March Goalsetting. Let's fucking gooooo!
The Rules
Take extreme care when I have an obvious constraint:
- physically intensive task
- takes a battery-powered tool
- takes stone that I have to raid from the scrap pile.
Follow these steps when setting a monthly goal:
- Any obviously-large objective needs to be chopped into daily-progress tasks.
- No compliance-based goals (e.g. work out 50% of days)
- No weight loss goals in the same month as a physical
- Show extreme caution with overloading the same type of goal
- Show extreme caution with overloading on goals in general.
- Goals that depend upon another person must be marked as optional
Self-Improvement & Career-Related
- Survive the First-Week On-Site
- Make progress on Easy Leetcode problems.
- Read A Book
On-Site
My new employer is having an on-site the first full week of March (so starting the 4th). I am not looking forward to this, but it was a condition of employment.
Algorithms
The continued algorithms studying has been a source of contention between Ren and I, and so I'm trying to contain the blast radius of this. On the one hand, I do not want the algorithms studying to linger unduly, but on the other hand, I need room in my days to do things OTHER than that. My objective is to have the reviews (not any new stuff) fit into less than an hour per day. Maybe a pattern like "If I get done in thirty minutes, then add new material to the mix, else only do the reviews" so that way any newly-introduced facts won't push me over the hour marker.
Around The Place [No Constraints]
- Wrangle LAN cable going into my study
- Label Pantry, Freezer, and Refrigerator Sections
- Level and Till First Terrace
- Plant Cold Season Crops
- Make Progress Returning Gravel Area To Soil
These all seem pretty self-explanatory. I'll make a special note on the phrasing of returning the gravel area to soil because I'm unsure how that'll turn out.
Around The Place [Constrained By Needing Other People]
- Mentor on-site to discuss concrete footing of gym front wall
Work on the gym continues. I'd like to get my DIY mentor on-site sometime during March to talk about next steps.
Around The Place [Constrained By Materials Availability]
- Make Progress Hemming Parking Area With Granite
As this is constrained by availability, I'm saying that making progress on this is enough.
Around The Place [Constrained By Money]
- Pay For Critical Pest-Proofing on Farmhouse
- [Optional] Side Yard Tree Removal
- [Optional] Asphalt Quote
- [Optional] Fix Upstairs Bathtub Fastflow & First-Floor Bathtub Leak
Ren requested the first one so I'm considering it not optional. The rest of these are fairly-big annoyances I've been waiting to remedy until I knew I had a job again.
Total Loadout and Additional Thoughts
Total Loadout
- Survive the First-Week On-Site
- Make progress on Easy Leetcode problems.
- Read A Book
- Wrangle LAN cable going into my study
- Label Pantry, Freezer, and Refrigerator Sections
- Level and Till First Terrace
- Plant Cold Season Crops
- Make Progress Returning Gravel Area To Soil
- Pay For Critical Pest-Proofing on Farmhouse
- [Optional] Mentor on-site to discuss concrete footing of gym front wall
- [Optional] Make Progress Hemming Parking Area With Granite
- [Optional] Side Yard Tree Removal
- [Optional] Asphalt Quote
- [Optional] Fix Upstairs Bathtub Fastflow & First-Floor Bathtub Leak
Analysis
This is an interesting loadout in that of 14 bulletpoints:
- 1 is acknowledging I'll be off-site for five business days
- 6 are getting other people to do the thing
- 2 are "make progress" tasks, meant to give me flexibility in this first month with a new employer.
- 2 are organizational improvements that could each be knocked out in half an hour or less.
The only ones that require significant sustained daily commitment are:
- Read A Book
- Level and Till First Terrace
- Plant Cold Season Crops
In other words, knock these three out and the rest of the month is easy.