Month: April 2023

Up early after going to bed late. Went to bed late because too much caffeine too late in the day. Memo to self: no need to replicate that experiment.

Long day today. Zooms bracket the workday, then go run.

And so it goes.

What do I want? Not what I have. The fuckity-fuck problem exists and I’m pissed off still. Convo next week is required.

The plan is:

1. Access to software gained.
2. Items printed.
3. System, using paper, assembled.
4. System, using paper, demonstrated to self by self and documented.
5. Consider how to supplement the system for later-acquired documents.
6. System, using virtual paper, demonstrated and documented.
7. Meeting. System presented. Nonnegotiable conditions.
8. Follow-up for development.
9. Follow-up for performance.

Consider joint venturing with someone. John or Dan. or brainstorming with them. Ask David if this is too hard core.

Do I have my eye off the ball?

No forward action apparently.

The inertia is staggeringly hard to overcome. It’s impossible for people to see why their efforts are even bad.

How to think. How to define. How to commit. These are hard skills to acquire and wield.

Start somewhere. Do one thing. Do it well. Repeat.

Define crisp. Model it. I have a vision that is clearly different, but I don’t articulate it well. I will have to talk to David about this. “What would you do if you wanted to be utterly thorough?”

Fuck fuck fuck fuck fuck.

And again I wake up and write.

I have a draft of what I want to publish on Friday. The draft is a mess. How do I get from mess to done? See, these little daily exercises build momentum but I need effortless production.

What to do?

• One or two points to make. What are they? What do I want my reader to know how to do?
• Bullet point outline. H1 and H2.
• Fat outline. Simple statement under each heading.
• Move existing text.
• Polish the prose.

I’m inspired by the guy who I’m listening to on the podcast who said now he can blow out his videos in one take, whereas when he started it took 4 hours.

It’s been surprisingly hard to find competent email newsletter software. Mailchimp is shit to use for writing and formatting, but the alternatives have their own problems.

Well the day started with the “Welcome to Hollywood” refrain in my head. There is a song from the 1970s with that title and the lyrics tell the same story of Hollywood then that is Hollywood today. Yet the hopeful keep coming.

I only mention that because the mind throws up random memories and that was one of them.

Today let’s do what needs to be done. It’s another recovery day so take it easy on the exercise front.

For work, let’s see. Things are moving. (1) Sublease: the wheels are in motion. (2) The Big Decision? I don’t know still. I know what I want to do but I don’t have a Plan B for what would happen next.

I think getting more insistent on checklists. The trouble ticket analogy is the way to think about it. I’m going to try those systems.

Like the song, I’m starting to see benefits from the tiny action mentality.

First, let’s get books out of the way, and specifically two books: Tiny Habits and Atomic Habits. Useful? Sure. Marginally helpful? Probably.

But nothing happened until I started doing. Started taking action. The Last Resolution Standing game of write daily for five minutes and hit publish — that was the pivot for me. I’m doing that now, in fact.

This showed me it was possible for me to do something to install a new habit. And it showed me that I could do much more if only I planted a seed.

I write much more now. The extra is not published daily but it is published. I applied the tiny start, tiny regular action to running and last week I ran 13 miles.

In LRS there are now five of us. I will be the last one. What happens when they want to take down the website? Maybe they will just start 2024 and I will keep going.

Or I will keep my streak alive all by myself.

I’m training for a half marathon, starting from being able to run two miles.

My objective: finish and don’t walk any part of it. Time/speed is irrelevant.

My strategy: three runs a week, two shorter and one longer. Get the long run to 13 miles by increasing distance 1/2 a mile every week. Today I ran 5 miles. In 16 weeks I will be at race distance.

The short runs also get increased weekly. At the moment they are at 4 miles. I am not sure how I will maintain a sane differential between long and short runs. Right now they are indistinguishable.

Increase overall weekly distance by about 10% each week. I will allocate a bit more to the long run and split the rest between the two short runs.

All the complexity from YouTube is comical. I’m happy.

Now I know what empty nest means. My son came home for spring break and I just dropped him off at the airport. The house is quiet again.

Only a few more of these spring break visits and that’s it. The kids will be self-propelled and this — just me, the wife, and the dog — will be the normal state of affairs.

Seasons.

I’m sad. I don’t know why. This is the way life works, I guess. You want your kids to grow up to be healthy, happy, well-adjusted, self-sufficient adults. And thank God this has happened. Yet I’m sad.

I miss them. I miss the happy chaos of having kids around. I miss being the dad, being the caretaker, the protector, the guide. (To the extent that they listened or paid attention of course. But that’s how I saw myself and my responsibilities).

They share their locations with me and that makes me happy to know where they are. It’s a tiny thread of connection.

When facing a hard decision it helps to keep doing the footwork. What is real? What is imagined? That is what I am doing. Clarity seeps in, and fear creeps out.

The downside is not as big as feared and the upside of being rid of a dilemma is energizing.

Still. I’m not clear about what to do and when, exactly. But the broad strokes are there. Now it’s time to sit quietly and think. That is what I will do today.

The open time in my calendar (well it is not open time so much as a release from a burden of managing a situation that was neither profitable nor thrilling) opens up a new possibility. I can try the idea I have always wanted to try but always stopped three feet from paydirt.

I will sketch that out today. Light up the website with carrd.co or similar just to age the site and start SEO. Then start.