As we head into the last three months of 2018, I want to lay out my broad-strokes goals to concentrate upon for the remainder of the year. These aren't targets to hit, exactly, so much as areas in which to focus my efforts.
This is partially motivated by the fact that my output during the third quarter, despite being better than the first part of the summer, still leaves me feeling unsatisfied. Generally speaking, I've found over the years that living with my parents seriously impedes my productivity. There are a lot of potential explanations for this, which I've explored before at-length. We won't be rehashing those in detail today; suffice to say that certain individuals in my family wouldn't recognize priorities if an ordered list knocked on the front door. It seems that I'm constantly pulled between contradicting goals, with insufficient time to manage any of them adequately.
I suspect, however, that a big part of the problem is switching costs. These are really easy to underestimate if one isn't used to thinking in those terms, but are almost always non-trivial. My new strategy in Q4 is to break down my days of the week by objective, and, hopefully, focus on those objectives each day. This is, to some extent, a self-signalling strategy. By committing a certain amount of time to each major activity area, the emotional parts of my brain will better trust me to work on the various projects that it wants to see completed.
Note, however, that this takes some time to go into effect. I'll probably have to put my foot down on some of these issues, because, again, I'm the only person in this household not completely drowned in planning fallacy.
There are two major objectives for the rest of the year, both of which have some supporting objectives. The first is finding employment (or, alternatively, committing to grad school). The second is finishing the interminable project. Let's look at each of these, and their supporting objectives, in turn.
The single biggest change I'm implementing are Application Mondays. From here on out, the primary goal for every Monday is working on job applications. I don't necessarily have to submit them on Monday, but I would like to make progress. I've held off on a number of openings because I felt the need to really concentrate on them, but no opportunity to do so has ever materialized. Instead of waiting for the improbable, I'm designating an entire weekday to the job search.
There are two weekdays set aside for personal tasks and household chores, during which I may also work on applications. I do not expect to make much progress during the other four days of each week.
Supporting my efforts in that regard, I will be continuing and, hopefully, expanding my program of self-education. I've been reading John Anderson's Introduction to Flight to shore up my foundations in aerospace engineering, and to maintain something of my edge. Unfortunately, this has taken longer than expected. I would like to finish it before the end of the year, and move on to a more interesting book.
Studying engineering materials will remain on the agenda every day of the week, though it will remain a relatively small item (less than an hour each day). This does not mean just reading textbooks, but also working though the maze of technical papers that I've accumulated on my desktop. Several of these are several hundred pages long, so getting them read and filed away before the end of the year may be a real feat.
I would also like to practice my programming skills again, as well as expanding into a few new languages. That is a secondary objective, however.
The other major change which I am instituting is again a matter of compartmentalization. I am reducing the number of days each week which I'm spending on the house. By planning around this fact, however, I hope to dedicate more hours in total to the project. I will be spending two weekdays on whatever tasks I can complete individually. Weekends, if the past several months are any indicator, will be spent on tasks requiring two or more individuals.
This should enable us to finish the project in relatively short order. I'm hoping that the house will be on the market by the end of the month.
Indeed, I would like to have things finished well in advance of November, because I'd really like to participate in NaNoWriMo this year. I have some ideas which would be interesting to attempt, but I need a larger segment of unstructured time than is currently available for that to be practical. I will decide on a particular option closer to November 1 if participation is looking viable.
There are also a number of blog posts I've been meaning to write for some time. My hope is that this new schedule will also better serve my ambitions in that department. I don't think my prediction of two posts per month will end up being accurate, but I can probably manage four or five before the end of the year.
My final motivating for finishing the move in short order is that, should employment not be forthcoming, I need to start the process of applying to graduate school. That will require a good deal more money, which will not be available until the house is sold. I would like to have had that process started by mid-November if nothing turns up in the meantime.
I will attempt to keep the hypothetical reader apprised of my progress along these objectives.
