that New Year’s Resolutions are generally made in the haze of too much food and drink from the celebrations throughout the previous week, while we’re still busy trying to tie up the loose ends of the previous year. Before long those resolutions fade into distant memory, and it is all too easy for us to quietly let them slide. By contrast, Ground Hog Day Resolutions are made on the 2/2, with a clear head a month and a day into the new year, when any hangovers (alcohol or productivity wise!) from last year have been taken care of. The resolutions are then revisited every month and a day after (on 3/3, 4/4 etc) to keep them fresh in mind, and to maintain our focus.

As an added incentive to work at our Groundhog Day Resolutions throughout the year, Dave and some of his disciples (myself included) are making ourselves publicly accountable by reporting on our progress on each review day.

What needs fixing?

Despite the fact that we all made good progress with our resolutions last year, it wasn’t plain sailing by any means. We were each struck by a malaise in the Autumn, and found it especially difficult to stay on the wagon. Additionally, we all felt the need to modify our resolutions as the year rolled past, and even to drop a few resolutions that seemed less relevant several months down the line.

The first problem is that having several resolutions is completely overwhelming at the start of the year, and maintaining all of them consistently throughout the year is nigh impossible. This meant that as I worked hard at something that was bad in the previous month, it took enough of my attention away from the other resolutions that something(s) else would bomb this month.
The Autumn blues was, I think, caused by having stared at the same several resolutions all year and become a little tired of failing here and there the entire time.
Finally, it would be nice to have some means to rotate new resolutions in if they became more relevant than what we picked several months ago.

Why Redux?

By revisiting Dave’s concept of Groundhog Day Resolutions after (almost) a year of practice and putting my own little twist on things, I want to try to address (my perceptions of) the shortcomings in the original system, and hope to have an even more productive 2008!

On Groundhog Day itself, and each following review day, I’ll make one resolution, and incorporate it into my daily routine for the whole of that month.
If the previous month went well, I’ll brag about it in the review post here at Azazil.net, and add an entirely new resolution to work on for the following month.
If things didn’t work out so good, then I’ll try to figure out why, and keep working at the same resolution for another month with some fresh insight.
On the other hand, I might decide after a month of daily work at a particular resolution that I was misguided in wanting to keep it in the first place. I’ll have learned something valuable about myself, and can stop working on that to move on to something new in that light.
I also might change the rules a little as the GR3Ds (Groundhog Resolution Redux Review Days) go by, to keep things interesting both for myself and for you, dear reader

Viva la Resolution!

Last year I lived on the road for 3 months, and then cranked up almost 50,000 air-miles moving between 5 separate addresses in 4 countries on 3 continents, all the while trying to remain productive and stay healthy without my schedule going to hell in a hand-basket.

As an antidote to the stress I gave myself holding all that together last year, February’s GR2 (Groundhog Resolution Redux) will be to start each week with a timetable of where I’ll be putting my time for the week ahead, and to examine it every day to make sure I know how I’ll be spending the day. I’m hoping that I’ll be able to reuse a given timetable for several weeks before my circumstances change enough (moving house again?) to warrant planning a whole new one.

In a month-and-a-day, I will indeed be living on another continent, and will report back on the results and decide upon my March GR2.

GHD Resolution Review Day 7

Gaz — Wed, 10 Oct 2007 01:00:00 +0000

Six months and six days ago, I adopted David Seah’s Ground Hog Resolution Day idea, and made a list of my GHD resolutions. For new readers, Dave’s brilliant idea is to not try and make resolutions on New Years Day, when exhausted and hung over from the excesses of Christmas & New Year’s eves, but to wait until Groundhog Day a month and a day later on 2/2. And then, every month-and-a-day after that, 3/3, 4/4 etc. to review progress and ensure the resolutions aren’t forgotten.

Hard to believe that another month and a day has passed already since last time, so here we are on 10/10 and I’m due to bare my soul again with respect to how I’m progressing with the resolutions I made back in April.

How’d it go?

Curiously, after moving back to Blighty on the 6th of last month, there’s been a reversal of fortune with my performance for most of the 5 resolutions I made. I’m not yet sure whether that’s down to cultural differences due to where we’re living or simply because I concentrated so hard on the resolutions I neglected last month that the others suffered…

1. Keep a regular morning routine

I started this review period fighting from the steely clutches of jet lag, and soon fell into my lazy old routine of dragging my sorry butt out of bed around 9am, and jumping right into work at my laptop with breakfast still in hand. Despite reminding myself of the advantages of a bright early start last week, and this impending review, too many late nights and late starts have broken my almost-habit of maintaining some semblance of a morning routine.

