It’s been a while

I figure it’s about time for an update if anyone is still paying attention. This year has been a roller coaster health-wise, but in general things are improving, so there’s that.

Recently, I started to re-engage myself with something I haven’t done in a long time: active accountability. In general, that means making a minimalist list of what I want to accomplish over a given period of time so as to be able to check against that list whether I am doing what I said I was going to do.

Some people will probably nod sagely at that confession, but my style of active accountability isn’t quite what most people do (is anything I do quite what most people do? But that’s a different conversation…). For example, rather than having a notebook or a calendar, I have a private blog. I use that blog as much as a checklist as I do a project management system. I tend to limit myself to five tasks a day, even if I know I have time for more because I realize that the stress of over-expectation is the second biggest reason I don’t get what I plan to done (the first being physical incapacity to do it).

The moral of the story is that I use this system to keep the things I am working on fresh in my mind and focused. I can tend to wander off if I don’t only to discover long periods of time have passed without getting anything demonstrable done. Active accountability helps me stay focused when I won’t otherwise be.

Updating this blog is now part of that accountability. I hope to make at least monthly updates, as much because I promised myself and others I would as because the act of writing is both invigorating and cathartic for me.

More will follow.

DLH

Rambling and repetition

When trying to write a daily weblog, it’s easy to fall into a pattern of repetition, especially when the subject is narrow like I’ve imagined the subject for this blog to be. So I wonder, what do other people want to hear about?

It’s often hard to get other people to respond to that sort of a question because they feel embarrassed about their answers, don’t think others will listen to them, or don’t feel like they have the time. Yet, I think that sharing those kinds of thoughts with each other helps us see the world more clearly and can help make each of our own rambling road less repetitious.

So, what do you want to hear about? Tell me in the comments.

DLH