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So, what's your New Years Resolution for 2020?

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Muse said:
You might kind of combine the two to great effect. You're impressive in terms of all you do. A retooling of your career perspectives does seem like a great idea, of course.
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Thanks! I'm trying to decide if I really want to stay in IT at all or not. Not that I've learned everything there is to learn, but (1) general hardware IT administration is kinda-sorta going away with how cheap, easy, and cloud-based things are now, and (2) by & large, I've been able to cover the gamut of what I wanted to do in IT - servers, PBX, networking, desktops, NAS, virtualization, etc. & don't necessarily want to specialize any deeper than that.

BEC is pretty fun because you get to dive into all of the aspects of a business & really figure it out & find ways to help them be better. I'm launching my own personal productivity system online as an open-source project later this year & have been working to convert it for business usage for the last couple of years. It's a lot of simple stuff like how to run meetings in an efficient manner, where you actually make decisions & give people next-action items as takeaways, instead of just spending hours yelling at each other & everyone walking away with a vague idea of what they're really supposed to do next, how to do personal project management effectively, how to manage projects as a team without having to get sucked into that corporate quicksand where everything gets hazy & no one is really clear on things on a day to day basis, etc.

There are a lot of difficult problems in the business world as well, like how to quantify how heavy of a load a person is carrying, because it's really easy to over-work & stress people out without realizing it & not hire out additional help or split the load among coworkers. One of the really difficult things is that the leadership of a business has to be both ready and willing to entertain the idea of doing a change of that magnitude, because it's essentially a culture shift within the company, which starts from the top down. However, because of the current & ongoing cultural shift from millennial having more power (mobility, knowledge of pay rates, easily apply online to other jobs & jump ship, etc.), this has resulted in less loyalty, which means companies have to put in more effort to attract talented people, so a lot more businesses are open to the idea of examining their inner-working processes in order to become better as a whole & thus become more attracted to good workers.

The only reason I'm willing to entertain this idea myself is because I've spent the past 20 years being a total goof on getting stuff done myself, and have had to really dig in to see how productivity actually works. Coming up with a holistic system has been one of the most powerful tools I have in my life, and has really amped up my personal productivity in terms of having an idea & then actually following through & completing it, whereas I previously did a lot of "window shopping" for neat projects, hobbies, etc. but never really was very good at figuring out how to get organized & keep the motivation going long-term. Once I got the personal productivity code cracked, I started working on the business elements, and am at the point where it's about 90% done for corporate use now. I'm fortunate in that I have some very flexible customers currently who are willing to try new things & give them a shot, and it's amazing what having a crystal-clear method of operation for a business can do!

TL;DR: Blah blah blah I'm a little bit bored & wanna try something new lol
 
purbeast0 said:
I don't have any resolution and never do, but I am going to start eating better because Thanksgiving I have been eating like crap. But I've somewhat bulked up a bit which is good too. But I can barely see my abs now so I need to get rid of a bit of fat in the section.

I can't wait till like mid of January when all the resolution people have given up cause they didn't lose the 80lbs that took them 5 years to put on, in 2 weeks.
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That's one of the things I like about doing macros & having my spiffy meal-prep system designed out...I did pretty good through the holidays, but I've gone to town for the past week or so, buuuuuut I know I can instantly get back on to macros through my meal-prep plan & get back on the wagon & control my results. Which definitely beats my OG thread back in ~2008 where all I was eating was plain chicken, brown rice, sweet potatoes, and broccoli 24/7, hahahaha!
 
Muse said:
😳

Yowza... I sometimes say I should be 5 people.
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I think it usually boils down to 2 issues:

1. Having a strong personal productivity system, which lets you effortlessly manage large amounts of stuff to do, as well as hard projects
2. Once you've adopted that system, seeing if you are truly overloaded & need to adjust your situation so that you're not over-extended

Balancing being overloaded was a challenge for me for many years, because I like to go big or go home, and tend to over-extend myself, and then fail at actually following through on everything. But as we all know, good intentions doesn't get stuff done...and simply trying to power things through sheer willpower isn't sustainable...so that's where having a solid personal productivity system comes in, because it does the work of managing stress for you, so that you can focus on the achievable bits of work every day. Having grown up with undiagnosed ADHD, life was always SUPER hard because I was always procrastinating & behind on everything, ALL THE TIME!

Switching to an external system that I didn't have to keep in my head meant that I could sleep easy at night, knowing that I was on top of everything, instead of constantly feeling behind the curve. It's really hard to do that without a clearly-defined, off-your-brain system to manage all of your commitments...tasks, projects, recurring things, and so on. Very few people have a photographic memory & even fewer have the self-discipline & willpower to go full-bore non-stop all day long. The approach I take is that you should work when you want to work (ex. at your job, while doing your chores & homework at home, and so on), and then be able to enjoy your free time guilt-free because you're covered for the day!
 
