Category: Planning

Back to Adventure-Some’s Roots

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Way back when, as I first envisioned what I wanted Adventure-Some to become, it was grander than today’s results are. This is entirely my fault. I haven’t kept up my end of the bargain.
Here is a copy of my goals for Adventure-Some.com from the Manifesto:

  1. Help you find ways to include adventure in your daily life.
  2. Inject adventure into my daily life to prove it works.
  3. Provide easy step-by-step procedure to help you fulfill your dream.
  4. Live out adventures of my own as proof of the system.
  5. Highlight others who are living their adventures as further proof/motivation it is possible for you.
  6. Create a source of income that allows me to pursue further adventures in my own life.

I feel that I’ve been successful with 1-3, but have struggled with 4, neglected 5, and overlooked 6.

Neglecting #5

There is no excuse for this, I simply haven’t taken the time to interview folks. I have started highlighting fellow adventurers, such as Abby Sunderland. Fortunately, I have also had some reader submitted stories that I will be following up on (after the Featuring You post). Expect to see those soon!

Struggled with #4 and Overlooked #6

These two are tied together. As college students, my wife and I don’t have a lot of funds for the adventures we’d like to take. That doesn’t really hold us back much, but after piecing our work and school schedules together, we don’t have much in the way of free time. I have a couple of ideas that will help take care of these two issues in the near future.

Products are Coming!

I have intended to create some products to sell for some time now. Recently I have received the necessary motivation to actually get to it. Unfortunately, up until now, I have been giving in to my excuses even though I should know better.

  • Sticky-Note Love ebook – this ebook will outline one of the simple methods that I use to keep my wife madly in love with me, and her girlfriends jealous of how lucky she is!
  • Photo Scavenger Hunt Lists ebook – the two search terms that provide me the most traffic are “photo scavenger hunt list” and “photo scavenger hunt” so I thought that it would be prudent for me to create some scavenger hunt lists to help them out.
  • Basic Photography ebook – I spent a lot of time researching basic photography before I got comfortable with my camera. While I still have a lot to learn, a beginner’s “how to take photos” book would have greatly shortened my learning curve. This will be targeted toward people who want to take better photographs, but have no desire to learn how their camera works or what ISO means.
  • Custom Portraits – I’ve never mentioned it here before, but for a couple of years I earned all of my spending money by drawing portraits. I’m in the process of putting together a website dedicated to my art, which also has my commission policy on it.

My goal is to roll out at least one of these digital projects each month. Hopefully each one will bring in a steady trickle that, combined with the portraits, will allow my wife and I the freedom to pursue some of larger adventures on our 2010 Action Plan!

New Free Finance Tracking System

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Well, it took a bit longer than I planned, but I just finished my Finance Tracker 2.0! I wanted to simplify my finances so that I could track how I’m doing and plan for the future with one easy-to-use interface. After much fiddling with it, I finally have a new system that I’m pleased with.

This spreadsheet allows me to see each month’s budget and expenses, automatically averages my expenses over the year, is easily adjusted when I need to change a category (either income or expense), and tracks virtual accounts so that I can plan for long-term expenses. It only takes a few minutes every couple of days to keep up to date, and is easy to understand.

Even though I planned on having this done sooner, I wanted to test it out first. The previous version worked well, but was cumbersome and harder to read. I managed to pare this one down so that it takes up less room, is easier to understand, quicker to change, and faster to keep updated.

Having trouble keeping your finances in hand? Download a copy and see how helpful it can be. Need it customized for your situation? Let me know and I’ll see what I can do.

Re-Setting My Morning Routine

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I’m great at hitting the snooze button. It took me 40 minutes to get up this morning. Yesterday I stayed in bed for almost an hour longer than I intended. I wasn’t late, but I wasn’t nearly as prepared for the day as I wanted to be.

I do well for awhile, getting up with the first alarm, being ready for the day. Then I stay up too late one night and hit snooze the next morning. Soon, that snooze button becomes a habit and is quickly followed by another. Over time, I get to my current state and can hit snooze for almost an hour.

