As the Ten-Weeks Comes to a Close

I thought I would go through and make a quick wrap up of our goals, and how we did. First I will start with the 4 group (Nathan and I) goals.

1. Shoot Season 3, Episode 1 and Have It Up on the Internet

See Nathan’s Season 3, Episode 1 article, or mine when I get it posted.

2. Cyberpunk Collectable Card Game Sort 3 Cases Each

I’m not sure how Nathan did, but I got a lot of stuff sorted. As I stated before, I think I opened a fourth case, and I’m consolidating all the other cards I did. It may take me another week or so, but I have two full 4,000 card boxes sorted, and am starting on the third. When I take them out to Nathan’s we’ll have to go through and merge our two piles.

3. Promote Our Online Cyberpunk Store

Again, I’m not too sure what happened here. We never discussed how to promote it. I know Nathan did some stuff, but he said “heavily,” and I don’t know whether he considers the promotion he did to be heavy.

4. Go on a Gambling Trip

I guess we could go today, but otherwise I’m guessing this is a goal for another time.

Now we’ll deal with my personal goals, minus any that we’re dropped, explained in the Halfway Ten-Weeks article.

1. Write a Longer Weekly Article for the Website

Funny enough I did two weeks of this before the ten-weeks started, and then hardly did anything. I wrote one in April, and I wrote one this week to be posted up on Monday.

2. Finish up the ATW Novel.

I did nothing.

3. Go Through Old Private Group Messages to Archive and Read

I did nothing. This might not be so bad though because the point of that exercise was to give us other things to work on, but Season 3 – Episode 1, the daily blog, the Cyberpunk cards, and a few other things seemed to have kept us busy.

4. Progress on My Organization Project

I did a little. It was perhaps even enough to count it. My biggest failing here is that I didn’t use my notebook very well this time around. At the very least I should have used that everyday, and this goal would have worked itself out.

5. Sell on eBay to Generate Income

I did nothing. Ok, I organized my “Magic: The Gathering” stock a little, but it’s almost not worth mentioning.

Now we’ll deal with Nathan’s personal goals, also minus any that were dropped as explained in article linked above.

1. Find a copy of the self-titled Information Society CD

Nathan eventually ordered this.

2. Take the VW Beetle to the Shop to Be Worked On

He did this before the ten-weeks even started. He hasn’t got it back yet though?

3. Sell the House

If the current prospect goes through then this was achieved, even though the closing will be later. If not, he’ll have to make this a goal again for the new ten-weeks.

4. Sign Up for College Courses

He didn’t say anything about doing this. He said that it would have to be done later in the ten-weeks, but I don’t know if that meant that it might have to be done later than the ten-weeks possibly.

Now I’ll get philosophical for a moment.

It is odd with goal lists. Sometimes simple, little things should be included just to ensure they get done. Also, while my goals were certainly lofty, it’s possible they were unattainable because they required too much, and were too plentiful. [I deal with this better below.]

I guess maybe what I have to say about Nathan’s goals as compared to mine (aside from most of his getting done) is that they were passive. The big exception is the three cases of Cyberpunk cards. That was his action based goal.

Consider mine: In addition to keeping up with my portion of the daily blog, write a longer article each week. Finish the last 80 pages or so of the novel. Read and archive the older Group messages and look for any good ideas we may have forgotten. Continue to go through the clutter I’ve accumulated over the years and throw out what can be thrown out while better organizing what I’m keeping. Create auctions and sell them on eBay. And my group goal suggestion: have Season 3, Episode 1 finished and online.

They all require action, and more importantly ongoing action. Sure some of them have end points, but they aren’t by any means one off goals: order a CD, meet with a realtor, drive to the casino and then drive home, fill out a college application, drive the VW to a shop to be worked on.

Now in Nathan’s defense, most of his were done. After meeting with the realtor, there was still maintaining the house in a view worthy state. He did come up with the card sorting idea, and promotion of the online store is ongoing. And in spite of not coming up with the shoot an episode idea, he was heavily immersed in it.

What I mean to say is that we would do well to look at the strengths and weaknesses of our individual goal setting. This isn’t an attack on Nathan for being passive, or an attack on me for overbooking. It’s a chance to look at what was presented to us to learn from this last ten-weeks, and then actually learn from it.