Kaido said:
...The approach I take is that you should work when you want to work (ex. at your job, while doing your chores & homework at home, and so on), and then be able to enjoy your free time guilt-free because you're covered for the day!
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I find myself going pretty strong for a while during the day and wanting some time in the evening to relax, not concern myself with accomplishing the things that were important to me in the morning. But I then ask myself, well, what all did I manage to do earlier in the day. I don't rigorously make an accounting, usually, and I probably forget some of the stuff I did when I have those ruminations. Some of those things I do earlier in the day, in retrospect (i.e. in the evening) seem pretty trivial, but they didn't seem trivial when I was doing them. They were just more taxing, time consuming, had more challenges than it seemed to me later they should have. I guess my life is pretty complex. I have a lot of projects that are just not going to get done in a couple of hours. I need to develop a system where I'm effectively managing it all, winnowing down what seems exasperatingly too much to something I realize really is manageable. I want to get to the point where I can say to myself, yeah, I really did work it through.

I remember something my brother told me: "You have to prioritize... I can't tell you how to prioritize."
Kaido said:
Switching to an external system that I didn't have to keep in my head meant that I could sleep easy at night, knowing that I was on top of everything, instead of constantly feeling behind the curve.
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You really are a champion.
 
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Muse said:
I find myself going pretty strong for a while during the day and wanting some time in the evening to relax, not concern myself with accomplishing the things that were important to me in the morning. But I then ask myself, well, what all did I manage to do earlier in the day. I don't rigorously make an accounting, usually, and I probably forget some of the stuff I did when I have those ruminations. Some of those things I do earlier in the day, in retrospect (i.e. in the evening) seem pretty trivial, but they didn't seem trivial when I was doing them. They were just more taxing, time consuming, had more challenges than it seemed to me later they should have. I guess my life is pretty complex. I have a lot of projects that are just not going to get done in a couple of hours. I need to develop a system where I'm effectively managing it all, winnowing down what seems exasperatingly too much to something I realize really is manageable. I want to get to the point where I can say to myself, yeah, I really did work it through.

I remember something my brother told me: "You have to prioritize... I can't tell you how to prioritize."
You really are a champion.
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PM me if you're interested in using an already-developed system for this! It will be released later this year as an open-source project, but for now, it's in beta. There are a few key ideas:
  • You can't manage time; time is something that simply happens
  • Likewise, you have priorities, so you simply have to deal with them
  • So really, it's all about action-management, because action is the one thing you CAN control
You mentioned the word "forget", which is a key aspect of my approach, which involves "zero forgetting", because you capture your commitment into a "second brain" (i.e. on paper). The only thing you can ever do is one specific action in the moment, and that's what your personal productivity system should be tailored to provide - for the times when you want to get to work & be productive, what exactly do you have to do next? As long as you're trying to hang onto the zillions of things you need to do & all of the steps that need to be done about them, you're going to have a tornado in your head, which will cause things like rumination, not being able to fall asleep easily, waking up in the middle of the night going OH CRAP! and so on.

As long as people insist on not dumping 100% of their commitments into an external system, you run the risk of having high stress levels & feeling like you have too much stuff on your plate, because you're always mentally overloaded. So that's step one - getting it all outside of your brain & off your head & into a system you can trust to remind you of what to do down the road. Step two is figuring out what to do with that information - breaking it down into bite-sized projects & so on. Traditionally, we've always used tools like willpower, self-discipline, and motivation, all of which I consider garbage. It's like having to paddle your own boat...so much effort alllll the stinkin' time! Why not just put up a sail & let the wind take you to where you want to go? That way, your job is simply raising the sail & then steering the boat, instead of struggling to paddle all day every day.

That's pretty much the big change with the system I've developed over time...you're changing your power source from hard to easy. You're dumping that 4-cylinder & installing an 8-cylinder engine! Work is work & you'll never get around that, but most work isn't hard & most stress doesn't come from the work itself, it comes from the management of the work, which is why we need an action management system, as opposed to a time management system or some sort of intricate prioritizing system. Once you get a system like that setup in your life, things magically become crystal-clear because you're not living in the fog of trying to keep it all in your head & do project-management in your head & never forget anything because it's all in your head & having all of this stress because you've got so much STUFF in your head!