So it’s time for a morning routine re-set. I can get up at the first alarm. I can start my day without being rushed and annoyed with traffic. I can have time for breakfast before I leave the house in the morning. I just have to make myself get up when I plan to.

Ideal Routine

My dream morning consists of waking up when I want, cooking and eating breakfast with my wife (on the patio when the weather’s nice), getting a shower, then head to work and be ultra-productive.

Even though I don’t get to wake up when I want because of my school schedule, I can achieve the rest of this description.

  • Cooking doesn’t have to take a long time. Frying eggs only takes a few minutes. Muffins can cook while I do other parts of my morning routine. Throw fruit in the blender and I have a smoothie. – 3 meals, 5 minutes or less for each one.
  • I can shower fast, I just don’t wake up in time. A shower in the morning wakes me up and helps me feel better for the whole day.
  • Packing the night before makes me feel much less rushed in the morning. I don’t have to worry about forgetting anything and I can grab my bag and go.
  • When my day starts off right I am able to get so much more completed. I feel good, can focus, and am energized. It doesn’t feel like work to sit down and knock out a few tasks first thing. That momentum builds and work seems to take care of itself.

Schedule Interrupt

This is how I re-set my mornings, with a schedule interrupt.

  • Physical – I have to change my nightly routine; stay up late or go to bed early. This throws of my sleep patterns and helps me wake at a different time.
  • Mental – I also have to make a solid decision to get up at the first alarm in the morning. Visualizing it helps me, seeing myself get up at the first alarm, and walking through the routine immediately following.
  • Tricks – These two aren’t always enough motivation, so I have to force myself to get up. Since I use my cell phone as my alarm, I only set one alarm, instead of having a backup. I can also turn off snooze, so that I have to get up when it goes off or I will be late.

My process is simple, it just takes the desire to change and willingness to get there. This weekend I will be re-setting my morning routine. Do you need to join me?

Spreading Spreadsheet

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I haven’t forgotten about my updated finance tracking/planning system. Unfortunately, as I’m working on it, I keep finding bugs and improvements that I want to make.

I did manage to get the tracking and budget pages put together for the whole year. Unfortunately, I forgot a couple of new categories and as I’m inserting those I am finding some bugs. Fortunately, I’m finding those bugs now instead of after I’ve started using the system.

It does seem that in order to meet my goals of “easy to use take little time, and provide a lot of useful output” I have to make it rather complicated behind-the-scenes. More than the planned 13 pages, but much less scrolling on each page.

Current pages & their features:

  • Financial Life on One Page
    • shows accounts and status of emergency funds
  • Averages
    • pulls actual spending for each month for each category
    • shows average over a year’s time, so that can easily make budget
  • Fixed
    • list monthly fixed expenses in one place, pulled to tracking/budgeting pages
    • list monthly fixed payments and dates in one place, pulled to tracking/budgeting pages
    • can list annual amount and have monthly amount calculated
  • Budget Page
    • one for each month
    • fills in last month’s numbers, so that don’t have to start from blank each month
    • pulls info from that month’s tracking page
    • compares budgeted amounts to actual spending
    • pulls fixed amounts so don’t have to enter in more than once
  • Tracking Page
    • one for each month
    • tracks multiple accounts on one page
    • pulls budget numbers, so can quickly compare
    • pulls any automatic payments and dates so don’t have to enter multiple times

Just wanted to let you know that I haven’t forgotten and am still putting it together. It might be more complicated than I initially planned, but it will be much easier to use and provide more useful results than my old system!

Some of 2010’s Goals Completed Already!

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What an exciting start to the year! January isn’t over and I have already completed some of the goals in my 2010 Action Plan, and am working on others.

