Some progress, but not as much as I like. Other priorities claim my time and attention, but they deserve it. So nothing to feel bad about, just something to report about.

Progress report on goals

Goal 1: Write 100 blog posts
Goal 2: No candy or chips
Goal 3: Photography everyday

The intentions for this week were better than the results. I did not write as much as I intended, although the start was good. Other priorities (other projects …) are at the core of this, and I’m very much okay with that! I do realize that this goal has a fairly large claim on my time, and any backlog will be noticed …

The “no candy or chips” goals performed a lot better! I noticed this week how much of a habit it became to go to a vending machine to get a late afternoon snack. I really needed to consciously suppress that urge! I managed to do that. Only on one night did I fail this goal, and I was being very honest there. This goal really was to suppress the urge to snack late at night and late in the afternoon. The day I failed the goal, was of a different kind. This night was just a cosy night with my wife, with something nice to drink and some chips as a snack. But nevertheless …

And taking photos everyday … well, I didn’t do that enough. I see pictures all around me, and often I just don’t stop to make them. Sometimes because I’m in a hurry to catch a train, and sometimes because I know my iPhone is simply not capable of taking the picture. I really should carry a better camera … or take the time to find something creative to shoot with something simple as an iPhone camera.

Blog performance

The blog metrics:

• Average daily visitors: 266 (-41)
• Average subscribers: 289 (old feed) + 953 (new feed) = 1242 (+1)

I’m still too busy with a lot of other stuff to really give serious attention to the blog and to promotion, so I guess this kind of development is to be expected. I know what to do, and my active involvement in the A-list blogging club is a constant reminder of that.

The club is open for all new members until Thursday April 15 by the way, and that’s special because it used to be open for ex-bootcamp members only. For $20 a month you get access to material and monthly live video sessions by Leo Babauta of Zen Habits and Mary Jaksch of GoodLife Zen. You’ll also get access to the forums, where a variety of members exchange information and knowledge. It’s a valuable resource, as far as I’m concerned and I recommend it to everyone. I would highly recommend it, even if there wasn’t an affiliate program (I suck at affiliate marketing by the way … )

Anyway, other priorities are taking my time and attention. And they rightly deserve it at this point in time, so the blog is on maintenance mode, instead of on full-blown growth mode

The first period of six weeks has come to an end. So it’s time to look back at the total progress on the goals I set myself. And it’s time to set three new goals for the coming period of six weeks.

Progress report on goals

Goal 1: Get rid of 100 things
Goal 2: Strength training everyday
Goal 3: Make music

The six weeks are over and although you can see that not all bars are at the 100% level, I consider this first six weeks a success! First of all, the 100 things goal has reached the 100% mark. This is the stuff I got rid of:

100 things less in the house, it really cleared up some spaces of the house, but at the same time it only scratched the surface of all the stuff that we own. This exercise really makes you aware of how many stuff you’ve got around, and how many stuff you actually use or actually want to keep.

A nice side effect for this exercise was also that I found all kinds of stuff that my wife had lost I could’ve reached the 100% mark earlier, but I ran everything through the “Spouse Acceptence Test”, and a lot of stuff I was ready to say goodbye to ultimately ended up not passing the SAT.

The Strength goal was a success as well. I did not make it to 100%, but over the course of the 42 days I reached a 75% success rate. This means that I did some exercises on 3 days out of 4. Which is way more than I did before the six week period. I’ve also noticed some progress on stamina for some of the exercises, I really improved in my ability to do push-ups. 25 was tough in the beginning, but now I can do 50 without overexerting myself.

The Music goal was a goal for fun. I wanted to make more music, and I succeeded at that. I made NO music before this six week period. And in this period I almost hit the 40% mark, which is awesome! I also worked my way around the problem of not being able to make noise when my family sleeps. A new keyboard with headphones, just me and the music, without waking anybody up.

This was an awesome period. Life besides the goals was a little hectic though. I’ve felt out of control on many occasion, but things are getting better now

It’s time for three new goals.

New Six Week Goals

Time for three new goals. One results goal, one effort goal and one fun goal.

Results Goal:

Write 100 blog posts
This one is ambitious, but I’ve been behind on writing blog posts. I really want to write more, and I want my blogs to grow. Blogs, because I’m talking about this blog and about De InspiratieKamer, the Dutch blog I started with Remco Langeler.

