some goals and stuff

2008-02-12 00:54:00 -0800

Tonight Tadhg suggested that I stop letting my long-term personal goals float aimlessly and incoporeal through my fickle, inconstant attention. Maybe write them down or something. Maybe define them in stricter terms than, “Do some stuff and stuff before sometime later.” This seemed like a reasonably good idea. Committing to substantial, sustained goals that stretch further than tomorrow night is not something I have done much of lately. Stretching further than a couple months is a true challenge. So, setting some objectives for the calendar year seemed a good start.

Here was my first pass at these goals:

  • read some stuff
  • get into some vague sort of shape
  • write some code
  • invest some money
  • play some guitar

Woohoo! Looks great to me! But for some reason, Tadhg found these unacceptable and insisted I develop them further. Boo. So I fleshed them out like so:

  • finish reading a specific number of books (at least)
  • get into shape enough to be able to perform a specific number of repetitions of two particular exercises
  • complete the first functional versions of three particular software projects
  • invest a specific amount of money (at least)
  • play guitar for a specific number of hours (at least)

I'm going to keep the particulars and the specifics to myself for now. I also have plenty more immediate goals I'd like to accomplish and scores of other good habits I'd like to develop or reinstate. But many of those things I could potentially do in much shorter spans of time. Each of the things I've listed here will require regular attention over a long period of time. I intend to spend some time every day for the rest of the year working on at least one of them for a little while.