I know I said that last week’s review was the “last official review” of the year, but I feel like doing an unofficial one today. The holiday madness is in FULL SWING and I haven’t quite switched gears from work, so I’ll use this review to try to gather my thoughts.

My attention was split last week between tasks that I found more draining than expected:

• writing the final Groundhog Day Resolutions Report of the year
• reviewing finances and raising issues with the accountant, unsure of whether I wanted to continue using her services.
• spending more money than I wanted to
• dealing with technical blocks and managerial issues on top of that
• clearing up a major issue with my corrective vision prescription which may date back several years, and having to communicate this with the eye doctor’s staff.
• finalizing plans with family for Christmas (which are still not finalizing)
• car inspection and expensive unexpected repairs, feeling irked by the poor quality of work by my former long-time mechanic.
• arranging for major appliance repairs.
• maintaining my calm in the face of this, and also trying to be helpful to close friends who are also going through high stress times.

Now that I’ve written this all out, I can see why I am feeling so out-of-balance: I’ve been dealing with a lot of worry and stress across multiple unrelated domains. None of these tasks are “business as usual”, and so it was difficult to get into the groove. They have loomed uninvited over me like this orange cat occupying the dish drying mat on my kitchen counter. Sigh.

I’m going to try constructing a counter strategy to reclaim my balance for the coming week. Let’s blow through the review template and see where we end up.

1. Week Assessment: C-

As I said in the pre-amble, it’s been a week of lots of not-business-as-usual inputs of a confrontational nature. As a person who very easy absorbs other people’s emotional state, it’s been difficult for me to feel as light and empowered as I usually aspire to be.

In summary, last week wasn’t TERRIBLE but it’s been “less than average”. Thus, I’m giving the week a grade of C-. I may have to work on early detection and active countering of this kind of stress, because I tend to ignore it until it’s too late (i.e. burned out and depressed).

2. Review of Goal Activity and Achievements

There are two primary work tasks and a host of personal tasks, which are based on the template from October (LEFT).

WORK SLOT 1: JAVASCRIPT WORK

I haven’t done much billable work this past week, as I’ve been sucked a lot of year-end responsibilities and unexpected expenses. I haven’t been able to stay focused long enough to get anything difficult done.

It’s a wash of a week, but I’m hopeful that the coming week will be better because a lot of things have now been resolved.

WORK SLOT 2: STATIONERY and BLOG WORK

I updated my Amazon listings with the new ABOUT and SIMPLE HOOK writing. I adapted it considerably to work with Amazon’s listing format, but I think it’s in better shape now.

I am feeling pretty good about how my mission and identity are converging around an actionable message. I’m looking forward on writing more about this next year, when I can put some attention on it.

AUX SLOT: PERSONAL MATTERS AND MAINTENANCE

I’ve been doing more coworking livestreaming on YouTube, and this has helped me make progress on difficult tasks. I’ve accepted more of a host role when I’m streaming, and I think this is a good direction to move in.

I’ve been also doing mandatory updates on my ETP Almanac, and will be updating the Word Counting Calendar for 2019. I’ve been streaming the update sessions for the two-for-one win.

I’ve maintained progress across all other PERSONAL and MAINTENANCE goals too, but no big achievements jump out at me. They’ve become recurring habits, which is good.

3. Choose New Targets

I’ve updated my Groundhog Day Resolutions focus list for the remainder of December, though I’m not officially maintaining them. GHDR ends on December 12 so I can REST, but I’m finding these weekly reviews too useful to drop entirely.

Here’s the new list, which I will shortly print-out and stick to the top of my laptop:

The new subgoals reflect the insights and updated priorities from the past several weeks:

• Finish Electron App Code Signing – I have my own Apple Developer account and have reviewed/documented the signing process. I just have to make it work this week.

• Prepare the house for Christmas – I don’t know if my sister and her family will be visiting this year, but I need to make sure there is space for all.

• Update the Word Counting Calendar for 2019 – This is always a tedious update, but I will be livestreaming it

For stretch goals:

• Spend 15 minutes outlining 2018
• Spend 15 minutes reflecting on 2019 Goals

Concrete Milestone Check

The most nebulous goal is “preparing the house for Christmas”. To be more concrete about it:

• [ ] sort the archived bills in the file cabinet and shred the old ones
• [ ] get rid of the file cabinet
• [ ] move the granite-top cart to the kitchen
• [ ] take junk to the dump, possibly mattresses too
• [ ] mount TV on the wall
• [ ] order additional Japanese-style bedding from Amazon

Everything else is either DONE or NOT DONE.

Goal Conclusion

To summarize, the past week was stressful and distracting but I didn’t recognize it for what it was; my ability to manage stress so I can be productive is pretty primitive. That’s something to think about this coming week.

Having identified that thanks to the Weekly Review process, I am feeling optimistic about the coming week. Wish me luck, and good luck to everyone out there who are facing a challenging holiday season! See ya online!