Better every year. That is my goal. I believe that through focused effort I can keep improving and ensure my best years are still in front of me. With that in mind, at the start of a new year, I take the time to set my focus for the coming year. By being selective about where I direct my energy, I can achieve results that are exponentially greater than if I split my attention. More details about the process are in this blog post and you can review the results from past years (2013, 2014, 2015, 2016, 2017, 2018, 2019, 2020, 2021, 2022). 2023 Theme: Strategy I’m continuing to enjoy this subject. Strategy is essentially identification of levers and applying focused pressure on them – its a bit puzzle, and I love puzzles. In terms of reading, here is my progress Good Strategy Bad Strategy HBR’s 10 Must Reads on Strategy – IN PROGRESS Blue Ocean
On June 2nd and 3rd, 2023 I completed the Seventy48 paddle race in just over 40 hours. Here is the race report Goals Results Enjoy being outside – ACCOMPLISHED Do something really hard – ACCOMPLISHED Do something new and learn some new skills – ACCOMPLISHED Finish the course (even if after the allowed time) – ACCOMPLISHED Officially finish (under the official 48 hour cutoff) – ACCOMPLISHED Finish in under 24 hours – Not Accomplished Finish in under 20 hours – Not Accomplished Strategy Start slow, keep moving, and dig deep in the end. – ACCOMPLISHED Tactics Eat 200 calories per hour – ACCOMPLISHED Refill water every 2 hours – ACCOMPLISHED Don’t exceed 140bpm – Not Accomplished Only stop on land three times – Not Accomplished Limit rest stops to 30 minutes – Not Accomplished Successes What am I proud of from race day? Found a way to finish Failures What areas could I
Most of the posts on my blog are about my yearly goals (120 posts), physical challenges I take on (20 posts), my career (5-6) or topics I’m learning about at the time (minimalism, measurement, productivity, etc.). Very little to date has been about parenting (I count three posts; 1, 2 and 3). This is somewhat by intention – I was hesitant to write about a topic I didn’t know much about and where I wasn’t objectively good. Now, that I have an aggregated 30 years of parenting under my belt (thats how it works, right?), I perhaps have something to share. Every month I have part of a day reserved to take one of my children out on a date. This is one-on-one time I spend with them doing something that they want to do. Quality time. I have four children, so each child gets three dates a year and
Written on a flight back from visiting the Netherlands How the Dutch became the leading power in the world and how they lost that status Reclaiming land from the ocean – the risk and reward with global warming and a lack of unclaimed land to occupy How we shape our children through encouraging traditions that instill values or norms in them Why SUPing long distances doesn’t make much sense (it is slower, harder and has more risk of falling in) but I still enjoy it more anyways Birds in different parts of the world – why some species thrive everywhere while other times a different species fills a similar role locally Are rabbits the most efficient way to turn sunshine into protein? They are definitely the cutest Appreciating difference in culture for the Darwinistic strength it gives humanity as a collective Difficulty and danger – how the mix of them
Better every year. That is my goal. I believe that through focused effort I can keep improving and ensure my best years are still in front of me. With that in mind, at the start of a new year, I take the time to set my focus for the coming year. By being selective about where I direct my energy, I can achieve results that are exponentially greater than if I split my attention. More details about the process are in this blog post and you can review the results from past years (2013, 2014, 2015, 2016, 2017, 2018, 2019, 2020, 2021, 2022). 2023 Theme: Strategy I’m having so much fun reading about this topic. I love strategy and reading more formally about it has only served to confirm that. My brain just loves chewing on things and thinking about strategy feels satisfying in the same way it feels good to crunch into a big sandwich.
The goal of this blog post is to celebrate possessions I’ve had in my service for at least ten years. I believe that reflecting on these items will help me learn a few things about reducing waste, being efficient with my money and designing good products. These are all valuable to me, thus this blog post. For something to last ten years in my service in needs to have a few important attributes. It needs to: be useful or beautiful – otherwise I would have gotten to a point where I didn’t need it and donated, sold or tossed it be durable and/or repairable – otherwise it would likely be broken and discarded (unless I didn’t use it, in which case, see above) I must have not outgrown it – the item would likely be passed on if I changed my preferences, body size, skill level, or hobbies away from
Better every year. That is my goal. I believe that through focused effort I can keep improving and ensure my best years are still in front of me. With that in mind, at the start of a new year, I take the time to set my focus for the coming year. By being selective about where I direct my energy, I can achieve results that are exponentially greater than if I split my attention. More details about the process are in this blog post and you can review the results from past years (2013, 2014, 2015, 2016, 2017, 2018, 2019, 2020, 2021, 2022). 2023 Theme: Strategy This is the sixth and final year of my current sabbath cycle, a six year period where I am focused on preparing for my calling. As I entered this six year stretch I had the belief that there are four generic skills that are highly valuable to do anything well;
Better every year. That is my goal. I believe that through focused effort I can keep improving and ensure my best years are still in front of me. With that in mind, at the start of a new year, I take the time to set my focus for the coming year. By being selective about where I direct my energy, I can achieve results that are exponentially greater than if I split my attention. I detailed my 2022 focus here (read that first if you want more context). I’ve posted a few updates throughout the year (quarter year, half year update, and three quarter year update) and now is time for a final review. 2022 Theme: Forecasting Self Grade: 8/10 I read four books on the topic and detailed my learnings in this recap of what I learned about forecasting. This was a strong year and helped establish a pattern for how
In 2022 I set my theme as ‘forecasting‘. My goal in selecting that theme was to get better at having realistic expectations about future, currently-unknowable events. So much of life requires making decisions where the eventual outcome is not based on a simple cause and effect equation. The important decisions tend to require we make them without full knowledge. Instead we have an opaque equation that will be resolved based on which one of a range of potential outcomes actually comes to be. Because of that, I believed that being better at forecasting the future would allow me to make better decisions, by better assessing the risk and reward profiles of those scenarios. Last January, when I selected it, I wrote: “My goal this year will be to learn more about forecasting and prediction. To figure out what the common shortcomings of predictors are, how to improve them in myself, and
This year I picked Steve Jobs as my exemplar since I think he demonstrates the trait I am focusing on learning about, ‘forecasting’ or better predicting what will happen in the future. I write these reviews following a review template to help me get the most out of the process of having an exemplar. Below is my entry for Steve Jobs. What did Steve Jobs achieve? He made the computer personal and helped increased the total addressable market by a few orders of magnitude. Why did he care about that? Jobs really cared about high quality products and he didn’t feel like anyone was making those in the computer space. He also wanted/needed money at various points. He also wanted to spite some people that doubted him or turned against him at various points. He was complicated. How did he think about the world differently than his contemporaries? As a funny