I have now been back at work for about two months and wanted to take this month’s update to reflect on what it is like to be working while trying to take a sabbath year. Last year when I set out to define what our sabbath year would look like – I knew that there were a few major details about the latter half of the year that were yet to be determined. As I speculated on how things might play out, I knew where the risks lied. I wrote: “I am fine with returning to work, but would likely look to set up the first six months in a way that was conducive to the sabbath year principles – either fewer hours, less strenuous projects or staying in familiar territory rather than taking on bold new ventures. This will be an area I will have to pay close attention
With the start of a new year, I take the time to set my focus for the coming year. I believe that by being selective about where I direct my energy, I can achieve results that are exponentially greater than if I split that energy across many different goals. I detailed my 2018 focus here (read that first if you want more context). Here is how I’m progressing. 2018 Theme: First Principles Lifestyle This theme fits nicely with the goal I had set for the second half of my sabbath year (Jan-July) – evaluating the options for our life. This was by design. As such we have put a lot of energy into the theme outside of the specific named challenge, habit and exemplar. This means that I’ve done less with those than I would have wanted, but still stayed on theme. To touch on three items from the theme. Earlier
I have now been back at an office job for about one month. After seven months of experiencing a sabbath where my wife and I were both at home, we’re getting to experience a different way of doing a sabbath year. It will end up being a nice A/B test for our first iteration. By experiencing both ways, we’ll get to see what we like about them and hopefully be able to plan a better version in six years. Some Background When we first started planned our sabbath year, we had to decide what it would look like. Would I continue working, scale back my hours some, take a less stressful role or stop working all together? I think all can be appropriate and have talked to people that have tried similar rest periods using each of the above methods. In our case, because we had three young children, and
I am currently in the third phase of the sabbath year plan I designed for this year. During this phase the goal is ‘looking around’, which I described as: “The focus of this period is taking a broad look at what is possible. There will be a lot of data collection but not much action. The goal is really to make sure we have as comprehensive as possible a picture of what our options are for the next six years and as detailed as possible a view of what those actually look like. To answer the question ‘what is the life we want to create for ourselves?’” I’ve started to set aside time for me to go do this research, and so far have felt a bit overwhelmed. That is what I am going to write about today. The trouble is there are just so many options. Three Main Decisions
Every year I set a focus for what I want to accomplish during the year. I don’t much believe in setting other goals beyond that, as having too many increases the chances of any one of them failing. I’ve noticed lately that I’ve also started to have a ‘secret goal’ of sorts. Something a few notches down on the priority list from my named focus, but that I think about in the back of my head. Sometimes it is something I want to monitor in case I decide to make it a true focus item in a future year. Sometimes it is a past focus item I’m still keeping an eye on. This year I’m writing it down my secret goal so that I don’t forget it and to see if writing about it is a bad idea altogether. The secret goal for 2018 is to create more than I
Now half way through my inaugural sabbath year I’ve gained a lot of understanding about the benefits and difficulties of an undertaking like this. As I transition from six months of not working back into my career I face a few more adjustments and learning opportunities. In some ways it will be difficult to try to continue to sabbath while also working a demanding job, but my suspicion is that will actually be easier for me than parenting full time. Without much else to share in this update I wanted to turn to a topic that usually comes up quickly when I mention I’m taking time off of work – that of money. As we’ve told family, friends and people we just met about our sabbath year situation, some outright ask ‘how can you afford to do that?’, others joke ‘wow, you must be rich’ and some have the question
With the start of a new year, I take the time to set my focus for the coming year. I believe that by being selective about where I direct my energy, I can achieve results that are exponentially greater than if I split that energy across many different goals. 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 Theme: First Principles Lifestyle The idea of first principles thinking is to remove preexisting assumptions and to build towards a conclusion from the ground up, challenging and testing every brick as you build. A first principles lifestyle would be one in which all aspects of that life are chosen intentionally because they are the most effective ways to achieve a person’s goals. A life in which everything has been stripped back to the foundation and rebuilt intentionally.
At the beginning of 2017 I wrote about my focus for the year. I’ve posted a few updates throughout the year (quarter year, half year & three quarters) and now is the time to do a final review. 2017 Theme: Sabbath Year Self Grade: 8/10 After learning in the past that having multiple goals dilutes focus and causes competition for a limited amount of time, I decided starting last year to focus my goals (challenge, habit & exemplar) around a single topic. For 2017, the theme was centered around the idea of a sabbath year – a year of rest. I found that centering around that topic worked really well. My efforts towards each of the three goals contributed in part towards each other and they feel very much as three notes of the same chord rather than three diverging items. I think there is still room to improve how much of my
In 2017 I named Eric Liddell as my exemplar for the year, someone I wanted to learn form. After spending time learning more about Liddell, one item seemed particularly relevant to put into practice – his approach to races. Liddell was one of the most fiercely competitive people I have ever read about – once running so hard to win a race that he had to be taken by ambulance to the hospital afterwards. At the same time he was incredibly compassionate to his competitors. There are numerous accounts of him sharing a friendly word before races, lending his gear to another racer that forgot theirs and praising the other runners after a race. He would mentioning their best aspects and how they very well could win the next time. It seems a dichotomy to be equally caring of a competitor’s heart and unrelenting in his own physical performance. As
Each year I focus my attention on a few named goals as a way to be more intentional about the pursuits I direct my energy towards. The way in which I do this has evolved over time and these release notes serve to document the changes & most current process. Review Of v1.4 v1.3 contained 4 items that in practice went in different directions and resulted in overcommitment. For v1.4 I emphasized focus on a single topic, which the challenge, habit & exemplar would all relate to. The full details of v1.4 are located here. I found that structure to be very successful in 2017. The three items played off of each other well to point in the direction of the overall theme. Rather than feeling that each hour was contributing to only one goal and a whole other hour would be needed to contribute to the next one, there was