My Year of Progress
I’m probably more like your kids, nieces & nephews, or your students, in that the primary source of my daily entertainment comes from YouTube. Shows, video essays, podcasts, news, sports, music, education. All YouTube.
In fact, I get so much content from YouTube that I pay for Premium so that I don’t ever have to bother with ads. There is a solid chance that I am the only person you know that actually does this. I know that I’ve never met anyone else who does.
One of my must-watch channels for over a decade now is the magnificent CGP Grey. His channel typically takes a slightly complicated topic that interests him, and then breaks it down in as a simple a way as possible. Such as: explaining the United Kingdom vs. Great Britain Vs. British Isles; the fastest way to load and unload an airplane and why no airline will use that method; why hexagons are the “bestagons.” You may have seen images or clips from one of his most recent videos that explained the code behind interstate numbering.
A few years ago he put out a 6 minute video on why New Year’s resolutions are bad. His thesis was that resolutions are designed to fail, but the intent behind them is valid. Instead, he offers a different method for committing to making change in your life that is designed for success: themes.
I really liked the idea of using a theme instead of a resolution, and so I gave it a try with a “Year of Storytelling.” This was a really broad theme, but it gave me the encouragement I needed to follow some passions of mine. It didn’t make any major changes to my life, but the subtle changes had larger impacts.
During my Year of Storytelling I:
Purchased a writing app which allowed me to
Consolidate all my writing in one location that was automatically saved
Quickly add thoughts from my phone the moment I had them
Researched how to be a better Dungeon Master so that I
Needed less time to prepare for Dungeons & Dragons meetings each week
Could craft a more engaging story for my players
Sought out books and podcasts on writing in order to
Learn how the sausage gets made
Organize the ideas for Ptolemy that I’d had in my head for years
As you can see, it’s not a lot of things done over the course of a year but it was far more successful than if I simply said “I’m going to write a book this year.” Instead, I can look at my successes. I read a couple of books, listened to an hour long podcast once a week, watched some short YouTube videos, and organized my thoughts. After that, I felt like I was closer to my goals in life.
The following year I deemed my “Year of Healthy Choices.” At the start of the year, my thinking here was less sugar, lose some weight, work out more often, find a doctor after not seeing one for a general checkup in over a decade, etc. Basically, I knew my son would be born in the upcoming summer and I waned to be sure that I was taken care of so that I could take care of him and my wife.
But when March hit, suddenly “healthy choices” had a whole different meaning. In fact, just about everything had a different meaning for the majority of 2020.
Suddenly, “healthy choices” wasn’t about eating out less (restaurants weren’t open) or exercising more (a long walk each day was the only time we left the house). Being isolated meant staying healthy became as much about my mental health as it did my physical health. I am very much an introvert, so if you tell me that I have to spend all of my time at my house and away from the world I am going to be happy. If I’m not actively aware of how few people I interact with everyday, I’m not going to notice that I’ve only talked to my wife for a month. Therefore, I made a few choices to put myself out into the world, despite being remote.
First, I saw a friend make a comment online about wanting to play a game that intrigued me, and so I extended an invite to try the game together. This is the anti-thesis to how I live my life. Two years later, that friend and I talk almost every day in a group chat that includes others who we played the game with. This group chat inspired me to start the Sly History Podcast, and even helped me in the early stages with technology tests and brainstorming sessions.
Next, I found myself struggling to make progress on my book. I had all of this time to write, but felt like nothing was moving forward. All of my thoughts were organized, but I just kept restarting or scrapping the ideas. Thus, I decided to make things more permanent and put them out into the world for others to see and give feedback on. That summer, I utilized all of the organization of my thoughts I did in the previous year to launch this website and continue to tell stories.
Jump to 2022, where I didn’t really have any ideas for a theme going into the year. I had so many ideas in my head for what I wanted to work on to improve myself, but it was all just a jumbled mess. Then I found inspiration, once again, in my YouTube feed from my friend CGP Grey.
This was it. Why just do one thing when I can do multiple? All of those times I start something with good intentions, but then fall behind and realize 4 months later that I stopped doing it was no longer an option. If I tracked what I did every day, then I would have to notice and make conscious decisions to or not to do something. If, I was making conscious decisions to not do something, this would allow me to examine what was stopping me on those days and how to work around them. Oh, I was excited.
Only one problem, while the journal he showed in the video is beautifully made, I do not do well with physical journals. If I was going to do this, I would need to be able to track all of this information on something that I had with me everyday, in a way that was simple and quick to use, and would be quick and easy to review.
Oh, look at that, there are images of all the pages on the journal’s website because its creators simply want people to be successful in life.
Those absolute legends
One afternoon, I sat down with my iPad, my GoodNotes app, and a delicious cold brew, and began creating my theme journal. I brought in the pages from the website, started putting them in an order that logically worked for me. Then, I began listing all of the things I want to make progress on in my life. The things I’ve been telling myself for years that I would do. Probably the same things everyone tells themselves every year, lost weight, save money, learn a foreign language, keep working on all those projects you started last year.
I then dusted off the teacher hat, put it on, and forced myself to write S.M.A.R.T. Goals, just like I had my students do in the past. For those that don’t know, a good goal should be:
Specific: Like science, always include your units. Saying I’ll have x dollars at the end of the year doesn’t do anything for anyone. But having x dollars in savings means something more.
Measurable: Be sure to include numbers rather than vague words like “multiple” or “more”
Attainable: If I need to do more than 1 of these a month, and I’ve been struggling with them in the past, then it’s probably not likely to happen. Pick numbers that I know I can do.
Relevant: Make sure the goals are something that can be done in small, progressive steps. For example, I love video games. But that’s not something I need to work on making time for.
Time-Bound: Simple. A Year.
Then, I took each of my goals (Complete 6 chapters of Ptolemy’s Tales, Release 12 episodes of Sly History, Complete Pimsleur Spanish, Lose 15 pounds, etc.) and broke them down into tasks I could do each day to help me achieve those goals.
Just to be extra thorough, I then added reminders in my phone to go off at different times to keep me on track. Every evening I get a reminder to check the tracker. Every weekend I get a reminder to work on the book, the blog, the podcast, or general workflow planning. That way, at least once a month, I am dedicating time to each of the goals that require blocks of time rather than small windows.
I’ll include some pages below. Am I perfect? No. Do I feel like I’m behind on a few things? Sure. But do I see that progress I’m making and staying on top of things that would have otherwise fallen to the wayside? Absolutely.
Just to be extra thorough, I then added reminders in my phone to go off at different times to keep me on track. Every evening I get a reminder to check the tracker. Every weekend I get a reminder to work on the book, the blog, the podcast, or general workflow planning. That way, at least once a month, I am dedicating time to each of the goals that require blocks of time rather than small windows.
If you like the idea of journaling, but the theme journal doesn’t fit your needs, here is another idea I saw on my YouTube feed a few weeks after the CGP Grey video. This time from a channel I only recently started following: How to ADHD. But more on that topic next time.