Visited Grandparents, Friends & Mexico

We headed out to Texas on January 2nd and stopped just north of Houston at a friends’ house for a couple of nights. It was wonderful to visit with them again, and to see their house/community for the first time. It was a lovely place and is on our “potential future places to live list”. We met some of their friends, attended church with them (which we loved) and explored a new-to-us restaurant (Sweet Tomato) that was delicious! All too soon we had to leave and head further south. Then we headed on to the grandparents’.

As an aside: My grandparents have been adventuring for years. They have travelled extensively in an RV, lived in the RV for half of the year for a number of years, and love to get out and explore new places and things.

We arrived at their house after an unenventful trip and they proceeded to show us around the town they call home half of the year. While there, we visited Mexico (the first time to visit for both of us) and had a wonderful time perusing the shops and seeing what they had to offer. My wife and I headed east to check out South Padre Island; I’m sure it is much better now without all of the college students taking it over like they do during spring break.

We explored an old mission, despite the spitting rain and ferocious winds. This same rain and wind caused us to be stranded in Mexico, as the ferry operators took their lunch break to escape the rising rain. Fortunately, it was a fairly quick lunch and we were safely returned to the United States.

More States Visited

Not only did my wife and I visit another country during this trip, but we traveled through a couple of new states. We’ve been through Tennessee many times, and through Missouri a couple of times as well. We drove through Arkansas, stopping a couple of times, and of course Texas was the destination of the trip. We don’t have a formal list made yet, but will in the near future so that we can track our progress.

No Sodas (or Cravings) this year!

I seem to have a gift for quitting sodas. December 31st I had about 3 times my normal amount. I haven’t had one since and have had only occasional cravings for the taste, and no headaches. I will say, though, that just before three days of driving is not the time to quite drinking sodas. Blech!

So Far So Good!

These completed goals are all exciting and are serving as wonderful motivation to keep going. I’m psyched about 2010 and can’t wait to see how the rest of it turns out!

2010 Action Plan

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After reviewing my life in 2009, I set about deciding what I want my life to look like in 2010. I followed this basic template to set my goals.

2010 – The Year of Growth

 

    Business – Create a business (or multiple mini-bizs) that provides the income for my wife and I to live from.

  • $900 take-home each month from own business ventures
  • Create products to sell – ebook is in the works & have contacted a partner for the marketing
  • Sell portraits and other artwork
  • Create and run niche websites – current topic ideas: artists, photography

 

    Friends & Family – Spend more quality time with my wife, family and friends.

  • Speak to family/friends once each week on phone
  • Go on monthly date with my wife
  • Spend 15 hours of quality time with my wife each week
  • Have friends over at least once a month
  • Read “His Needs, Her Needs” – this is an annual goal, to help my wife and I stay connected

 

    Travel – Complete the trips we’ve been desiring last couple of years.

  • See Moonbow
  • Visit grand-parents in Texas – We’re heading out tomorrow and will be visiting some friends on the way. We’ll also cross the border to Mexico for a visit.
  • Spring Break ministry trip with Cats for Christ Ministry – We’ve paid our deposit and reserved our spots already

 

    Spiritual – Grow closer to God and share that love with others while hopefully helping them to do the same.

  • Become better Christian
  • Read books that have already: Practical Christianity, The Jesus I Never Knew, How to get what you Want, etc.

 

    Art – Put into practice the daily habit of creating and developing into a “professional artist”.

  • Have private show in gallery
  • Fill two notebooks with sketches

 

    Education – Prepare for grad school while finding a way to finance it.

  • Take GRE – I have an exam prep book to begin studying
  • Find potential employers who will pay for school

 

    Physical – Get into better shape and stay there.

  • Run/bike ride 4 miles a day, 3 days a week for 50 weeks of the year
  • Complete 100 pushups
  • Complete 200 situps
  • Complete 200 squats
  • Stop drinking sodas

 

    Financial – Get finances in order and in line with God’s will, as I understand it.

  • Create emergency accounts
  • Give away a percentage of income

 

There you have it, my goals for 2010. A couple of these are not good goals, but only a couple; “be a better husband” is a bit too vague to be a good goal, but is a good starting point. Some of these goals help me complete some of the items on my Life List. Let me know what you think of my goals and watch as I work on them.

