Blog Indiana 2008

2007-10-10 Groundhog Day Resolution Review

Well, that was interesting…

I have a problem with Groundhog Day Resolution Reviews. Looking back at each month and re-evaluating my goals, I’ve felt very disconnected from them. It’s almost as if they weren’t my goals. I look at them each month, and they seem so foreign. I think it may be because I haven’t turned these goals into impactful, measurable goals. I don’t really look at the goals on a daily or weekly basis. It’s pretty anti-GTD, honestly. What this means is that each month I review my goals and they feel like they are always less than satisfying.

This month, though, I just flat out haven’t done anything. With good reason…

Not long after I posted my GHDR for 9/9, we found out some surprising news. My wife’s job was being eliminated. Well, technically, it was a restructuring and there ended up being the same number of jobs, just 7 promotions and 26 demotions. Unfortunately for us, it meant no job here in Wisconsin. We had the option to job hunt and live on 1/3 our previous income or have her go for a promotion. Our family situation is very complicated, however, so that meant some careful thought and consideration. We couldn’t just up and move out of state.

So to make a very long story short, we’ll be moving to Indianapolis, Indiana. Hopefully, it will work out before the holidays, but much depends on our ability to sell our current house in the lovely real estate market out there. The Wife has already begun a weekly commute down there for her new job. As far as my goals are concerned, I’ve failed every last one of them. But I’d rather not dwell on that quite yet. I’d rather investigate the things that I did accomplish.

My primary accomplishment is that I led my family well. I helped my wife by providing stability amidst a chaotic situation. I helped remind her in those emotional moments that her company was making a business decision, not one against her specifically. Ultimately, I made the call as the head of our household on what to do. As she has already started the new role in Indy, I’m back here in Wisconsin playing the role of both dad and mom. The challenge is keeping the lives of our boys as stable as possible until the move.

Previous goals

A quick recap of my previous goals follows.

Be Fit

Exercise has all but gone out the window. I’m too exhausted to get up and work out in the morning. My diet has degraded to whatever I can find to eat that’s quick and tasty. Other unhealthy bad habits have cropped up too.

Write More

I started well with the Moleskin daily journaling, but even this has fallen by the wayside in the past two weeks.

Deliberate Dates

Nothing happened here. Move along ;-)

New Goals

It seems that October is a good month for new goals, a fall reset, as it were. I’m changing some of my goals to meet the current situation and hope to be successful in their implementation.

Prep our House to Sell

Before we can truly get moved down to Indy, we need to get our house sold.

  • Meet with 2 realtors to determine a selling price. 10/19.
  • Sort through all our junk to have a garage sale. My mother-in-law has been recruited to handle the actual sale, but everything needs to be sorted and moved to her house by 10/18.
  • Declutter for showings by 10/23.
  • Bang through as much of the Honey-do list of repairs as is possible. This list will most likely grow after meeting with the realtors. 10/23.

Look for a new house in Indy

  • Review listings suggested by realtor. 10/12.
  • Visit Indy and attend some showings. 10/28.

Business dealings

I’m moving to a new city where I know not a soul. While I’m fortunate to have a steady supply of work with my current cilent, I also understand that building a network and portfolio of work takes time. In the past, I’ve played the part of onsite consultant. For the first time, I really need to look at true freelancing; off-site from my home. This needs to be a priority for a solid footing for after the move. I have a plan for how I’m going to accomplish this, but its definitely a far second to getting the house ready for sale.

  • Touch base with my remaining contacts here to see if they know anyone down there. 10/19.
  • Create a networking website (with a minimum of a blog) for Indianapolis freelancers. 11/2.
  • Freshen up my business website. 11/11.
  • Attend the User Interface conference in Cambridge, MA. 11/8.

Servanthood Leadership

At our church, we’ve frequently talked about servanthood leadership. This is the concept that Jesus espoused, that a good leader leads by serving those to whom he reports. The traditional business concept is the inverted org chart. Where I haven’t heard much discussion or given much thought to is as the head of our household. I need to model servanthood to the boys and The Wife.