No excuses….

Result: Non-starter.

2. Read a book every week

By contrast, I’ve had my head stuck in a couple of riveting books this month, and my night-time routine has been pretty much rock solid, taking a cup of tea and a book to bed almost every night. I made a good start to Castaneda’s fourth book Tales of Power, but became distracted by Paul Davies’ awesome About Time which I’ve been caught up in so much over the last week that I didn’t get back to the Castaneda again. Much as I love Hellboy, I refuse to pay almost double for them in England £9.99 from Amazon.co.uk vs $12.21 from Amazon.com so I haven’t had the luxury of a graphic novel this month. Instead, I’ve listened to the entirety of Entanglement: The Greatest Mystery in Physics, and the refreshingly different This is Your Brain on Music plus the first half of the weighty Death by Black Hole. By my count, a respectable 3 half books and 2 complete books.

I’ve reviewed everything I’ve read in my Now Reading Library as usual.

Result: 3 and half books without resorting to a graphic novel.

3. Set aside time for martial arts

As predicted, no sooner had we settled in to our lovely autumn cottage that Octavia and I immediately started training at Andre Martin’s recently reopened Coventry Multi-Cultural Martial Arts Academy every Monday night. There’s also the promise of more classes in related styles on Thursdays and Sundays, which will hopefully begin before we leave England again next month.

Result: Couldn’t be happier to be back to training.

4. At least 2 blog posts per week

Including this one, I count 19 posts since the last review. A couple of weeks ago, I joined John Chow’s blog post every day challenge, which started strong but faded out after 10 days when I stopped myself from posting just for the sake of it. It would be nice to post more often, but not at the expense of quality. I’m more than happy to maintain my 2 posts every 3 days average.

Result: No problem, pity about the failed daily post challenge.

5. Weekly Reviews

Now that I have a new super-streamlined analogue system, the review process is light weight enough that I’m avoiding the psychological barrier of a formal weekly review altogether. Instead, I’m performing ad-hoc reviews every day or three, which seems to be working better for me.

Result: Solid progress.

What went wrong?

Not too much. I’m delighted with how well I’ve stayed on top of things overall. I continue to be guilty of overcommitting myself, and then struggle to find the extra time to meet the additional commitments: of which the daily post challenge is a prime example. I also managed to address most of my action points from last month, with the exception of setting up some future posts for azazil to even out my irregular posting schedule.

What to do about it?

I think my lesson to take away from this month’s review is that my schedule is already full to bursting, and that a polite ‘No!’ will earn me more respect than a ‘Yes!’ I can’t follow through on. A few action points to address before the next review:

Figure out a regular posting schedule that I can actually keep up with, and stick to it.
Take a good look at my GTD system, and make sure it is really addressing all my needs. If it is, then scrub the Weekly Review resolution in favour of a Keep the Trusted System Upto Date resolution.
Think of a way to reward myself for a morning routine success, to help reform the habit.

GHD Resolution Review Day 6

Gaz — Tue, 11 Sep 2007 00:00:00 +0000

Edit: I have 4 finished posts that I couldn’t post last week due to lack of connectivity while relocating from Orlando, FL to Dodford, UK. I don’t want to drop them all at once, so I’ll post an extra overdue article every day until I catch back up with myself again…

Five months and five days ago, I adopted David Seah’s Ground Hog Resolution Day idea, and made a list of my GHD resolutions. Dave’s brilliant idea is to not try and make resolutions on New Years Day, when exhausted and hung over from the excesses of Christmas & New Year’s eves, but to wait until Groundhog Day a month and a day later on 2/2. And then, every month-and-a-day after that, 3/3, 4/4 etc. to review progress and ensure the resolutions aren’t forgotten.

So, on 9/9 I was due to reveal my progress with my resolutions since last time, but with no net access between 9/7 and 9/10, I was enjoying my time away from the computer a little too much and forgot to write it up on schedule. Apologies for that, and apologies in advance that while I’m at my folks’ house in Devon this week, the net connection is flaky to say the least: This week’s remaining posts might turn up a week later than the dates they carry if staying connected makes uploading the articles as painful as this…

How’d it go?

