Rob Getting Rob Organised: January – March 2020

As part of my organising system, there’s a “Current Quarter” list from which I move items into the weekly, and then daily lists to get done. I haven’t really thought so much about what I want out of January-March 2020. If I’m going to get moving on some Big, Unrealistc Goals for this year, I’d better have some idea on what I want to do.

In which case: What are my priorities for the current quarter?

Get my schedule sorted

These big plans are great to talk about, but I need to be investing my time into them. I’m currently waking up at 5:30AM most days and between walking Sookie, having breakfast and getting my stuff together for work, I wind up with around an hour to get things done.At the moment, I’m using that for blogging and dev time for the RPG campaigns I’m GMing, but I’m going to need to start putting some toward everything else, and I’ll need to work out just when I’ll invest that time (likely an extra hour in the evenings and maybe a couple in the weekend).

Get therapy

I’ve been meaning to look into this since Vickie died, and it really came up after my week of jury service. I have some sessions available via juror support; accessing them has been a bit tricky, due to some premises issues but I had the first session in the week just gone and am happy to be going back the counsellor I talked to for a few more sessions.

Also, some friends have advised that shopping around to find the right therapist for me can be worthwhile. So I need to find out who offers counselling around town.

Finish and implement Profit First

My friend Scott Doucet recommended this book to me last year and I picked it up again yesterday. I want to put its principles in place before I start earning money from my incubating sideline.

Define my business idea better

… so, yes, Id like to dip my toe back into entrepreneurial waters this year. I need to shape my nice but vague, top-level idea better. Who am I looking to employ me? What are their pain points? Who is doing similar work, and how do they do it? (Can I apprentice with them somehow?)

Sell the old car

.. also, yes, I have a new car! With huge thanks to my Dad, who chipped in… well, ninety-two percent of the purchase price (I was planning to cobble a few grand together for something that would last me ten years and Dad basically said, “get stuffed and Merry Christmas / Happy Birthday for the next X years”), I am now in possession of a 2015 Ford Focus Ambiente, whom, after going to friends for name suggestions, I’ve christened Ambrosia!

Sadly, this garage ain’t big enough for the both of me cars, and the reason I was looking for a new car in the first place was my mechanic telling me late last year that Argenta, the silver 2002 Ford Laser GLXi (last of her kind) who has served Vickie and I faithfully since mid-2004, would become too costly to maintain within six months.

So, time to set a profile up on Gumtree (an Australian buy/sell site), take some photos, write a description and set a price. Hopefully I can top the bank account up after the rego transfer fees.

UPDATE: Ad is up!

I’m gonna miss that old girl. It’s not hard to imagine Vickie sitting in the passenger seat, especially when she was rugged up in her puffy dressing gown on a trip home from hospital.

Identify cruises running out of Cairns

You know, it’s been… since before Vickie and I left Sydney that we had a genuine holiday. Every time I’d get time off we’d usually need to do stuff around the house and/or couldn’t afford anything decent. The closest Vickie and I had together was a couple of company two-night Christmas parties, and aside from that, other trips out of town were family-related and only one of us at the time.

I want to have a proper break, and the same friends who recommended shopping around for therapists (oh yeah, one of them suggested “Ambrosia” for the name of my new car) are also keen cruisers and couldn’t sing the experience’s praises enough, so I want to look at who runs lines out of the Cairns cruise terminal.

The February Declutter

I’m taking two weeks off work from February 10th to 21st to give my place the full Marie Kondo; get all the stuff of Vickie’s I want to keep in one place, let the family go over the rest and then turf (and/or sell) everything of hers and mine that I no longer need / want. With any luck it may wind up with me putting a bit more of my personality into our place.

Keep exercising and taking care of myself

I’ve sort of got these into a daily routine but I keep slacking off on the evening exercise: I got home after dinner with family at around 8:30PM yesterday and pretty much went straight to bed.

Plus, there’s still ensuring I eat right; I need to get a few more recipes for healthy, batch-cook/freezable meals under my belt.

Keep gaming

Last but not least, there’s my gaming: the monthly Star Wars: Force and Destiny and (hopefully) fortnightly Starfinder games I GM, and the somewhat fortnightly D&D and Savage RIFTS games I play in. If I’m planning to offer my services as a game master, I’d better make sure I’m honing my craft!