100 posts is more than 2 posts per day, so this is going to be a lot, and falling behind on the goal is going to be a problem. I won’t be publishing all 100 posts in the 42 days, that’s too much. I will definitely publish a lot, but I’ll also have posts available for guest posting. And it’ll be a good feeling to have some posts “in stock”.

Effort Goal:

No candy or chips
This is another goal in the “shape up” goal, just like the Strength goal in the previous period. For the coming 42 days I’m not going to eat any potato chips or candy. They are weak spots for me, I usually turn to them in the afternoon or late evening when I feel a little hungry. That’s a choice, but it’s slowly growing into an unwanted habit. So this goal is to break the habit forming characteristic of this goal.

Fun Goal:

Photography everyday
After working with music for the last six weeks, I’ve decided to move to another hobby I’ve neglected for a long time: photography. I like looking at the world around me and I like creating images that show the world in different perspectives. Or to show parts of the world that are overlooked or taken for granted. So for the coming six weeks I’m going to take pictures everyday.

The new six week period starts tomorrow, tuesday april 6 and ends on monday may 17.

Blog performance

The blog metrics:

• Average daily visitors: 307 (-10)
• Average subscribers: 290 (old feed) + 951 (new feed) = 1241 (-26)

Ouch.

The title says it all. A lot of what I’m doing with these goals and reports hasn’t turned into a habit yet. I missed a weekly report, six daily reports and several days of goals. Not quite the progress to put on display, but it’s here. These reports are not to show how good I am, they’re a means for me to report back to myself and to you on how I am doing with these goals.

It’s a pitfall to forge results when you’re holding yourself accountable in public (like I’m doing now), but that would be fooling everybody including yourself. Improvement doesn’t come from faked reports, improvement comes from holding yourself brutally accountable and acting on it.

Progress report on goals

Goal 1: Get rid of 100 things
Goal 2: Strength training everyday
Goal 3: Make music

I’m still behind on all the goals, and only the 100 things goal can still reach completion. But because of the nature of goals 2 and 3 (counting the successful and unsuccessful days), just one day in the red renders the 100% mark unreachable.

I have to say that the 100 things goal is very helpful for me. Besides getting rid of a lot of stuff, I also got rid of a lot of other distractions. That said, I still got 35 things to go and time is running out. I did manage to collect a total of €94 by selling some stuff.

I did not perform well on the strength goal. I’ve had quite some busy days in the past week, that left me drained from energy. Some days I simply didn’t want to do any exercises, and other days I just forgot. Hardly a habit yet. I’m going to define a basic set of exercises, that I have to do no matter what. It needs to be a simple set, so there’s no excuse for not doing it.

The music goal has also not been a complete success. I played on some days and I’m feeling some progress in playing. There’s still a major learning curve to be conquered, but I’m enjoying it and that was the goal.

Blog performance

The blog metrics:

• Average daily visitors: 317 (+1)
• Average subscribers: 315 (old feed) + 952 (new feed) = 1267 (+5)

Steady.

This report is a couple of days overdue, but I’m posting it anyway. I had another strange week with no posts, but I did have some steady progress.

Progress report on goals

Goal 1: Get rid of 100 things
Goal 2: Strength training everyday
Goal 3: Make music

Looking at the chart it’s obvious that I’m behind on schedule for all the goals. The 100 things goal has made the most progress, and is over the 50% mark. I got rid of 14 things in total, and sold two items for a total of €30. In total I got rid of 51 items and sold stuff for € 84.

As far as the strength goal is concerned, this one is doing fine. I missed two days in a row, but on those days my body was telling me not to do them … and I learned in the past that listening to your body is important.

I played on some days in the past week. Not every day, but definitely more than before. I have some songs to practice on and I’m going to need plenty of time to master them. I try to practice every day, since I know that’ll give the best learning curve.

Nothing spectacular this week, but steady progress.

Blog performance

The blog metrics:

• Average daily visitors: 316 (-38)
• Average subscribers: 305 (old feed) + 957 (new feed) = 1262 (-47)

That was to be expected.

I really like doing these weekly reviews again. I realise that they’re mostly relevant for me, but the rhythm of posting them on this blog is providing me with a lot of value. I just hope that they inspire you in some way too

Progress report on goals

Goal 1: Get rid of 100 things
Goal 2: Strength training everyday
Goal 3: Make music

I made no progress in the 100 things goal this week. It’s been a busy week, with a funeral and some busy days at work after a holiday week. I did sell the cat door this week though, so the total cash in for this activity is €54 now. But this goal needs some more attention, but I have no doubt that I will come to the 100 things before the end of the 42 days.