I should confess that I wasn’t expecting too much this month as I wound down my activities in Florida and prepared for moving back to England for a few months. First mistake? Low expectations are all too easy to live up to. Taking things one resolution at a time…

1. Keep a regular morning routine

What with taking a 5 day road-trip around Florida during a 10 day visit from Octavia’s cousin Megan, and afore-mentioned relocation to the other side of the planet with attendant lack of jet lag avoidance I really didn’t have very much of any kind of routine during the last two weeks.

Until things went south, however, I was doing pretty good… so, discounting the last 2 weeks…

Result: Survived extenuating circumstances by a hair.

2. Read a book every week

With only two weeks of unmolested time in this period, I’m reducing my requirements to just 2 books. Ain’t it great to make up the rules as I go along?

Even so, I didn’t really make the grade, finishing Journey to Ixtlan and reading the entirety of Hellboy: The Right Hand of Doom, that makes one and a half books for the reduced period. Reviews in my Now Reading Library as usual.

Result: Bzzzt. Not even if I cheat with the book count.

3. Set aside time for martial arts

As predicted last month, and continuing this month’s theme of sucking at keeping my resolutions, I didn’t make any time for martial arts again. Worse, I was so consumed with fitting as many paid hours around the organisational hell breaking loose in the latter half of the month that I didn’t even get any gym time while Tave was in the pool almost every day

On a (thankfully!) much brighter note, I spoke with my favourite sifu, Andre Martin of the recently reopened Coventry Multi-Cultural Martial Arts Academy, where I’m really looking forward to training again real soon now. I was careful to choose accommodation that is close enough to Worcester and Kidderminster that I’ll easily be able to socialise with my friends, but also as close to Coventry as I can manage to make the round trip much less daunting than the 100 mile marathons I used to do.

Result: Looking forward to finally nailing this resolution.

4. At least 2 blog posts per week

Including this one, I count 18 posts since the last review. Posting frequency was a little patchy with back dated posts (written while offline) arriving after a silent week. Even so, that’s still approaching an average of a 2 posts every 3 days, another improvement on last month.

Result: A breeze!

5. Weekly Reviews

You’ll recall that my system was in disarray last time, and indeed I’m still surviving by jotting To Do items onto an index card clipped to the front of my Moleskine. Having said that, I seem to be surviving surprisingly well, which has given me an excuse to keep on running with things as they are. Of course, with no trusted system to review, I haven’t been able to do a weekly review.

Result: Total Bummer.

What went wrong?

I spent the last 2 weeks of the review period swanning around the Florida coast and generally enjoying myself rather than maintaining any kind of routine to fit my resolutions around. On reflection, this is a very healthy thing to do every now and again, and where most people take a week or two a year out of their normal routines by going to a new country for a holiday, the best I can do is to take a media fast and leave my computer behind for a few days every now and again. Regardless, I could still have made a better job of planning around rather than just dropping everything on the spur of the moment.

It looks like a bad month from a resolution point of view, where actually I’m making some good inroads in spite of myself: my morning routine is a habit by now, and it feels weirder when I don’t follow it; I’m fitting close to a book a week into my reading schedule when I stay focussed on it; despite being lazy with exercise last month, I have my martial arts training planned out for the earliest opportunity; and I’m sailing past my original resolution of 2 blog posts per week with ease these days. The one bug bear continues to be the weekly review resolution, which is currently spoiled by not having an up to date GTD system to review.

What to do about it?

More of the same on all counts, but there’s no reason to rest on my laurels.

After a day or two to settle in to our new address, I should chase Andre for training times at MCMAA.
I need to renew my efforts to smooth out my posting patchiness by keeping a couple of future posted articles queued in case I’m offline unexpectedly again.
Now that I’m back up to date with my accounts, I really do need to reestablish a trusted system for my To Do items.

Groundhog Day Resolutions

Gaz — Thu, 09 Aug 2007 18:11:45 +0000

In addition to the Inventor and lil’ ol’ me, I found a couple of other people around the intertubes who are blogging about their Groundhog Day Resolutions:

I thought there would be more than just the 4 of us Is anyone else doing this (even if you’re not blogging about it)?

