Teh Chad

Working in the environment that I do, I get to see a ton of papers (I can kill forests if I chose, hah).  Most of them are what I call mundane. I ran across one recently that sparked some inspiration. I’m pulling a concept from it to share with you.

Let’s start with an estimation. Where do you think you spend your time? i.e. what goals is your time working toward? Think about it for a second. You may want to job a few notes about your top time-consumers.

Much of my time goes to making things happen for other people.  Much of it is set towards things that really don’t matter much.  The day-to-day is what it is and it can be changed or bent, or shoved back to a later time.  But a small portion of my time is invested in things that might benefit others for more than the time invested is worth at face value.  The end return could be significantly larger than the current value.

This brings up the concept.  Most people (I’m close to this) spent about 80% of their time on stuff that doesn’t matter.  It’s the 80/20 rule.  20%  of their time is spent on stuff that actually does matter.

Then comes the obvious question.  What really does matter? This is varies for everyone.  For some, family is most important; others make work most important.  In reality, it’s a mix for most people.  The key is to define it for yourself.

This is for me: 1. God – spending time trying out churches; volunteering as I do now and possibly finding another opportunity to do more; specifically listening (or trying like mad) to what He is trying to tell me.  2. People – spending time with those that are friends and family; making sure I get up to Wyoming to harass my dad about whatever might interest him once in a while; making sure my mom is taken care of as far as computer support and just being around her; calling Jackson, Dave, AJ, Katie, Ken, et al and harassing them about everything.  3. Income – this actually has little to do with my day job and more to do with my new business and becoming financially literate (which IS one of my current goals); networking with possible clients and business people who know their stuff.  4. Poker – this is pretty blunt in that I want to work with and learn from a few friends that are very good.  5. Fitness – I’m not real sure about what I want to do with this yet.

Now that I’ve defined the important stuff, I can evaluate what I’ve been doing in regard to it.  Once I know where I’ve been and roughly where I’m at, I can define smaller goals to ensure I keep pursuing my larger, life-long goals.  (I hinted at the smaller goals to give you a picture of the bigger goals: God, people, income, poker, and fitness.)  I will spend a bigger chunk of my time on these smaller goals.

My work and interests have just recently taught me something that I’d like to share.  A little bit of effort over time and consistently, goes miles.  Pretty soon you’ve done a marathon.  Then an ultra-marathon.

Take something that you enjoy or would like to do.  Now spent a little bit of time on it each week or each day.  Anyone can spare 15 minutes for something that they like.  After you get an idea about where you are and where you’ve been, set some goals based off of that.  Post them up so that you see them at least once a day and not so that you see them every minute.  Then be consistent.

Some of the bloggers I know try to write something everyday, even if it’s just something small.  They try to share some little tidbit.  They don’t know each and every one of their readers.  But they talk about stuff that they think might be of interest, because it is one of their interests.  They can’t make everyone happy all of the time with amazing 1000-word posts that change everyone’s life each day.  But each day they sit for 20 minutes or an hour or whatever they have decided to allot and they write.  Other bloggers I know post something every week or two.  These posts seem to be a bit more in-depth.  You know what?  All of them have readers.  Many have sponsors and advertising to pay them a wage.  The point is that they are consistent.

I see this concept working in other areas too.  Back when I was climbing a lot, I would do “work.”  Now work was simply climbing.  But when I had worked on a problem for a month, the feeling of accomplishment I received from sending it (sending is a climbing term derived from “ascending”) was amazing.  Each hour session (or two hours, whatever I could get in) was some effort that was a couple of times a week for nearly 6 years.  Some cool things came out of that.  I’ve been to Hueco Tanks and the Monastary and Vadauwoo and the Shawangunks and and and.  Not only have I had the privilege of seeing these beautiful places, but I’ve also been able to CLIMB on these amazing rocks!  An hour, three times each week for a long time took me to those places.

In finance, mortgages are paid over a long time.  These initial sums are seemingly a lot!  But the final total is much MUCH more.  Say you purchase a $450k home for your family and put $50k down.  Most mortgages are for 30 years, so we’ll use that.  Interest rates are crazy right now, but we’ll say 5.75%.  This would make your payment $2,334.29.  How much is the final total?  30 years times 12 months is 560 payments.  560 times $2,334.29 is a whopping $1,307,202.4o!  You just paid $1.3 million dollars by being consistent!  Even the relatively small sum of $2,300 can accomplish some pretty big things!

So, I’m going to spend some time over the next couple of days looking at the things that I’d like to be good at and would like to plan some time each week to put a little bit of effort towards them.  It’s going to pay off big!

I’ve done a lot of cool things in my short life.  One thing that I always enjoy is a trip up Long’s peak.  A few of the things I do are what some people would consider more “dangerous” than normal activities.  This is not really one of them.  What I share with this man is a love of beauty.

I stood where he did three weeks prior:

http://www.9news.com/news/local/article.aspx?storyid=123109&catid=346, http://www.estesparknews.com/?p=3572