Public Commitment 2016 – Q2 Recap
Welcome back to an overview of my goals. Today I will look back at the second 3 months of 2016. On Monday I will present my goals for Q3 of 2016.
For the second quarter of 2016, I made the following goals. If you click on each goal you can read about my experiences. First, here are some general things I learned this quarter.
- Time flies by and not having your goals present (top-of-mind) will make you wander off and do other things
- Cool opportunities are not (adequately) captured in the goal-making process
- Day 3: a puppy costs more energy and time than I had anticipated (read: it’s just like having a baby, without a diaper)
I find the first clients for Life Planning at Work
With Life Planning at Work we’ve had the first two productive meetings with HR professionals. Here we’ve dug deeper into their needs, and now hopefully will be even better suited to help them.
We almost have the first paying customers, I believe that this quarter we will be able to get the first few contracts going. And with that also get the business side of things (my area) going faster.
I solidify the core message for Queal
Queal is in a transition phase. We’re in between helping a very specific group of people and being able to help almost everyone in the general public with our complete meal solutions.
It’s time to think big and plan for success. This also means that Onno and I have to invest in the company (with time, but also with money). And this isn’t the easiest thing to do, we also still want to live our lives at the same time.
And when are you successful, there are so many metrics. The most important one is, of course, being happy (or tranquil), and as long as I feel that I have adequate control (where I want to), I believe that I can be 100% happy in Queal.
Back to the core message, we have this in our head, and in the coming weeks we will take more time to share this with others. Expect more social media updates soon.
I make a comprehensive overview of my start-up knowledge
On this website, I wanted to accumulate my knowledge. What I found is that making this overview is not possible for me at the moment. I do still want to gather the knowledge I have into a sort of mindmap. A real-life wall (I have one spare in my house) Will maybe be the place for this.
How cool would a wall like in investigative series look like!
I blog every day (for at least 40 days)
I’ve started this project twice in the last months. What I find is that continuing with this is just not possible for me. On the one hand, I run out of original ideas, on the other hand, I run out of time to write down the things I’m thinking about.
What would work better is doing it on a basis of once every few days. But then the routine is more difficult to maintain. So a way to do it is to schedule a weekly moment to sit down for the blog and make things happen.
Expanding the readership could also take more president. Something to think about for the next months.
I get 100 subscribers to my weekly blog email
Nope, I didn’t put much effort into this and I also don’t really know how to do this.
One problem here (and with marketing for Queal) is that I myself am subscribed to almost no newsletters/blogs/etc. At the same time, this could be the solution, first examine why I am subscribed to these (and not to others).
Do I want to influence more people? Yes of course. How do I increase my reach? I will find a way!
I have summarized all the books I have read
I’ve added some reviews, but definitively not as many as I wanted to.
There are still so many books to review.
What I do like is that with my new way of blogging (focus on a lesson), I can write more useful things and focus less on summarizing the book(s).
I have a dog
Max is home!
His full name is Maximus Seneca Wolswijk.
He is a Friesian Stabyhoun (or Friese Stabij). A medium-large breed of dogs that’s native to The Netherlands. Called one of the rarest breeds on Wikipedia, but not too uncommon here.
Frans, my dad, has a dog of the same breed (named Tsjibbe).
Max has been home for 6 days. He is as cute as they get. He still needs to learn how to go to the toilet outside (consistently), but he has been really nice, is ok with his crate (bench), and loves people.
Taking care of him has been exhausting in the first few days. I hope (and think) that in the coming weeks the load will be a bit less (because he knows the environment better, I get to know him better, and things become more predictable). He will also be going to the office, hopefully everything will go smoothly there too.
I continue to help 3+ friends with their business
I really like helping other people and this goal has been great to do.
What I think can improve is to get more structure into the process so both parties feel more responsibility. A system like at ‘De Kleine Consultant’ of doing a weekly email would be great to do. It’s on the list for next quarter.
I go on at least 1 (small) vacation
I’ve been away for two weekends with friends. And they were great.
They helped me relax, chill down, and act a little crazy.
The next quarter I will be going on a 3-week vacation to India, so mental rest (combined with physical exercise) will do me good.
(I do have to miss Max, but Onno will take very good care of him!)
I run a sub 3.45 marathon
The marathon! Wow, what an experience. It was great to do and very challenging to participate in.
The support from the crowd, my mother and Geert Jan in special, was great.
The first half of the run went really well (1.50ish), but in the last 12km I really struggled.
Eventually, I finished in 4.20, which of course is a great time by itself.
Next year I will be back to set a new record!
I am under 12% body fat
In combination with the sports activities, I wanted to do this goal.
Train really hard, then diet afterwards.
But in all honesty, I indulged myself in snacks and booze after the marathons.
There is no excuse, and now with my puppy, I’ve become more home-bound (aka fewer parties) so I will strive to achieve this goal in the coming quarter (also, there are no physical exercise goals I’m pursuing at the moment).
I finish the iron viking
Hoorah!
Fuck yeah!
Together with my brother Tom, I made it!
And it was as awesome as you can imagine it to be.
At 19km we bumped into some friends of mine, we were still as energetic as can be.
When at 30ish we met up with our parents, we were less fit. But still, we did almost every obstacle, did every km (plus a few bonus km) and finished the race in about 7 hours.
It was a great experience and one to maybe do again in a while. But first, focus on learning swimming and biking for the triathlon.
I continue to drink only occasionally
I would give myself a B on this goal.
In the week-to-week, I don’t really drink much alcohol, but at some parties, I did let myself go.
With my goal of 12% body fat, I will definitively pay more attention to reducing my alcohol intake
I organize 3 EA Rotterdam meetings
We only had 1 meeting and that’s a shame.
The problem is getting people interested in the topic. It’s something that’s not on the top of your priority list. So how do I get people to sacrifice their evening to go to my event?
I have some ideas about this and I will definitively be testing some of these out. Partnerships with existing groups will be part of the strategy.
I find a permanent team to help run the meetings
The team now is a good mix of people. What we miss a promotional person, someone who loves to connect and get people coming to events.
My skills are in leading teams and having a greater vision. So I should work with these skills to become a good recruiter and find someone who is great at promotion. Challenge accepted.
I do my personal finances every 15th and last day of the month
Nope.
Didn’t do this.
And I should really do this.
/facepalm
What I can do better the coming quarter is to do a weekly review. And then incorporate this into the routine. That should make this work.
I pause (plan & meditate) every morning
I’ve been more consistent on this front. Aside from the last week (read: puppy) I’ve been meditating most days of the week.
I’ve been using Headspace to help me with the mediation. Here I do 15-minute sessions. They really help me calm down and take a broader perspective.
I make amazing artwork for my house
This has been a really cool goal and I’ve enjoyed making the pieces.
I might make more of these in the future (digital and/or print) as they look nice and are inspirational at the same time.
Please feel free to leave a comment if you like them.
All right, these were my goals for Q2 2016. If I reflect on all goals in general, I believe that I set too many separate/disparate goals that didn’t connect in the best way possible. For Q3 I will take my time today to think about how to connect my goals and make the positive outcomes cumulative. See you tomorrow for the goals for Q3 2016.