GHD Resolution Review Day 5

Gaz — Wed, 08 Aug 2007 05:00:01 +0000

Four months and four days ago, I adopted David Seah’s Ground Hog Resolution Day idea, and made a list of my GHD resolutions. Dave’s brilliant idea is to not try and make resolutions on New Years Day, when exhausted and hung over from the excesses of Christmas & New Year’s eves, but to wait until Groundhog Day a month and a day later on 2/2. And then, every month-and-a-day after that, 3/3, 4/4 etc. to review progress and ensure the resolutions aren’t forgotten.

In Chinese culture, the number 8 is often associated with luck and prosperity. The luckiest number of all is 888, so much so in fact that next year’s Summer Olympics in Beijing will officially open at 8:08:08pm one year from today on 08/08/08.

That aside, today I am due to reveal my progress with my resolutions since last time…

How’d it go?

1. Keep a regular morning routine

Things were looking pretty rosy for this resolution a month ago, and indeed for the first couple of weeks after my last review day I managed to get up between 8am and 9am without any trouble, and launch into my morning routine. For some illogical reason, I had a couple of consecutive late nights soon after, which meant getting up at 9:30am and then 10:15am and being too busy bolting a bowl of cereal and launching straight into the day’s work to maintain the routine. This is an old, old pattern of mine resurfacing. A pattern that slowly spirals down with my getting up a little later each day, and then not feeling tired at night so staying up a little later… and so on. Last Saturday I finally went to bed at 5am, and then didn’t get up again until noon on Sunday

This is where the magic of GHD Reviews starts to work. I knew that I would soon have to shamefacedly confess all before long, and resolve to finish the month on a high note. After only 11 hours out of bed, I went back to sleep at 11pm on Sunday, and have been up just before 7am since then, giving me plenty of time to follow my morning ritual before starting work at 8am.

Result: Patchy, but with renewed resolve!

2. Read a book every week

Copying last months success, I made it to the finish line by a nose again this month. On dead trees, I finished the latter half of Flow, and the entirety of Hellboy: Wake the Devil and Mind Performance Hacks, which incidentally has inspired me to start learning Esperanto and design a custom typing shorthand. I also made a start on reading Journey to Ixtlan, my third Castaneda book, and I listened to The Next 50 Years on audiobook. As usual you’ll find my reviews of all of these and other books I’ve read recently in my book list.

Just like last time, that equates to 3 books from beginning to end plus one more started and another finished, for a total of 4 complete books!

Result: Success — 2nd Time Running

3. Set aside time for martial arts

With all the best intentions, I emailed the instructor of the Orlando Wing Chun school, and received a friendly reply encouraging me to visit. The next morning, Octavia needed a lift across town to collect her Harley from the dealership (replete with new neutral switch) in the vague direction of aforementioned Wing Chun. I had the Tom Tom attached to my handlebars, so I dialled up the address of the school intending that I should initially find the building in daylight, and discover how long it would take me to ride back.

No disrespect to the club intended (and I can honestly say that the best martial arts school I ever attended, was in the worst neighbourhood in Coventry, broken glass on the sidewalks, 20′ barbwire topped fences around the adjoining school, and double bars across the steel plated doors of the dojo), but neither was this a neighbourhood where I would be happy to leave a $20,000 motorbike outside. Unattended. At night. Worse, the ride back took almost an hour. Much as I’m feeling bad about my failure to maintain my martial arts practice, I’m not ready for a 2 hour commute 3 nights a week, and inviting theft or vandalism to my Harley during the lesson itself.

With only 4 weeks remaining before we return to Blighty, I don’t think I’ll be training at a club for the next month either.

Result: Total Bummer. Again.

4. At least 2 blog posts per week

Including this one, I count 15 posts since the last review. Posting frequency has been patchy, with one silent week, and then a post every day for the last week. Even so, that’s still an average of a post every 2 days. No real reason to beat myself up here.

Result: Success

5. Weekly Reviews

I managed one complete GTD Weekly Review two-and-a-half weeks ago, and started another last week but became distracted and didn’t follow through to the end. It’s a far cry from a regular review, but at least I’ve made a step in the right direction this time.

Result: Starting to make progress at last

What went wrong?

A lapse of concentration mid-month almost derailed my morning routine, but I think I’ve got that back under control again. The martial arts debacle doesn’t seem to be improving too much either, perhaps because I’m not giving it enough attention. Even so, overall I’m reasonably happy with my progress again this month.