Creating a Clutter Free Desktop

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I’ve got a lot going on right now, so I need to be able to focus. If you’ve spent any time around me, you know that I don’t do fixed focus and single-tasking very well. Indeed, as I write this I am sitting outside watching traffic go by, listening to the iPod and writing (all while avoiding studying for tomorrow’s exam). This is not my ideal productive state, though I do manage to get some quality work done in similar environments.

Every so often I head over to Leo Babauta’s Zen Habits and see what lifestyle goodness has been posted recently. The latest excursion resulted in a number of posts that I had to catch up on, including one on how to Create a Minimalist Computer Experience. Again, if you have ever seen me on a computer, I am anything but a minimalist. Right now I have three text documents open (one in notepad and two in Open Office’s Writer), one folder open (all 4 of those are for the studying I’m supposed to be doing), as well as three different instances of the Chrome web browser, with a total of 36 tabs open between them.

Up until about 10 minutes ago, my computer’s desktop was cluttered with icons, notes written to myself, todo lists, etc. I followed some of the directions in Leo’s post and immediately felt better. I took a few minutes to sort through the stuff that I had on my desktop; all but 4 of them were either combined, moved, or deleted. Of these 5, one will remain (the recycle bin) and the other 3 are the task lists for projects that I am currently working on.

While I loved my background photo (you can see it here under the “something feathery” category), not only was it quite busy but I’ve also had it for awhile now and was in the mood to change. (I have a small collection of potential background photos, just for when I want to switch it up a bit.) My new background is much more simple and relaxing.

I prefer to leave my start bar legible, because of the clock in the bottom right corner. I like a minimal number of programs running, and consider widgets to be programs. I already had some short cuts implemented, and have been using them for years now, so that advice was nothing new to me.

I haven’t taken the leap of letting Google Desktop index my computer. While I’m sure it would be handy, I just haven’t seen the need. I guess it’s just not my style.

That’s where I’m at thus far. I spent about 10 minutes making my desktop less cluttered, which immediately helped me relax a little. Because of that I can now focus on the tasks at hand and get some important things taken care of. Now I need to make myself study, and then I can spend focus on knocking out some of those tabs… cause I really do have too many open. 😀

Targeting A Goal

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We have made our life list and narrowed it down to a year’s worth of goals; now it’s time to start achieving those goals!

I’m going to use my goal of “Be financially self-sufficient” as an example, as I feel that it will be the most challenging of my three. But first, let’s recap:

What makes a goal good:

A good goal is clearly defined, actionable and measurable.
My goal, as written, is not a good goal: “Be financially self-sufficient.” Let’s fix that.

  • Clearly Defined – What do I mean by “financially self-sufficient”? I further defined my goal by specifying that I want my income to not be dependent on an outside company; I don’t want to fear that I won’t get enough hours this week, that the boss will fire me or that the store will go out of business.
  • Actionable – A vague goal does not provide a target to work towards. A good goal narrows your aim.
    This is part of the reason that I combined this goal with another: “Have own successful business.” I can work towards building a successful business.
  • Measurable – You have to know when you have reached your goal. Being measurable draws that line in the sand. To cross my line, my business has to provide enough income each month to cover my budget.

Ok, now that we’ve got a good goal to work with “Control my own income by owning a successful business whose monthly income covers my budget” it’s time to get started!

Plan Your Steps

Figure out how you are going to reach your goal, actually write down the steps. This process can be handled in a couple of different ways. You might want to work from beginning to end: the first thing that you need to do, the second, next after that, next after that, reach your goal. You may prefer to work backwards: reach your goal, the last thing you did, the thing before that, the one before that, the first thing you do. Is it easier for you to picture yourself completing your goal, or working towards it? Whichever it is, start at that picture, and work to the other side of your journey.