The strength training goal has slipped a bit this week. I missed two entire days, and that’s not good. But reporting it daily made me aware of the days I’ve missed, so that’s a good habit! Although I was also late with two daily reports…

The music goal made progress this week. I did not practice much, mainly for the same reasons as last week. When I have time, I can’t make noise anymore. I went looking for alternatives to enable me to make music without making noise. It had to be an instrument that I could play while listening to headphones. I discovered that most keyboards (if not all) have that functionality, but I also discovered that it was possible to play electric guitar that way.

That posed a little dilemma, because I want to learn to play the guitar, and I want to make music. Yet I’m an absolute beginner when it comes to the guitar, so playing music on the guitar is something a bit further down the road. And to get there I’d have to buy an electric guitar, the headphone-box and (in time) a guitar amplifier.

So I decided to buy a keyboard. I found a good deal for the Yamaha YPT-410, a nice keyboard with touch-sensitive keys. This means that the keys respond to the amount of force you play them, which kind of resembles the response a piano would give.

I took my 3 year old son with me to the music store. He loved it there, an enormous amount of instruments and they sell all the stage stuff there too. Anyway, we bought the keyboard and ended up playing with it for three hours straight when we came home. Toddlers learn fast! He loves music, and really enjoyed playing with the keyboard.

Blog performance

The blog metrics:

• Average daily visitors: 354 (+4)
• Average subscribers: 319 (old feed) + 990 (new feed) = 1309 (+1)

Hardly any change.

No posts in the past week, but you figured that out already. This week was a strange week, even though it was a holiday week from work. It started with my family getting sick. One each day, luckily I dodged the bullet so I could care for them. In their recovery period we had to deal with the news that my wife’s grandpa passed away. He was 85, had outlived his wife by six years and lived long enough to see our children, his great-grandchildren. It was special to see them together, three generations apart.

So even though it was a holiday week, it didn’t feel like one. But it was most fortunate that I had all that time on my hands to deal with all the events of the week. In the meanwhile I did get some work done, and I managed to make some progress on my goals.

Progress report on goals

Goal 1: Get rid of 100 things
Goal 2: Strength training everyday
Goal 3: Make music

As the chart shows, progress is pretty good. I did some strength training every day, since the start of the goal. I got rid of 37 things so far, and even earned €10 from selling a fax machine. Nothing major, but nice anyway.

The music goal is somewhat troublesome. Not that I don’t want to make music, but I find that whenever I have time to make some music I can’t make noise in the house. Either because everybody is sleeping, or because my 9 month old daughter is sleeping. I need to find a way to squeeze in some more music, or a way to make music without making noise

If you’re interested, I’m reporting on my goals on a daily basis on my Tumblr blog, beans.

Blog performance

The blog metrics:

• Average daily visitors: 350 (+10)
• Average subscribers: 317 (old feed) + 991 (new feed) = 1308 (-9)

Hardly any change.

Yes, I missed last week’s review. And no, I don’t regret it. I was spending some quality time with my wife in a Japanese Spa (not in Japan though…) on Valentine’s day. Although that last part was more of a coincidence; we usually don’t do much for Valentine’s day. But only a week later, there’s another Sunday. Another chance to do a weekly review, so here it is.

New goals!

If you read my previous article, you know that I set new goals. There are only three of them, and the deadline is only 42 days away. And only two of them are really measurable.

Goal 1: Get rid of 100 things
Goal 2: Strength training everyday
Goal 3: Make music

Number 1 is focused on getting the result. Number 2 is about the effort and shaping a habit, and number 3 is about having fun.

Progress

As far as progress is concerned … there’s not much to report yet. I set the start date for the goals on Saturday February 20. So there’s only one day behind us now. In that day, there was only something to report for goal 2. For those of you interested, I’m keeping a daily score on my Tumblr blog, beans. I’m also in the process of using beans on Tumblr, for assorted links, thoughts, doodles and other related stuff for be an original.

Blog performance

First of all, the blog metrics:

• Average daily visitors: 340
• Average subscribers: 318 (old feed) + 999 (new feed) = 1317

Even though the number of subscribers on the old address has declined a little, there are still a LOT of subscribers on that feed. Please switch to the new feed! The new adress is: http://feeds.beanoriginal.net/beanoriginal

Both visitor numbers and subscriber numbers have increased a little. The fact that I was actively involved in the bootcamp of A-List Blogging Bootcamps last week, may have had an effect on that.