The real killer continues to be the Weekly Review resolution, which has consistently fallen through the cracks for a very long time now. I think a large part of the problem with that resolution is that since my fallout with Journler, and my dread of manually recovering all the files I fed to it from the filesystem, my whole GTD system is not the well-oiled machine it was a few months ago, and I’m also resisting the temptation to get drawn in to spending precious time replacing the broken parts. I’ve lined up iGTD as the tool I’ll use to fill the gap, but haven’t found the time to evaluate it, or entrust it with any of my real project data.

What to do about it?

Worst things first. I’m two weeks behind with my accounts, and my GTD system has degraded to a stack of index cards clipped to the front of my Moleskine planner. Once I’ve fulfilled this weeks commitments, first order of the day will be to come up with a plan for revitalising how I manage my TODO items. By know, I know what the hard requirements are, and there’s really no need for me to embark on a ~~fun~~ long quest for the perfect system. Having figured out what the minimum I need to do to maintain the imperfect simplified system, I’ll be in a better position to evaluate how the weekly review will fit in.

With respect to my poor ongoing efforts to stay in shape, and keep up my martial arts, Octavia is my role model. Whenever she goes to the pool for 30 lengths, I’ll drop everything, and either make use of the gym, or at least spend that time with some solo practice. When we land back in Blighty next month, I’d hate to be at the head of the class and making embarrassing mistakes, and I don’t dare give myself the luxury of using that as an excuse not to get right back to training once we’re settled in.

To smooth out my blog posting patchiness, I need to work up a weeks worth of future posts to absorb an occasional lapse in creativity, and try to keep myself with a week of posts in hand. There’s no reason to increase my posting frequency just yet; I’m more interested in consistent, regular articles. 2 Pillar Articles per week is a fine goal, so I’ll aim to have at least 2 future posted pillars in the queue at all times. I can slot shorter posts in around that schedule whenever inspiration strikes.

Moleskine Pen Loop Hack

Gaz — Sat, 04 Aug 2007 05:00:22 +0000

Browsing the journals section today on my weekly trip to the local Borders Book Store, I discovered that the 2008 Moleskine Planners are in the wild. I snatched one up immediately to avoid the trouble I had getting hold of one last year, only to find that for a few extra cents I could have had a limited edition red planner from amazon. Never mind, there’s always 2009…

Since I organise my entire life with a Moleskine Pocket Diary, the lack of a pen loop began to bother me before I’d owned one for long, so in the spirit of my occasional series on Moleskine Hacks, here’s how to add one of your own…

Collecting the Materials

A Moleskine Pocket Diary (obviously), the widest gaffer tape you can find in a matching color for the Moleskine (black in this case), scissors (for the record, I don’t actually own any pink scissors, I just hired these for the photoshoot). I’ve thrown in some 3×5 index cards and paperclips for scale.

Cutting the Right Length of Tape

Gaffer tape is seriously sticky stuff and I didn’t want to get glue over a pristine Moleskine. Luckily, the wraparound sleeve makes a perfect ruler! In the photo below, I’ve folded over the ends and creased the spine part of the sleeve, then layed it out flat to help measure the tape. Below the sleeve is one long strip of tape, about an inch longer than the sleeve itself to leave room for folding the edges over the covers of the Moleskine to stop the tape from slowly moving over time. The small piece of tape above the sleeve will stop the main length from sticking to the pen. It needs to be a little wider than the spine section of the sleeve to accomodate the pen, just a few sixteenths of an inch is plenty.

Here I’ve stuck the short piece of tape back-to-back in the centre of the long piece, using the sleeve as a guide, ready to wrap around my favourite pen – an official filofax mini-ballpoint.

Making the Pen Loop

Again, doing everything to avoid getting glue on the Moleskine; rather than putting the tape on the book, place the book on the tape to ensure everything is where it needs to be. It’s useful to put the pen in place to so that you can be sure it won’t stick out below the spine when it is inside the finished loop.

With the pen in the loop, pull the other side of the tape around and stick it firmly to the front of the Moleskine, keeping the book closed the whole time otherwise inserting the pen might pull the covers open slightly if the tape is too tight.

You should now have something like this, with the tabs ready to fold in.

