Continuing a Theme

This week was a (subjectively) good one.  Made significant progress on Cello Prelude 1, which was pretty remarkable given my what I perceive as my limited ability to learn new music.  It's not that I can't learn something new, it just takes me a long time to get there.  I'm trying to understand what has changed this time, so I can be sure to apply it to other pieces.  Going forward I have two strategies: don't practice mistakes, and listen.  Part of what has made this week so successful is  that I've really taken the time, when I have a difficult passage or section, to work that repeatedly until I'm playing it correctly, rather than just forcing my way through.  And for listening, I've got at least 4 different versions of the piece I can listen to: one that is a "straight" reading of the music - essentially unornamented, two cello recordings (Yo-Yo Ma and Colin Carr) and one guitar Recording (Bert Lams).  In a way I'm following along a path that Bert blazed; I couldn't have a better guide. 

I read a good article last week that fits nicely with my resolutions post.  Umair Haque is a blogger for Harvard Business review, and he had a post about resolutions (you can find it here: http://blogs.hbr.org/2014/01/how-to-have-a-year-that-counts/).  There were two things that struck me:  dreams and suffering.  The dream discussion (as in, don't give up on them) speaks to the aspirational quality of a resolution - I'd consider replacing the Achievable in SMART with Aspirational when it comes to resolutions.  I would think you need some achievability in the aspiration, but that's a finer discussion to have.  The other aspect of suffering was interesting.  J. G. Bennett once said that you cannot achieve the aim without suffering, and I agree.  There has to be some level of sacrifice to create meaningful and lasting change.

A good bit of writing this week, mostly beginnings and some extensions of ideas I've already begin.  It's interesting, the things that come in a flash, and the exercise of keeping it present in my mind through the process of documenting it.  It's difficult to do justice in text to what I imagine.  It makes me all the more amazed at what my favorite authors can do.

So, off to another week.

Resolutions, in two parts

Part 1

It’s that time of year: time to make resolutions we’ll mostly never keep.  We’ve all done it (or not done it, as is usually the case), so how to do things differently so you can achieve something?  How to improve ourselves and not give up or feel like a failure for not living up to our giddy, hung-over expectations at the beginning of a new year?  I took a look at my own past resolutions and very limited success, and saw a few of the ways I let myself down and basically set myself up to fail.  Lest you think I came up with all of these on my own, rest assured I’m not that smart.  They’re a collection of ideas I’ve gleaned from places and processes where people are much smarter than I am – I owe a continuing debt of gratitude to my current and previous employers, PMI, Fourth Way Work and my life in Guitar Craft.

Bigger is not always better…

…neither is unclear, vague or difficult to measure.  This appears to be the most common issue with my resolutions are the sheer size, scale and unclear nature of the thing.  “Get in better shape” is a great resolution, but is pretty vague.  “Learning a new language” is an excellent thing to strive for, but is a really massive undertaking.  So, how to improve my chances of success?  I’ll be falling back on a classic business/HR tool from work: SMART goals.  (S)pecific, (M)easurable, (A)chieveable, (R)elevant, (T)ime-bound.  If you lay out your resolutions this way, you get a couple of benefits: something more manageable and clear, you’ll have thought the thing through a bit, and you won’t have come up with too huge a list. 

Resolutions are more than a list of tasks…

…but you’re not going to be able to accomplish them without a plan.  (Hey, I’m a project manager, so of course I’m going to support plans, but scaled appropriately.)  A transformative change isn’t usually something that can be accomplished in a short or sudden burst, so you’ll need a map to get there.  Also, I’m not against bucket-list items being on my resolutions, but resolving to do something should carry with it some sense of personal betterment.  It's even better if it serves others.

Accentuate the positive…

…and try not to be negative.  There’s a great aphorism: the aim should be stated clearly, positively and actively.  I’ve covered clarity in the first point, but I think the positive aspect is a key.  There are some things that have to be stated using the negative (stopping smoking, as an example), but they can almost always be stated in a positive, active way.  Saying “I will stop smoking” is very different from “I will not smoke”; I will do something, rather than I won’t.

Shoot for a date to be done…

…that isn’t the end of the year.  Or if you are resolving to do something that will take the full year (or longer), make sure you’ve got markers and checks in place to keep you moving towards the goal.  You may think you have all the time in the world, but how often have we found ourselves at the end of the year looking at the wrong end of our optimism? 