The system is not an easy thing to explain, as it's so broad & covers so much that it's hard to pin down a nice, short elevator pitch for it, but the summary is: do you want to get organized, permanently? This is a clear, easy, pre-defined tool for doing exactly that. And also, do you want awesome results in your life? Whether it's managing your finances or setting up a meal-plan to cook or doing chores or whatever. I struggled & struggled & struggled for so long because I was always paddling & rarely sailing, because the tools for sailing weren't readily available or immediately obvious to me at the time. All that changed when the Fire Nation attacked...
 
brianmanahan said:
lose 25 pounds

that way i might actually be presentable enough to go out come 2021
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hey i'm actually on track

between getting sick due to new medication and getting freaked out due to COVID-19, i am down 10 pounds already

i think a few anxiety attacks in exchange for 25 lbs lost is a worthwhile trade
 
I upgraded to 2x 4k. 😛

On more serious note, as far as my actual new years resolution, I'd say I'm generally on track, it's kinda a long term thing for me, to just want to accomplish more with my life instead of just coasting. Been busy on and off working on smaller projects and such so I'd say I'm on track as it's all stuff I want to get done before I start on anything more serious. Maybe not as much as I'd want to though. I get lazy days where I just don't feel like doing anything, it's a bad habit.
 
Kaido said:
Soooooooooooo how's everybody doing on these?
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I don't know... so many projects! Today I did one from last week, a jury rig pull down machine in my shelter-at-home (gym is closed, and I would go if it was open). It's a 5' 7" length of thick bamboo across jams at both sides of my upstairs foyer. I'll use rubber straps hung over the bar for resistance. Did a ton of other things too.
 
Red Squirrel said:
I upgraded to 2x 4k. 😛

On more serious note, as far as my actual new years resolution, I'd say I'm generally on track, it's kinda a long term thing for me, to just want to accomplish more with my life instead of just coasting. Been busy on and off working on smaller projects and such so I'd say I'm on track as it's all stuff I want to get done before I start on anything more serious. Maybe not as much as I'd want to though. I get lazy days where I just don't feel like doing anything, it's a bad habit.
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Even God rested on the 7th day. Yeah a myth but it serves to highlight the fact that it's good for your psyche to have a day off occasionally. In organized religions it's called a sabbath. Having it ritualized? Well, I don't have an opinion if that's good/bad. But don't just assume that a lazy day here and there is a "bad habit." And sometimes you just need a rest, physically. Mentally too, I think.
 
Muse said:
Even God rested on the 7th day. Yeah a myth but it serves to highlight the fact that it's good for your psyche to have a day off occasionally. In organized religions it's called a sabbath. Having it ritualized? Well, I don't have an opinion if that's good/bad. But don't just assume that a lazy day here and there is a "bad habit." And sometimes you just need a rest, physically. Mentally too, I think.
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True, but the sabbath is suppose to be 1 day of the week, not 4. 😛 I'll take a week off to work on a project, and really only get started by near the end haha. But yeah a day of rest is good sometimes. I just need more discipline that when I choose a day to work I actually do it. This time of year is especially bad for it, just don't feel like doing anything, but I did accomplish stuff so I am doing better in that regard. Like yesterday I actually setup my new monitor arms and setup my new 4k monitors the way I intended. A few weeks back also continued working on the basement. So yeah doing way better this year than last year when it comes to getting stuff done.
 
OccamsToothbrush said:
Don't half-ass things. Go for the full-on nervous breakdown and you can lose 50 easy.
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i really want to get a prescription for this one seizure med i was on 20 years ago

totally took away my desire to eat and i lost about 70 pounds

i mean it didn't stop seizures but other than that it was amazing
 
brianmanahan said:
i really want to get a prescription for this one seizure med i was on 20 years ago

totally took away my desire to eat and i lost about 70 pounds

i mean it didn't stop seizures but other than that it was amazing
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If I lost 70lb I'd be dead. 😀 Well, maybe not but I'd look like one of those near dead at Auschwitz in 1945.
 
Mine was easy, quit actively drinking and lose a few pounds. Lost over 33 pounds in the last month and a half or so. The losing was easy, been dealing with a thing called hypomania and it messes with so much i sometimes go days at a time without food. The beer and drinking, well its very rare but i prefer my indica so when i look at bang for buck i could get more out of indica then drinking EVER.

Can say that for once,i followed up on mine.
 
mopardude87 said:
Mine was easy, quit actively drinking and lose a few pounds. Lost over 33 pounds in the last month and a half or so. The losing was easy, been dealing with a thing called hypomania and it messes with so much i sometimes go days at a time without food. The beer and drinking, well its very rare but i prefer my indica so when i look at bang for buck i could get more out of indica then drinking EVER.

Can say that for once,i followed up on mine.
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what is passive drinking? Soak in a tub full of ethanol?
 
sdifox said:
what is passive drinking? Soak in a tub full of ethanol?
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A few beers perhaps after busting my rear on the yard, also whiskey for severe pain like in my tooth this week. Besides that really not into it no more. Not much for Indica after doing a yard, only gonna result in me sleeping all day. Drinking idk, it does things to my stomach so i avoid it quite a bit. Also messes with my Insomnia.

Not that drinking has become a problem for me, i just prefer indica. Be sorta buzzed on a 6 pack of beer, wake up with a hang over or spend the same on a edible that puts me on my ass for 2 days and rids of pain and helps me sleep while no hangover. Hmm, decisions decisions.
 
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