That done, I put the sleeve back on to keep everything clean ready for next year (although, I’ve started writing some of my upcoming flight times in it already). Constructed like this from strong tape, it all seems to last pretty well. Below you can see my current Moleskine after some 7 months in the field, alongside the newly hacked 2008 model.

Other Ideas

I experimented with putting a loop on the outside edge of the back cover, rather than on the spine, but with the pen able to move so much it didn’t last long. I wonder whether a velcro strap secured to the covers with gaffer tape could incorporate a loop, and hold a pen safely when zipped closed?

GHD Resolution Review Day 4

Gaz — Sun, 08 Jul 2007 01:13:28 +0000

Three months and three days ago, I adopted David Seah’s Ground Hog Resolution Day idea, and made a list of my GHD resolutions. The idea is not to try to make resolutions for New Years Day, when exhausted and hung over from the excesses of Christmas and New Year’s eve, but to wait until Groundhog Day a month and a day later on 2/2, and then to review progress every month-and-a-day after that, 3/3, 4/4 etc. I didn’t join the party until 4/4, so I’m a bit behind Dave, and everyone who started on Groundhog Day proper, 2/2. Now that the somewhat mystical 07/07/07 is here, so I deliver this, my 4th post in the series, to account for my progress this far.

How’d it go?

1. Keep a regular morning routine

Considering that I spent a week in a tent surrounded by excited drunken metal-heads at the start of this review period, and then moved from one side of the planet to the other the following week, and then chased my motorcycles up and down the state of Florida for another week… my morning routine has actually been surprisingly consistent this last month and a day. That’s not to say that I’m actually achieving the Nirvana of getting up at 6am, and being at my desk ready to start work by 8am having showered, shaved and sh.. well, you get the idea Despite the time zone change, and an irregular bedtime I am at least waking consistently at 8:30am.

Result: Making Progress

2. Read a book every week

Since I had the brainwave of incorporating audio books into my reading schedule, this over ambitious resolution has seemed much more attainable. On dead trees, I finally finished the prodigious The Singularity is Near; as well as reading the first half of Flow, and the entirety of Hellboy: The Chained Coffin. I also listened to 50 Spiritual Classics and The Teachings of Don Carlos, and you can find my reviews of all of these and other books I’ve read recently in my book list.

If my counting is not broken, that equates to 3 complete books, one more started and another finished, for a total of 4 complete books! Yes, one of them is a graphic novel, which I devoured in one evening, but I’m the boss of counting the books that I’ve read, and I say I’ve read 4 since the last review!

Result: Total Success, yay me!

3. Set aside time for martial arts

So, with all the best intentions in the world, I had planned to find a Wing Chun club that trains in Orlando as soon as we had settled in to our new apartment in the middle of the month. And yet, I seem to have become so absorbed by other goings on, that it never quite materialized. I have, however found what looks to be a very promising club a few miles from here which I will investigate this week.

Yesterday, while Octavia was dutifully engaged in her daily 30 lengths of our pool, while I was sat on the veranda with computer in lap and breakfast in hand again, I realised that if I were still in Worcester, my Tae Kwon-Do 4th dan grading would be looming heavily on the horizon by now. I decided to spend a guilty hour going through the 19 patterns I ought to know for that, only to discover that I was more than a little rusty on some of the advanced ones. Much more effort needed here.

Result: Total Bummer.

4. At least 2 blog posts per week

Including this one, I count 12 posts since the last review. Although I said I’d be aiming at a post every 2 days, I obviously didn’t take into account 5 days at Download, relocating to Florida, and importing my bikes when I equated that to 15 posts. With hind-sight, 12 posts is more than respectable for this last month. Since my posts are usually moderately long, 12 to 15 is plenty if I’m going to give you guys a chance to leave some comments behind for me.

Result: Success

5. Weekly Reviews

Oh man, I came soooo close. I haven’t really been getting on with Journler since the update to 2.5, and have started migrating to iGTD (I have a post in the works about the whys and wherefores). Last week, inspired by a checklist in the Zen Habits archive I copied to my bookmarks, I even scheduled an hour in for a full and proper weekly review for the following Sunday. Which would be tomorrow. Bugger.

Result: Nice try, but no cigar

What went wrong?