Be accountable…

…without being overbearing.  You need to monitor progress.  This is where your plan comes in handy: make sure you’ve incorporated points where you can remind yourself that progress needs, nay demands, to be made.  Additionally, I’ve always found that I have better success when I have another, like minded person involved in my accountability.  I need someone to remind me, occasionally, that I’ve made a commitment (and commitments are to be honored).  And doing this for others reminds you of and strengthens your own commitments.  Just don’t be judgmental (to yourself or others) – be sensible about adjusting when it’s called for.  There’s nothing as satisfying as grasping something that felt like it was just out of reach, but there’s nothing as frustrating as not accomplishing something you had absolutely no chance of doing.

Put a price on it…

…and then pay it.  This one might feel strange at first, but I’ve found to be valuable.  This idea is related to accountability, but I think it deserves its own consideration.  What is accomplishing this actually worth to you?  And what do you think it should cost you if you miss your commitment?  As an example, let’s say as part of a resolution to get in shape you commit to working out three days a week for 30 minutes. You also decide ahead of time that 30 minutes of your time is worth $25 to you.  What if you get to the end of the week and you’ve missed a workout?  You could do your workout right then and there.  Or, you could choose to pay the price, let’s say making a donation to the local food bank equivalent to the value of your workout time.  Betterment for you or others either way.

Remember, there’s no limit to the things you’ll never accomplish unless you have a plan to make it happen.  So what are you willing to commit to publicly that we can hold each other to?  What tricks do you have to see yourself through to the end?  By the way, here are three of my personal resolutions I’m willing to make public.  Keep me honest.

• I will write creatively, at least 1000 words per week.  It can be anything, a blog, a journal, short stories, fleshing out existing ideas or creating new ones, poems and song lyrics.  Work e-mails definitely do not count.
• I will complete the Corporate 5K this year in under 29 minutes.  I did it in 30:22 last year – one and a half minutes may not sound like a lot, but it’s tougher than you might think (a 5% improvement).  I improved last year’s time by 2 minutes, so this feels reasonable.
• I will record one piece of solo music for the guitar.  This will be something small, and relatively familiar, like the first Bach Cello Prelude (G Major).  So, this is the one that actually terrifies me a bit.  Why you ask?  Perhaps that’s a question worth spending a-few-of-a-1000 words on at a later time.

Part 2

So, with all the things in Part 1 in mind, and your own resolutions in hand, consider this: if you had the power, what is the one resolution you would make for your company or business?  If you own your own business, what clear and measurable resolution would you make that would make your company a better one this year?  And if, like me, you work for a large company, what resolution would you make that would make your company a better one in this world, something you wish those in charge would resolve that the company as a whole do that will better itself and others?

Writing

If you write, then you will have more writing.

It seems obvious, but the feedback loop for this is remarkable - the more I write, the more I want to write.  I've been combing through some of my old notes and thoughts, and have been rereading and refining the content.  I've also had some recent inspiration in the form of blogs by Seth Godin (http://sethgodin.typepad.com/), Bob Lewis (http://www.weblog.keepthejointrunning.com/) and Kevin Kelly (http://kk.org/).  Some posts are longer, some are shorter, but all tickle parts of my brain that need need it.  I'm still revising a few posts, looking for inconsistencies in language, but more importantly, in thought - are these cogent, well thought out arguments and observation?  Are they coherent?  Am I being too cynical?  Am I presenting this intentionally, whether it be humorous, cynical, confrontational or thoughtful?  I may or may not publish them - for now, they are a way for me to organize my thoughts, question my own thinking and ask myself, "Really, what do you believe, and does it hold up?"

Normal

Up before the alarms this morning.  Lisa is home, so the house is returning to its normal state (particularly for the animals).

Happy moment this morning when the CGT came up on Slacker (The Marsh).

Tying up a few loose ends on some work - I have two open projects that are effectively on hold, as other priorities have been identified.  I'm torn: we're very close to at least concluding this work, so a part of me is strongly pulling to get at least a few minimal items completed, which will effectively allow us to declare success.  Another part of me wants to stand firm: these are the new priorities, so we are not working on these old priorities.

