Author: Jimmy Chattin

Download for the road. (11m 50s)

Remember when I was accepted and excited for GDC?

Ya…

Times, they are a’changin’.

Download for the road. (7m 43s)

February has started with full force! After a humming-and-hawing January, I aim to get after my goals with a vengeance.

But what are my goals? As a reminder, my overarching goal at this stage of life is Financial Independence. To achieve FI, there are key sub tasks that contribute, including properties and semi-passive investments, monetizing my strongest creative hobbies, and, of course, my day job.

As life is full of distraction, I’ve come up with “Yes” and “No” lists I’ll test-drive in February.

Say “Yes” to:

• Self-upkeep (I can keep functioning personally and in society)
• Strong relationships
• Keeping in touch
• Podcasting
• Property and semi-passive investments
• 30 minute, high-intensity workouts
• 30 minute stretches
• Doing things to sell those things
• Keeping the day job happy
• Regular sleep (10 PM to 7 AM, give or take)

Say “No” to:

• Casual hanging out
• Clubbing and late nights
• Gaming, especially if used as an escape
• Long workouts
• Anything and everything else

My Goals Due EOM:

1. Housing
   1. The primary goal. Do every day. See where that leads me. Patience is key here, as though property is of great future benefit, it’s also of the greatest risk of any of the Financial Independence sub-tasks.
2. Writing
   1. Important, but secondary. Available to do only after I’ve done due diligence to my daily housing task. Getting an eBook out asap may be in order versus closing out my first novel Shallow Seas (though it now appears to be an episodic anthology 😑).
3. Overtime
   1. I put out a podcast talking about crunch hitting for a project at work. As my job is the greatest gift to eventual independence and the timely success of the project I feel directly impacts my future, I’ll be putting in overtime. Nothing too drastic, as I plan for only 4 hours on the weekend in addition to scaling up my day-to-day grind by a few hours. And it bears repeating that this is temporary, a bit of momentary pain for a future of joy.
4. Yes and No
   1. This is a passive goal, where I hold myself to saying “yes” and saying “no” to the right things, the important things.

And that’s all I’ll be doing in February. Of course I’ll be sure to have some fun (my birthday is tomorrow 😃), but the month is about work. Work work work. Discipline is the name of the game this month, and I aim not to let my future self down, or break the promises of my current self.

You! Reader! Go forth and conquer what in the way to your goals, even if that is yourself. Before you do that though, let me know what you’re getting after in the comments. Cheers!

Download for the road. (5m 31s)

First month of the year is over, and what a ride it was. Out of what was expected for the month, things got out of hand quickly, though in largely good ways.

If you’ve not time for the audio, here’s a breakdown:

1. Writing
   1. Failed. Only accomplished about 12 hours of my sought for 14 per week spent writing. Of course this could be counted as being leeched off into the Private Goal, but that feels like cheating, especially since I refactored writing podcast scripts to count as writing time. 🤷🏻‍♂️
2. Housing
   1. Won. Had to do a little mid-month refactoring (this was planned for) on this though. From 7 to 4 hours, I was able to hit this goal very well. I’m in the process of getting pre-approvals for loans – wish me well as I continue to seek property investments!
3. Private Goal
   1. WON. Overwhelming success. Embarrassingly so, as I didn’t expect such things to happen to such extremes (+451% more time spent on this than planned for). It’s ongoing too, though I won’t be considering it a thing needing goal time.
4. Leisure
   1. Won-ish. “-Ish” because this feels like a shallow victory 😑 No games played, not really any movies watched… I count reading before sleep a leisure activity, and that alone was able to hit the minimum 4 hours a week. (I’ll be more aggressive on such goals in the future!)

75%. Better than last month, though we can do better. Regardless, I’ve improved my life in the last 30-odd days ❤ How have you gotten closer to your goals? Let me know!

Download for the road. (10m 35s)

Hello there. Remember this post back in December? The one where I had to redo my December goals? Here’s the audio to that. Though the cast talks a bit about past events, it has a message about self-imposed tyranny I think we could benefit from.

Give a listen, drop a comment, and I’ll be chatting with you next week! Cheers!

(And apologies for the audio quality – this was the lost audio which was also done without a pop filter. 🤷🏻‍♂️)

(Featured image of chains and devices from Pexels.com.)

Download for the road. (5m 37s)

WELCOME TO THE TWENTIES, FOLKS!

I had a meager month in December, though it was terribly fun 😍

In January, I aim to keep a bit of that pleasurable heat, siphoning off some of it for means of production that contribute to my Financial Independence goals.

To do that, I have not really concrete goals, per say, but a schedule to follow for the month of January.

My Goals Due EOM:

1. Write
   1. 14 hours a week. Want to finish a novel by March, which has 336 hours set aside for goals. 14 or more hours a week gets me to the 160 to 226 hours necessary to finish the Shallow Seas first draft.
2. Housing
   1. 7 hours per week. Never thought I’d own a home, but it’s the third most lucrative decision (retroactively) behind working a day job and endeavoring to monetize my writing.
3. Private
   1. 2-3 hours a week will hopefully let me check a lot of boxes in my life. I may or may not tell you more, and more time may be allocated to this from other goals… Just know where my attention is and know it’ll be of objective benefit 😊
4. Leisure
   1. 3.5 hours to 7 hours a week of games! Making games! Movies! Travel! These things must be planned for as they’ve slipped off the radar, though not necessarily for decent reasons.
      I’ve a shortlist of games and game designs to work on, as well as places to travel to in 2020. Whatever else gets added or removed, adding frivolous recoup time is my last goal for the month.

Am I too far off here? A lot of calculation has been done over the returns of these goals, all efforts feeding into my arch-goal of Financial Independence.

Let me know in comment what I’ve missed or misjudged. I value your perspective – you protect my blind spots! (You may notice podcasting is absent – that’s intentional. I’ll keep the casts up, though they will not be an excuse to skip out on higher-return efforts 😉)

Anyway, have a lovely month. I trust you are starting the decade off just right ~

Cheers!