Nothing. I’m delighted by my progress this month, and by the whole GHD Review idea, which keeps me focused on the resolutions. This month I successfully attained two resolutions, made extremely solid progress towards another two, and have plans in the works for the remaining straggler. I feel confident that I’ll be on top of all 5 resolutions by the end of the year, and be able to set myself some new goals to attain on Ground Hog Day 2008.

What to do about it?

Tomorrow, I have an hour scheduled for my first weekly review since forever, but rather than get ahead of myself, I’ll be happy to manage that one plus one more by the next review.

I’m rather ashamed of how my fitness has taken a very severe back seat since I stopped regular training when I left England a year ago, so I’m going to incorporate 30 minutes of Tae Kwon-Do into my morning routine — at least until I’ve joined a Wing Chun club. I hope to have shaved another hour of my wake-up time, and be getting up at 7:30am to fit that in by the next review.

A Book Every Week

Gaz — Tue, 26 Jun 2007 01:43:54 +0000

If you’ve been following my Groundhog Day Resolutions posts, you’ll remember that my second resolution is to Read a Book Every Week, and that in amongst my busy schedule I’ve had mixed success with keeping it these last few months.

On a related note, before I left the YUK I was keen to leave my bank accounts in a good enough state that they would take care of themselves while I am away. One of the things I did to make that as easy as possible was to go through all my Direct Debit payments, and cancel as many as I could — cell phone contracts, utility bills, magazine subscriptions etc.

Now, I’ve been a member of Audible for almost 4 years now, and made great use out of the audio books on my daily commute to work helping to make my daily hour of driving much more pleasant — I sometimes became so enrapt with the book I was listening to on the way home that I’d sit in the car for 10 minutes on the drive before going in just to get to the end of the current chapter, and I would actually look forward to the morning rush hour drive the next day, knowing I could get back to a rivetting book. Maybe there’d even be bad traffic, and I’d get some extra listening time Since I gave up my day job, however, my book credits have been accumulating, and there hasn’t been an obvious point in my routine to keep up. So, I came very close to cancelling my subscription, except that 50 Spiritual Classics caught my eye as an interesting book to listen to on the flight, so I decided to get that first, and cancel my subscription later. You might have noticed that very book has appeared in the Now Reading widget in the sidebar.

Tying all this together, is my ongoing difficulty of reading an actual physical book every week, so I’ve dusted off my iPod (which is doing the honours as a portable Apple TV with a selection of my favourite movies and a TV cable while we’re in Florida) and spent my remaining credits. The cheapest service plan costs only £7.99 for a book of your choice every month, plus you get two free books when you join — and they can cost non-members upwards of £30 each for the heftier tomes. Alternatively, you don’t need to tie yourself to a monthly subscription if you’d rather pay for books on an adhoc basis. As soon as we collect our Harley’s from customs tomorrow, I’ll have ample opportunity to catch up on my reading as I ride around Florida for the next few months, and I plan to kick my target of 4 books before the next GHDR review day into orbit

I thoroughly recommend audible’s service. They have an enormous selection of books (my wishlist is backed up for 2 years worth of books from my subscription), and even if it takes a little creativity to find the opportunity to listen to the audio programmes, I guarantee it’s much easier than making the time to actually sit down and read a dead-trees edition of the same book!

GHD Resolution Review Day 3

Gaz — Wed, 06 Jun 2007 11:00:15 +0000

Two months and two days ago, I adopted David Seah’s Ground Hog Resolution Day idea, and made a list of my GHD resolutions. The idea is not to try to make resolutions for New Years Day, when exhausted and hung over from the excesses of Christmas and New Year’s eve, but to wait until Groundhog Day a month and a day later on 2/2, and then to review progress every month-and-a-day after that, 3/3, 4/4 etc. I didn’t join the party until 4/4, so I’m a bit behind Dave, and everyone who started on Groundhog Day proper, 2/2. Even so, now that 6/6 has arrived, I get to shame myself in public again by reviewing any progress I’ve made on my resolutions.

How’d it go?

1. Keep a regular morning routine

In the middle of last month, I let my morning routine slip while working late to finish an article I’d missed the deadline for, and getting caught up in a 3 hour commute for an Apache Security course. This month, in amongst my normal 30 hours of contract work each week, I had to write the second part of a lengthy tutorial for IBM’s developerWorks Linux Zone. Worse, my only means of running Linux (my beloved macBook) was having major surgery under warranty for the middle two weeks of the month, so I had to write much of it without the benefit of a dedicated Linux machine to break. So much for having a lighter workload than last time…

Getting out of a routine is so much easier than getting back into it again, and I haven’t managed to pick up the slack again yet.