To build a successful business, I have to:

  • determine where my strengths are
  • figure out how I can use those strengths to provide value for others
  • determine how best to monetize the providing of that value
  • set up a vehicle (business) through which I can share that value
  • begin providing value
  • expand my efforts until I reach my target income

What is the first step that you need to take to reach your goal? Do you need to find out just how big around LBL is, when and where you are most likely to see a moonbow or what strength you want to build your business around? (Probably not, unless you are borrowing my goal list.) Whatever it is, find out! You will probably be surprised how reachable your goal is.

Schedule Your Plan

With a calendar in front of you, lay out a time-line for each step in your plan. Keep in mind that these are not set in stone. Some of them will be take less time than you think, while others will stretch out longer. Don’t be surprised when things don’t go according to plan and be willing to work with these changes.

During this stage it is also a good idea to see how your different goals fit together. Perhaps your goals are large enough that you don’t need more than one or two. If that is the case, allow yourself to put the others on hold. Don’t spread yourself too thin. Two of my goals are relatively easy to achieve, both requiring more in the way of deciding to pursue them than planning and effort. The financial self-sufficiency goal is much more involved. I scheduled the smaller goals so that they serve as much-needed recreation during some of the harder times as I build my business.

Only One More Thing

At this point, the hard part is out of the way… figuring out what you have to do, determining a time-frame to do it in; only one thing is left. Take out that calendar, look at that first step and DO IT!

My Life List

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Twenty years from now you will be more disappointed by the
things that you didn’t do than by the things that you did do.

Wednesday we discussed the importance of making your life list and you made yours. (You did, didn’t you?) Here is my wife and I’s. We have already completed some of our goals, as evidenced by the mark-throughs. A couple of the lists are only for one of us, but the vast majority are combined goals. The items with a * beside them are continuous goals. Some of the items still need further definition, but at least we have something to begin working towards.

 

    Family

  • Get married to man/woman of my dreams
  • * Best husband/wife that I can be
  • have children – 2-3 in 9 years
  • – decide how want children to end up – this one still has to be defined further
  • visit host family (again/meet)

 

    Spiritual

  • Read all of Bible
  • * Best Christian that I can be

 

    Education

  • * Never stop learning
  • learn to sail
  • learn to fly airplane
  • learn to fly helicopter
  • become fluent in language – able to have conversation w/ native speaker
  • learn Finnish – able to have conversation w/ native speaker
  • start college
  • graduate college
  • take an offensive driving course
  • study abroad

 

    Financial

  • be debt free
  • $10,000 emergency fund
  • be financially self sufficient – not be dependent upon a specific company or two for our income

 

    Professional

  • have own successful business – something we enjoy running that provides enough income to live comfortably off of
  • sell my artwork

 

    Travel

  • visit all 7 continents
  • visit New Zealand
  • stay in bungalo built over ocean on stilts
  • motorcycle trip across the US
  • see the Northern Lights
  • see MoonBow
  • Bike ride across US
  • Visit all 50 states
  • Travel out of US

 

    Recreation

  • Thru-hike AT
  • Thru-hike Sheltowee Trail
  • hot air balloon ride
  • hang glide
  • skydive
  • bungee jump
  • circumnavigate LBL
  • go rappelling

 

    Hobbies

  • take photography class
  • own running/reliable motorcycle
  • knit sweater
  • learn violin/piano
  • earn black belt

 

    Community

  • live in RV
  • Live in SailBoat
  • design/build own house
  • build log cabin

 

    Charity

  • sponsor a child
  • * be generous with time
  • * be generous with money
  • * be generous with emotions

 

    Other

  • have a custom made suit

There is my life list. Monday I will show you how I made it actionable. If you haven’t created your list yet, go back to Wednesday’s post and do that! Monday we will start working on it.

Define Your Life

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I’m sure you know what you want to to today. You might even know your goals for this week. What about this year? This life?
Without set goals, it is too easy to live day-to-day, in a reactive state. If you are living in such a way, you can almost feel as if you are just treading water, trying to stay afloat. Then one day you look up and wonder where the years have gone.