  • Find one active way to serve my sons each day.
  • Continue to remember that we must function as a family, and therefore its important to continue to do deliberate activities together at least once per week.

Be fit

I’m not going to set much of a goal here, other than keeping an eye on my diet.

  • Cut soda and junk snacks from my diet. 10/19.
  • Begin tracking dietary intake again. 11/2

Write More

I’m going to start using my daily journal entry as a place to track these goals with more regularity. At the next review, I should have a nice bullet list to know where my successes have been.

What the heck are Groundhog Day Resolutions?

The whole idea for moving New Year’s Resolutions to Groundhog Day instead was an idea by David Seah. The best part of the idea is a monthly review to see how the goals have gone and to readjust as necessary. To make it more memorable, Dave suggests doing the review on the day that matches the number of the month (2/2, 3/3, 4/4, etc.)

The GHDR quartet

There are four primary followers of the Groundhog Day Resolution Reviews (that I know of). Below is a link to the others.

Previous series posts

My previous claptrap on the subject:

Posted on October 10, 2007 in Uncategorized.    

8 Comments

  1. Gaz said:

    Thanks for the linkback John. How come you didn’t holler when I was looking for other GHDRers last month? So now there are four of us :-)

    I find it interesting that we all found that our 2/2 (4/4 in my case, but I’m late for *everything*) resolutions don’t seem applicable anymore this month. And I wrote my review on Tuesday, without the benefit of first reading anyone else’s first.

    Maybe once the review dates hit double digits we do need that reboot?

    October 11th, 2007 at 5:28 pm
  2. Corrie said:

    Wow — that’s a lot of change, and I can see how goals would get derailed! Looks like everyone is having an “off” month, which strangely makes me feel a little better. :-)

    October 11th, 2007 at 9:17 pm
  3. John said:

    Gaz: I don’t think I saw your post last month, so that would be why. Looking back through your GHDR posts, you linked to me in August (http://blog.azazil.net/420-groundhog-day-resolutions.html), so you’re already tracking me :-)

    Corrie: Yeah, it’s been interesting. The nice thing is that I’ve been able to reevaluate my goals and truly understand which of them are important to me and which are just “ideals”.

    October 12th, 2007 at 7:18 am
  4. Naomi Dunford said:

    Hi there,

    Sorry to leave this in comments, but I’m incredibly dumb and couldn’t find your contact link. I just wanted to say that I read your comment on Freelance Switch today and I thought it was really great. I love Dell-a! I think I might be having my own inappropriate relationship with her. :)

    Anyway, thanks and I really like the look of your blog.

    Have a great weekend…

    October 12th, 2007 at 3:00 pm
  5. Noah said:

    Sorry to hear about your bad month. I know if my wife lost her job suddenly, we’d be hurting pretty bad until she found another one.

    I came across this post while looking for freelance web designer/developers in Indianapolis. I am one such person living in Indianapolis and have recently started a freelance web designer/developer group (online). It is rather small right now, but you are more than welcome to join! We’ve already had one local business owner sign-up who was looking for a group like ours to post freelance jobs to. I hope to get more of that.

    Also, feel free to give me a shout. I’m sure it can be daunting to not know anyone in a new city! Good luck with your house!

    October 19th, 2007 at 5:35 am
  6. Noah said:

    Sorry to post again, It doesn’t look like the URL for the site was included with my name. The site is: http://indylance.com

    October 19th, 2007 at 5:37 am
  7. John said:

    Thanks, Noah… I’ll be sure to check it out. The link doesn’t show up because I broke my WP theme. It’s one of those things I haven’t gotten around to fixing yet.

    October 19th, 2007 at 8:44 am
  8. » 2007-11-11 Groundhog Day Resolution Review - uhri.com said:

    [...] Resolution Review day is here again. Last month, I completely revamped my goals to more accurately align with the craziness going on in my life at [...]

    November 11th, 2007 at 12:42 am
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