Result: Failed Miserably

2. Read a book every week

I should have read four more books by now. I finished The Doors of Perception a few days into the period. I also read Journey of Souls, though I’m not sure I’ve taken in all the information it contained, and might grant it another reading later in the year to soak it up properly. I’ve read less than another hundred pages of the giant The Singularity is Near, and have mostly kept up with the ongoing page-per-day Mastering the Toltec Way . So, by my reckoning that makes one full book, and 3 partial books since 5/5…

Result: Failed

3. Set aside time for martial arts

See (1). Having let the habit slip, I haven’t been able to get back in the saddle. With the prospect of moving any day now, I wasn’t expecting to go anywhere with this resolution this month. I’ll either find a club in Florida after we’ve settled in, or else build some self-training time into my schedule to save turning into a couch potato.

Result: Not even trying!

4. At least 2 blog posts per week

I count 12 posts, including this one since the last review. No problems here.

Result: Success

5. Weekly Reviews

I’ve totally fallen off the GTD wagon. I have a lot of random lists that need much love and care to get my system humming along again.

Result: D’oh!

What went wrong?

More of the same problems from last month. There has been a lot of organising to fit in around my paid work, and it’s been an effort to even make time to socialise let alone keep a weather eye on my resolutions. After the last review, I decided that trying to nurture all 5 resolutions at once was too much for a mere mortal, so not letting 2 or 4 slip, while working at another was the task I set myself for this review. I don’t think I did too badly, although I read a bit less than last time and posted fewer blog entries, my commitment overload didn’t improve.

So, the lesson I need to take away from these reviews is that I’m overcommitted, and have to make more time for my goals rather than sapping all my energy on prior commitments. So, while keeping all resolutions in mind, I don’t want to let myself get sucked into worrying about trying to achieve everything here.

What to do about it?

While I have my book contract demanding attention, and now that I’ve finished all the freelance articles and teaching gigs I had promised, I won’t be taking on any more casual work. I expect to spend a good part of my spare time next month organising the reimport of my Harley’s into Florida, and moving house to Orlando, although thankfully most everything is sorted out with that now, so I just need to turn up at the right time for everything In order to feel like I’m making some progress, I’m going to aim at a post every 2 days on average, so thats 15 posts by the next review. I’ll have some jetlag to contend with too, so I’m going to concentrate on getting back to a regular morning routine, and hopefully improve on this month’s reading.

Check back in a month-and-a-day to see how I’m doing.

I’m taking 5 days off while I attend Download, and go on an internet fast, and then I’ll be flying out to Florida more or less as soon as I get back, so I probably won’t post too much for the next few days.

azazil.net » Personal Growth

Groundhog Resolutions Redux Review Day 1

How’d it go?

What went wrong?

What to do about it?

Related Articles

Ground Hog Day Resolutions Redux

What went before?

What needs fixing?

Why Redux?

Viva la Resolution!

Related Articles

GHD Resolution Review Day 7

How’d it go?

1. Keep a regular morning routine

2. Read a book every week

3. Set aside time for martial arts

4. At least 2 blog posts per week

5. Weekly Reviews

What went wrong?

What to do about it?

Related Articles

GHD Resolution Review Day 6

How’d it go?

1. Keep a regular morning routine

2. Read a book every week

3. Set aside time for martial arts

4. At least 2 blog posts per week

5. Weekly Reviews

What went wrong?

What to do about it?

Related Articles

Groundhog Day Resolutions

GHD Resolution Review Day 5

How’d it go?

1. Keep a regular morning routine

2. Read a book every week

3. Set aside time for martial arts

4. At least 2 blog posts per week

5. Weekly Reviews

What went wrong?

What to do about it?

Related Articles

Moleskine Pen Loop Hack

Collecting the Materials

Cutting the Right Length of Tape

Making the Pen Loop

Other Ideas

Related Articles

GHD Resolution Review Day 4

How’d it go?

What went wrong?

What to do about it?

Related Articles

A Book Every Week

Related Articles

GHD Resolution Review Day 3

How’d it go?

What went wrong?

What to do about it?

Related Articles