I’m still in the process of defining new goals, even though I wanted to have them finished by this weekend. But that was before I knew that I would make a growth step this week. That got me thinking some more about what I want to achieve, and even though it may not change the goals I’m going to set, it was definitely a moment that I will remember vividly.

Defining new goals

Last week I wrote that the process I’m going through is a growth process. One of the characteristics of growth processes is that they’re hard to squeeze into a timeframe. I experienced that first hand this week (once again … I’m kind of stubborn with regard to this characteristic!).

Initially I planned on writing a new post about my personal mission statement this week, reviewed in the light of the revisited personal core values. I did some of the work for that exercise, but then Wednesday happened. I was at a concert and I made a growth step. Several of my personal core values were working in harmony to make something clear to me. It worked.

But that has taken a lot of my thinking time, and that time was not spent on the mission statement revaluation. I’m still in that process and will finish that early next week.

The outlines of the three goals I’m going to set are slowly forming already, but I don’t want to get ahead of the process. But the division between the goals – one based on effort, one based on results, and one just for fun – is something that has gained even more appeal this week.

Blog performance

First of all, the blog metrics:

• Average daily visitors: 336
• Average subscribers: 325 (old feed) + 987 (new feed) = 1312

As you can see, subscribers are still divided over the old and the new feed. Thankfully, most of you have made the switch already, but please check your feed address.

The new adress is: http://feeds.beanoriginal.net/beanoriginal

Everybody that’s still subscribed to the old Feedburner feed is fetching the old feed. You won’t necessarily miss out on the content, but the new feed has a much better reader experience than the old feed. And besides that, the old feed will stop somewhere in the (near) future. Make sure you have the new feed address in your reader.

A-List Blogging Bootcamp

This week I mostly worked on a new page for the blog, about blogging. Even though that’s not the main topic of be an original, I do get quite a lot of questions about blogging. Most of them I’ve answered on that page, which can be found in the About section, both in the menu and in the sidebar (or through the link in this paragraph).

While writing about the blogging, I also touched on the topic of A-List Blogging Bootcamp. Last August I participated in a program, initiated by Leo Babauta of Zen Habits and Mary Jaksch of Goodlife Zen. The program was a 10 day course, packed with valuable lessons about blogging, ranging from beginner tips to advanced topics. To this day I’m still a member of the club, with monthly sessions that are very valuable.

A-List Blogging Bootcamp is opening its doors again tomorrow. The new bootcamp starts Februari 13 and lasts about a week. If you’re new to blogging and want to explore your possibilities, this is a great opportunity. The bootcamp will consist of live video sessions, addressing several topics. In those live sessions, I will also be present in the chat for most of the days. Even if you’re not interested in joining, I encourage you to hop on over there and download Leo’s ebook, about how he grew Zen Habits to a blog with 150.000 subscribers. A process that also enabled him to give up his dayjob, and that landed him a publishing contract.

That’s it for now. More next week (promise!).

Ok, I just gave myself a kick in the butt. Last week I wrote that I’m starting this weekly review habit again. But first I need goals for the review, or so I thought. I gave myself two weeks to define those goals, and I’m progressing nicely towards defining them.

Yet that’s hardly an excuse to skip the first weekly review. Starting a habit by skipping is not very promising. And defining new goals can be seen as a goal in itself – albeit one for the short term. So here it goes:

Defining new goals

The process of defining new goals has started last week, and the first step was revisiting my personal core values. The next step is to take another look at my mission statement and then set goals accordingly.

This is a process that takes time, since it’s a growth process. Growth process can only be sped up to a certain point. If you go too fast you’ll just end up with results that need some more processing or that don’t feel right – yet.

In growth processes you need some time for your thoughts and feelings to settle as you, and your insight grow. And some stuff simply needs to be slept on for a couple of nights. If you take the time for it to settle, you’ll notice that good stuff emerges.

Besides the introspection activities of looking at my values and mission statements, I also looked through my previous weekly reviews for inspiration on how to do these weekly reviews in a way that’s better. One thing was obvious, it needed a better title. The title of the weekly review was always the same (except for the weeknumber).