Part of this is driven by a typical middle management issue: from the top, a (seemingly) clear plan and objective is communicated; we hear this at the bottom, and come to the conclusion that this is now what is important.  Somewhere in the middle, however, other agendas and priorities come in.  I don't question that the priorities of the middle are not important - in fact, they are a bridge to make sure all of the smaller details get filled in for the larger picture.  But if they take away from the top-level priorities, we have a problem.  Worse, is that we are measured for both, and if the middle priorities are not completed, we're a failure. 

So, do the work, or stand firm.  Either way, we at the bottom lose.

Puzzles

Wake just before the alarm from a mildly disturbing dream, though I believe I slept straight through the night for a change.  It took a couple of minutes to fight the "it" that wanted to stay on bed, stay home, stay asleep, but I won the battle today.  Up, and through the morning routine and off to work.

Watched a campy and mindlessly violent movie last night (that actually didn't factor into the dreams).  The movie had its moments, but I couldn't help but wonder what Quentin Tarantino or Robert Rodriguez would have done with the premise.

A relatively productive day, puzzling out a problem for one of my developers.  A challenge we have is that everyone we're dealing with is in constant motion - when you deal with investments and markets, there is an inevitable level of action required, from early in the morning before the markets open, until well after they close.  These teams are understaffed, and we're in a classic bind: the development work we're doing is to automate a number of the critical, but labor intensive, processes the business must do, but they spend so much time actually doing them that there is little time for them to spend with us to explain what they're doing.  My job of late, and it's personally rewarding, is to become a business expert (to a degree) and help quickly translate the business needs into something that a developer with little to no business experience can understand.

I'm finding that this type of work is really what interests me: finding the patterns, abstracting them, and getting someone unfamiliar with certain concepts to be able to apply them in code.  I've been struggling with staying engaged with my work, and if this isn't the door on, it might be the key.

Solitary progress

Back to work after a pretty good weekend.  Got a few things checked off the list:

- Tires on the Jeep
- Pots brought into the shed
- Rain barrels put away
- Road sand box put out
- General clean-up in the gardens in prep for clearing leaves
- Large bird bath put away
- Laundry and sundry

I began cleaning up two metal bird baths I found at the flea mearket this year.  I was disassembling one of them, and ended up breaking one of the metal parts.  Since it's a part of the support for the base, I can't use one of the metal weld pastes (at least I don't think I can) and may actually have to weld it.  We'll see.  In the meantime, everything is apart and ready for priming and painting.

So, good progress on the list I've made for myself - while I have some positive energy, I need to apply it.  I know that the energy will wane soon, but in the meantime things will get done.

Review

Through the magic of trying to discover where a 2 year-old request came from, I had to delve back into some older e-mail archives (how is it that I can remember or suss out a 3 year-old password?).  In this archive, I also have some older journal entries, some nearly 15 years old.  It's amid some of the mundane details and sometimes laughable commentary, there are some genuine observations. 

I do this periodically, if only to remind myself where I was, and to get a sense of what was important to me at the time.  It also gives me a sense of how far I have (or haven't) come in the intervening years.

Things that haven't changed: the exercises and repertoire I was working on (Eye of the Needle and Bloackhead in September of 2000, my seeming need to yank myself out of my chair by the shoulders (as evidenced by my first AT meeting with Sandra), my sensitivity to people entering late the sitting space at the beginning of a sitting. Oh, and I still can't count out loud while playing.

Things that haven't changed: the longer-term impact of my Level 1, and many of the people and things I was exposed to that week.  Reading my very limited notes (I'm not particularly adept at journaling during courses), I'm interested by what struck me enough to write down, and how much more my memory can fill in.  I must have had a few moments where I was present.

Doing some writing now, some of which might become public.  At this point, I'm getting inspiration from a couple of places (Seth Godin, Kevin Kelly) and will probably look at JGB's Witness and Transformation before putting anything out, but at the moment, there are a few interesting short-form ideas percolating.  I'm also pulling a numer of older ideas out of my archives to see if they are worth fleshing out.

I also feel a change is coming on, but it needs to be directed.  There's a bit of wild energy available to me, and I have to be careful.  Darker, dangerous things lurk, and while they can be valuable and useful, better that they have some direction before action.