Statement of intent: Fitting it in
Since I stopped editing Londonist.com earlier this year I've been at a bit of a loose end. Of course, I've had my day job to keep me occupied (more than just occupied actually, it's kept me stupidly busy recently), but outside of work I've been kind of drifting about looking for something else to get my teeth into.
I've never been entirely happy with just having the 9-5 to worry about, and that's mainly the reason Londonist came about. I wanted something in my life that I cared about 100%, something that I helped build and shape. Three years later and that 'hobby' led directly to me landing the job I have now, an opportunity that wouldn't have arisen if I'd dedicated myself 100% to my 'proper job'.
Over the past year, however, I've had no choice but to throw myself into my new job. It's a fantastic opportunity for me and I didn't want to mess it up. So I stopped writing for Londonist, and then eventually handed over the editorship to someone else. As a sort of stop gap; I began this personal blog, but (as with most stop gap solutions) it's never really developed a life of its own and has become a bit of a frustration for me.
So, I have two problems: 1) I feel a little bored at the moment because I'm not doing anything 'extra-curricular' i.e. outside of my day job, (and, to an extent, I'm scared that if I try I may jeopardise that job); and 2) this personal site has become bit of a millstone round my neck simply because I haven't decided to do anything concrete with it yet.
So here's my one stone that I'm going to use to kill those two birds ...
Recently the 'extra-curricular itch' has come back and as a result I've been talking with an old Londonist associate about doing something fun that's not quite as time intensive as Londonist could be. The idea is to give ourselves the opportunity to write about the things we love and try and see if we can't carve out a little niche for ourselves in the process. Should be a good laugh.
As well as that idea there's a couple of other projects that have been sat, stewing in my brain for the past few weeks that I think shouldn't be too hard to fit in around everything else, as long as I use this site to document that 'fitting in process'.
Over the past few months I've begun to read quite a few blogs which focus on themes of productivity and inspiration. Not just the Lifehacker-style '87 tips on how to make your GMail better' sites, but sites like David Seah who continuously impresses with, not just the practical content of his output, but also the precision of his writing style (oh, and he designs as well).
So I want to start using this site to mainly track my success at 'fitting it in'. Over the next few months I'll outline the projects I mentioned earlier and how they're proceeding, as well as what's going wrong (things always go wrong for a bit at least), and what's working.
Essentially this is a selfish exercise: a motivational tool, designed to keep me on the extra-curricular straight and narrow. But with a bit of luck it will also be educational and entertaining to boot.
So there's the statement of intent, I'll write more about the projects themselves in the coming weeks. In the meantime go take a look Timothy Ferriss' website and his book The Four Hour Work Week, I just read it so I'll probably be talking about that next.
Comments
I got into all that Tim Ferriss stuff for a bit but it's a bit weird... streamlining your friends? Outsourcing to India?
Posted by: ben | May 19, 2007 12:20 PM