Second thing: Trim down on the number of goals. I already discovered and remembered this, too many goals will dilute both focus and time. So I decided to have only three goals:

• one focused on result – in order to achieve something specific
• one focused on effort – in order to do something specific
• one focused on fun – simply for fun

Thirdly, I noticed that deadlines that are too far into the future are neither motivating nor scaring me. So I need to work with smaller chunks for goals. The period I’m going to use is six weeks (inspired by a particular scene in Fight Club).

The fourth thing I (re)discovered was the consistent tracking of blog metrics. That’s something I’m going to do again too. And I’ll be talking about what I’ve done and plan to do on the blog. To make it better and to let it grow of course (it is a core value after all).

So my take-aways from this review:

1. I already set myself a goal, and I’m reviewing it now
2. The reviews need better titles than they used to have
3. I’m going to set three goals only
4. I want to work with deadlines six weeks away
5. I’m going to track blog progress again and talk about blogging every now and then

Blog performance

The blog metrics I will be tracking are average subscriber numbers over the past week and average daily visitors. Those are the most important metrics in my opinion. You’ll see the numbers next week.

I did do some work on the blog this past week:

• added category pictures below the posts. You’ll see an image of black eyed peas below this particular post for instance.
• added the “New? Start here!” page
• added the “Search” page
• added the “Explore” section to the sidebar
• customized the 404 page to suit the bean theme better

That’s it for now. More next week (promise!).

Every other week I review the past two weeks. The contents of this review may vary, but among the returning topics are the performance figures of this blog, my progress towards my goals and my experiences with productivity systems and habits.

Here I am sitting with my laptop on the couch, trying to come up with a good beginning for this bi-weekly review. I’ve tried several already, but I can’t seem to find that one that describes the madness that the past two weeks have been.

Got some credit?

Of course there’s the madness that the credit crisis is causing on stock markets around the world. It’s been interesting to watch how the numbers kept on plunging towards deeper and deeper levels. Fantastic! I like serious change, and it’s happening all around us. Mind you, I don’t own stock, so I basically lack the emotional effects a lot of people will feel. If this is you, I’m sorry for your losses. I don’t know what you should do either…

I have learned two things from this crisis so far. First of all I have learned a lot (big events tend to invoke a need to learn in me). I have gained more understanding about the foundations on which our financial system has been built, and why it’s shaking on that very foundation right now. If you’re interested in that, check the 47 minute video “Money as debt” for a starter. It’s a great introduction into the banking and monetary system.

Second, I have told a lot of people that a part of me likes it that the economy is weakening while I’m moving towards entrepreneurship. It’s when the going gets tough that quality arises, so if I can start in bad times I’m going to make it through all cycles. It seems that the universe has upped the ante by pulling the magic credit crisis trick from the big hat. My plans haven’t changed, my attitude hasn’t changed, but the challenge is even bigger now. Bring it on, I say!

Today I’m running towards…

…the exit? Neh, towards the finish! That’s what I’ve done today. I finished my running goal this week.

You already know I downgraded that goal not too long ago. I kept the deadline (the marathon event in Eindhoven, my home town), but I ran the City Run (6km) instead of the half marathon (21.1km). That event was today, and I finished in a time of 33 minutes and 48 seconds, averaging 10.6 km/h. I crossed the finish line in 555th place of 2313 contestants, which doesn’t sound all that impressive… But I’m very satisfied with my performance, and I loved the run.

And wow, the effect of a cheering crowd is amazing. It really feels like they channel energy towards you and it makes you give an extra 10%. Which kind of sucks in the crowdless parts of the run, because that’s where you pay the bill for those 10%… I blame it on inexperience

For now I’ll just keep on running for fitness and fun, but without a new goal, because I’m adopting the…

One Goal Mindset

The One Goal Mindset is exactly what is says it is. It’s about having only one goal, on which you can focus all your attention. Simple.

I was being a tough guy when I said “Bring it on” to the credit crisis or the economic developments. Sure it has an effect on me too, and right now it has lead me to move towards this One Goal Mindset. In these circumstances I cannot afford to divert my attention between too many different goals. One goal, focused effort.

Of course I will still have several other activities that are fun and relaxing. Learning is one of the activities that relaxes me, so learning to play the guitar is relaxing because I learn something new. Writing blog posts is relaxing, because I tend to learn a lot about a topic or about myself when I write.

Blog performance

That’s the icing on the cake today. Here’s a new overview of the stats.

Average daily subscribers:	1119	( 24)
Average daily visitors:	309	( 48)