STATUS: Monday, January 4th

I’ve been giving a lot of thought to the value of these status posts, and the format to take with them that actually brings that value. Initially they were more of a public to-do list. Eventually they became more like a candid, off-the-cuff self-inventory. Both styles fall apart when I’m feeling vulnerable, as they both require me to take something (myself, or my work life) and just sort of… put it out there. But it keeps me on track to do so.

Coming into 2016, I’m going to be more consistent about posting but less consistent about the format, as I try to find out what works for me best right now. Next week, I expect I’ll be more or less taking the week off from blogging as my far-flung family separates a late Christmas, so I guess that will give me a chance to reflect and adjust when I come back.

One thing that I think really was helpful that I did in the past was to do before-and-after posts for the day, morning status posts and post-mortems afterwards. It let me ride the high of accomplishment when I had an amazing day, and look at what didn’t work when I didn’t. So I might be bringing that back, though probably not today… my sleep schedule led to a late start today, and then I spent some time ruminating on this post before making it, so it’s not exactly morning anymore.

2015 was not a good year for me. I’ve thought about doing a big retrospective about what went wrong and why, but I’ve decided to leave 2015 in 2015. Just bury the year and move on. There are some specific course corrections I’m making, and I might elaborate on my reasoning as they become apparent, but no post-mortem on the year. No dwelling. A great American once said “We must move forward, not backward; upward, not forward; and always twirling, twirling, twirling towards freedom!”