As your little boat struggles through the ocean ways, you will pay… you will pay tomorrow… /
Oh, save me, save me from tomorrow, I don't want to sail with this ship of fools /
– World Party, Ship of Fools
This song seemed like a good kick off to REVIEW the BIG GOALS of 09 and RESET them for ACTION over the next 6 months of 09. [Yes, Toto, we are really heading in 2010, the year of Arthur C. Clark's return to the ideas of 2001: A Space Odyssey.]
For the full overview you can check out the Q1-update. But the summary from that update is as follows:
- Simplify my mental tag cloud
- Control, filter and capture the important bits of my personal infostream
- Share my personal growth and journey with new ideas, processes and technologies
- Gain Velocity and Agility
- Let go of the stress and overwhelm associated with information overload
- Examine spiritual simplification as part of this overall life-way (cause the Social Mesh holds the future in many ways)
- Open my processes to the communities I haunt and ask for other virtual pilgrims to join the call for agility
- Do better
REVIEW, RESET, ACTION
1. Mental Tag Cloud
Reset: The tag cloud is refining itself nicely.
OUT: Clear Green Technologies (lack of start-up funding); Social Media Video Show with NIV (we're both too busy); TEDx spec work (no time for spec); SXSWi panel (completed in April).
IN: Consulting practice on Social Media (see SocialMedia Innovation Group and Fluent Search); Music (moving from RockBand to real drums and real digital recording); uber.la (gaining momentum and readers, even picking up some work via word-of-mouth); Random consulting, silly blog launches, helping other for free (brainstorming with my housekeepers husband about two websites to establish his landscaping and tile work businesses – let me know if you need any of those services); supporting others (myfriendjoey.org may not be very active, but the connections continue around the website and the health of my friend Joey)
Action: ROI (return on interactive work), I need to focus on what helps pay the bills not what floats my boat.
Mid-Year score: 90 of 100 (Q1 score: 85 of 100)
2. Capture and Control the InfoStream
Reset: I have written a few posts of a series called InfoStream Strategies. I am doing well with this one. Current thinking: WordPress for everything. Post ideas? Start a new post in WP. Tangential brainstorms? Post on one of my alt blogs. Or launch a new idea site. Twitter fatigue? Tweet less.
Action: On track. More simplification above will refine my infostream and make more time for other priorities.
Mid-Year score: 98 out of 100 (no change from Q1 update)
3. Share
Reset: If anything my simplification and capture systems have made it easier to share. I have definitely improved on this one.
Action: Quality focus time leads to quality posts. David Winer had a great post about what exemplifies great blogging:
- People talking about things they know about, not just expressing opinions about things they are not experts in (nothing wrong with that, of course).
- Asking hard questions that powerful people might not want to be asked.
- Saying things that few people have the courage to say.
Two additions or (b) add-ons would be:
- (b) In addition to #2 about ASKING the questions, ANSWERING the questions is also the quality of a great blog.
- (b) And holding yourself accountable to your own standards and ideas is another challenge of a great blog. If you say it, do it. Thinking it and writing about it dosen't count if you don't follow through. (I am trying to do this one on a regular basis.)
Mid-year score: 90 out of 100 (Q1 score: 85 out of 100)
4. Gain Velocity and Agility
Reset: I'm still task switching too much. And dropping a few commitments. But overall I am happy with my performance.
Action: To improve I could take back some velocity by GTDing some projects better. Stay focused for a period of time without ANY interruptions.
Mid-year score: 90 out of 100 (Q1 score: 75 out of 100)
5. Let Go of Information Overload
Reset: Pretty good at the mono-task. Didn't get my 17" MBP. [Oh well!]
Action: Cull dead services. If I'm not using the app/tool/social media site, let's delete it from the tag cloud all together.
Mid-year score: 90 out of 100 (unchanged)
6. Spiritual Simplification
Reset: My spiritual life remains fairly calm and unfluttered. My work/life balance however, my main fail in Q1, is still way out of whack. ;-(
Here were the 2 major complaints from my earlier self-assessment:
- If things are right with my world, would I have ongoing back pain? Yes I’m playing a lot of tennis, but something is out of whack.
- Would I be heavier than I have been since major bummer days in high school?
Ouch!
Revelation #1: I am lying on an ice pack as I type.
Revelation #2: My dress slacks are a bit tight.
What I am NOT doing is SOMETHING! Something every day. Yoga. Tennis. Walking. Even a good 20 minute session of RockBand drums can get my blood flowing.
As a consequence I am not seeing my weight come down. I assumed less stress, less fast food, and a flexible schedule would lead to effortless weight loss. Well, at 46, I guess there ain't no such thing.
Action: I must, I must, I must put my exercise plan in action. It is not that I am not exercising: I am playing tennis 2 – 3 times a week. (Note: I just entered the men's singles ladder at #14) AND it is not that I am overeating: I estimate I have desert or 2nds about 15% of the time.
Strategy to address weight: system of rewards for 5+ exercise sessions per week. (I'm not sure what the reward will be, but I think that would be a good motivator.) I will put up a chart to track my DONE days and figure out what the reward is (besides the better fitting wardrobe) in a bit.