I know what my goals are for this month, this year, and for my life. I am excited each week about the tasks I have to complete. Over the next few weeks I will show you my goals and how I plan to reach some of them while helping you set and reach your own. Today you get to create your own goals and Friday I will show you my list.

Good goals help improve your life in a number of ways:

  • Help reduce the clutter.
    If you know the end results that you are aiming for, then you can eliminate the actions that do not move you towards those ends. Whenever you face a decision, you have criteria to make your decision by. Does this help me reach my goals? If so, do it. If not, then don’t. You will find yourself being more productive because
    you are focusing on what is truly important to you.
    A simple example would be that I want to have a successful website, and I spend time playing Solitaire. Solitaire does nothing to help move me towards the website, so I have a good reason to stop doing this time-wasting activity. By using that time to work on the website, it will become successful faster.
  • Provide energy.
    I don’t know about you, but I am more motivated when I know what I’m working towards. It doesn’t matter if it is homework, running, or some other project; a clearly defined target gives me a finish line. The closer I get to that finish line, the more I want to reach it and the harder I will work.
    This is even more true when working towards something important to me, personally. You will find that, as you reduce the clutter, everything that you are involved in will be more aligned with things that are truly important to you, which will give you even more motivation and energy to complete them.
  • Let you know when to quit.
    Have you ever worked on a project and didn’t know when you were finished? Where you unmotivated and not interested in working on it? A well-defined goal explains when you have reached it so you can rest and move on to the next one.

What makes a goal good:

A good goal is clearly defined, actionable and measurable.
Here is an example of a common goal, one that is not good: Get in better shape.

  • Clearly Defined – What do you mean by “better shape”? Do you want to be stronger, have more endurance, or lose weight? Specify what you mean in your goal.
    ex: I want to be stronger.
  • Actionable – A vague goal does not provide a target to work towards. A good goal narrows your aim.
    ex: I want to bench press more weight.
  • Measurable – You have to know when you have reached your goal. Being measurable draws that line in the sand. If you leave our example alone, “bench press more weight” you could lift one more pound tomorrow and have completed it, or you could continue increasing the weight every week and never feel that you reached your goal. You need to have a specific target to reach.
    ex: I want to bench-press my body-weight.

Today’s Task:

Now that you know the benefits of having defined goals, and what constitutes a good goal, it’s time to set your own goals. There are many names for the goal list that you are about to create, such as Life List and Bucket List. No matter what you call it, it is time to come up with a list of goals that you want to achieve during your life.
– Required materials are simple: a piece of paper, writing instrument, and some time.
– Instructions are also simple: Write down the things that you want to achieve during your life, keeping in mind that your goals need to be clearly defined, actionable and measurable.

Here are some tips to keep in mind while making your list:

  • Dream big! Don’t think about where you are now, think about what you want to do. No matter what it is, you can do it.
  • Don’t forget to think small. Just because others might not think that it is a spectacular goal doesn’t matter; if it is important to you, include it on your list.
  • Categories: If it is helpful, here are some categories that are commonly included when creating a goal list: Family, Spiritual, Education, Financial, Professional, Travel, Recreation, Hobbies, Community, Charity.
  • You can change your list. A common question is “what if I don’t like my list?” People change over time, including their goals. Fortunately, you can change your list as well. It is not set in stone, and you are the one that made it. Simply make a new list and work on that one instead.
  • It doesn’t have to be perfect. If you can’t get all of your goals defined perfectly, just write down what you have. You can narrow them down when it comes time to start working on them.

This is not a new concept, you have probably heard of it before. As have many other people. However, few people actually create the list. Fewer still actually try to complete their list; many tuck it into a drawer and forget all about it until they pull it out some years down the road.

Will you be one of those who either never makes a list or makes one only to tuck it into a drawer somewhere? Or will you take a blank piece of paper and use it to improve the rest of your life?