Quarterly Goals – September Pivot

Sometimes it’s stronger to pivot onto a new course than to endure a mistake.

After some serious consideration, it’s best that I alter my goals for this quarter early before we continue too long.

A few things have been on my mind: a shoulder injury hampering sleep, work, and working out (it’s a pain to type this); what to do now that I’ve hit certain financial milestones; and, the benefits of small mental exercises.

To that end, I’m going to take more control over my day-to-day and work more in value-add activities for my future.

Here’s how I’ll do that:

The Cuts

1. RPGs

   1. 

      Funny that I write this on Free RPG Day (June 15th). Anyway, I’m backing off on the investigation / design / development of potential solutions to D&D-style Dungeon Master problems. Yes, this could reduce other people’s suffering; no, this is more a fun pastime than ought to be a full-focus goal.

      As for making an RPG? In honor of RPG Day, I’ll take a few minutes to make a whitepaper on the tank commander idea mentioned earlier.

2. Books and LeetCode
   1. Again, these are pastimes. I’m going to read the books anyway, so they shouldn’t be a goal. Neither LeetCode – I am studying the problems over lunch at the ol’ day-job despite having the sincere thought that tackling programming riddles isn’t what I want to be doing with my spare time.

The Keeps

1. Outlines
   1. I’m nearly done with this one and might finish it in days. My plan will be to put my outlines aside, work on other things (maybe even add in more outlines!), then revisit these in August.What I have so far (working titles and loglines):
      1. Nightmare Jack – The undying queen of the damned encounters the land of the living and with it, death.
      2. Aladdin – Aladdin, a slave to become eunuch, loves Badour, heir to the empire, but when the power of Jinn overtakes him, Aladdin will battle magical armies and a greater danger to them all: himself.
      3. Gem Heist – Pirates looting treasure don’t expect to meet the former owners.
2. Edits
   1. It’d be nice to have something that could be sold. That, and editing the fan fiction into my ‘own’ short story will help guide writing future stories inspired by preexisting intellectual properties.
3. This Blog
   1. Hello there! I’m going to cut back to one dedicated post a week with others coming as the inspiration hits.

The Adds

1. $$$$$

   1. 

      Last month I had a ‘secret’ goal. I’m transforming that goal into a broad topic: Make more money. It’s up to my creative performance to see what I can offer; discipline will then deliver. By saying “no” to more things, I can perhaps pursue two of these every month:

      1. The secret thing from before. I’ll start with this and #2; if they turn out, great! If they don’t, I’ll be dropping them heading into July.
      2. The stock market. I’ve a nice table showing the top percentage gains over time of major technology and entertainment brands. Using that, I’ll drop a few extra dollars on stocks vs. mutual funds to see if my simple system turns a profit.
      3. Real estate. This may not be a thing. Real estate scares me something terrible. Any move will only be done after serious (serious) review of the market. Still, might be quaint to finally purchase a residence-to-be-rental.
         1. Ran the numbers on this for two hours after writing this post. The goal in buying property would be to eventually turn it into a rental. To effectively do that, I ought to follow the 1% [or greater] Rule of rental-to-purchase values. On the West side of my town where I’d want to live right now, the percents on houses/condos is .6-.7%, clearly failing the 1% Rule. Thus, real estate just isn’t for me at this time. Glad to know I won’t need to worry about that!
      4. My voice. I learned what it means to voice act late last year. Throwing myself out there, this could mean a lot more.
      5. Writing. Probably would be writing for others. It’d be writing regardless. I can type quickly (500-600 words / hour) and can quickly research any topic (don’t get me started on knitting; omg).
      6. Fiverr. Fiverr went on IPO the other day to great gains. If I’m going to be part of the “gig economy”, let me perform in its marketplace. An idea here would be to sell my company, my time, my conversation. That, or send physical, handwritten letters (hey, there are romantics out there). I’ll think of something…

Why I’m Doing This

My overall goal is to pursue any goal, any time. To do that, I see financial independence as the gateway, where more money is always better than less money. At some point, investments (whatever those happen to be) will become self-sustaining, thus not requiring myself to work for anything but personal interest all the time.

Thus, today’s pleasures need to be geared towards that end. It’s a race to the professional finish, a race I will win.