Mid-year score: 55 out of 100 Needs improvement. (Q1 score: 45 out of 100)
7. Open My Processes to the Community
Reset: Doing well on this one. Having a virtual stand-up meeting tomorrow as part of my guest editor position on inSocialMedia.com.
Action: Keep at it. Follow up on the global consulting project from Italy.
Mid-year score: 95 out of 100 (Q1 score: 90 out of 100)
8. NEW CATEGORY: Spirit
Outline: Music, poetry, non-tech or blog-free writing. When my hierarchy of needs begins to get met my energies bubble up to my "more to life than…" projects. Some how, I left MUSIC off my goals for 09, and my parting observation from that Q1 Review captures where it fits in, pretty nicely: "Oh, boy. How did I leave out Music? Cra*! So I am moving patiently forward on buzzie.com and martiandustdevils.com my two musical projects. I guess they could go under RockBand above, but they have a little more spirit than that. Okay, gotta see how these fell off the radar. I'll check in on that in a later post."
So rather than spin this "creative" work under another category, I'm going to call this GOAL to the carpet and LABEL it as BIG.
When I am creating music I am pretty sure that I am executing at my highest level. I am listening to the whispers of creativity that get left on the type-a table of work and progress. Poetry is another, seemingly goal-free process. The goal is not to publish, get recognition, or sell. More likely the goal is to capture an idea/feeling/moment in words that move beyond prose or explanation.
Funny tidbit: I recently launched yet another self-centered blog: john.mcelhenney.com | song : poem : moment. In a Facebook status update where I reported my launch: "Just put up a ton of my unpolished music and even a book of poetry (i hear groans) at http://john.mcelhenney.com"
Comment #1 was from a real poet, "cool poems." Comment #2 was from a tangential "friend" someone who I had recently added but who had never commented or interacted with me online in any way. He said, "Poetry???? Okay, I'll groan."
So one was a connect. The other was a … what? An attempt at a connect? A joke. My response internally was, "meh." On Facebook I wrote: "not a reader?" So the one time this "friend" chose to connect was in sarcasm about my poetic expression. Ho hum. I just find it funny how that struck this person as a way to interact.
I UNDERSTAND the sentiment. I even put the bait out there for someone to groan. I didn't expect it to come back so plainly. But in fact the groan I was expressing was how long it had taken me to publish (republish actually) this little book of love/loss poems I wrote back in 1987. And the exposure of a bunch of songs in their "unfinished" process form.
Summary: I have a number of musical projects underway. My solo/band project Buzzie has 2 CDs in process. The first, On the Inside, is an EP of 4 songs. I am expecting to finish this one any day. See the cover art here. The second CD is a full-length disc, Admitting There's a Problem, will take a bit more time to wrap up. But I expect it to be done in the next 6 weeks. So that… drum roll please…
I am playing a the International Pop Overthrow gig in California on July 26. And the more CDs I have the more likely I am to pay for my trip. I would like to have wrapped up both discs by that time. And I hope to have pressed copies of my first 2 CDs which are out of print. But this puts my Spirit Score pretty HIGH. The only thing I could do more openly is start rehearsing for the show and playing a few open mics to get prepped. But let's not get too far ahead of ourselves. (grin)
Action: Two open mics before the end of June to boost my score to 100.
Mid-Year score: 95 out of 100
Uber Goal: Do Better
Reset: In the broadest sense of doing better I am keeping most of my high marks. While I did not rectify my Spiritual Work/Life (Overweight) Balance, I did add Music back to the plan in a big way. I have made strides to continue my consulting and virual/open teaming practice. I am continuing to provide help and assistance to others for free. And I would rank my overall happiness in the high 90's. But i'm still uncomfortable in my comfortable slacks.
My overall energy score would also be in the upper 90's. I'm awake. Happy. Working on stuff I love with people I care about. My family is happy and I am happy. It could be better, but it's pretty good right now.
Action: Persistence and accountability in all goals. Tangible results and tracking of exercise program.
Mid-year score: 80 out of 100 (down one point from Q1)
That's a wrap. I'll keep you updated as I go along. Thanks for staying with me on this. And if you have hints, encouragements, corrections or ideas I am happy to hear and share them.
Oh, one more thing… One of the most helpful processes I have been learning and returning to is patience. Patience with myself, patience with the process, patience with others. So even though I am hammering myself a bit in this post, especially #6, I am pretty easy on myself. I did not gain this extra weight overnight, and even in the best of exercise programs, I will not drop the weight overnight. So I get back on the horse each day, put up my goals and give'm another go.
That's the best I can do.
@jmacofearth
permalink: http://bit.ly/big-goals-09
Related Information:
- Lifehacker post: Motivate Yourself to Achieve Goals by Putting Them Online
- InfoStream Strategies
- Getting Things Done Primer – It’s All About Doing It, not THINKING About Doing It
- Puttin Up the BIG GOALS of 2009 – Mid-Year Update in Progress
