Progress report

Today is December 19th, which means that tomorrow will be December 20th, unless someone really throws a curveball at the space/time continuum. You may wonder why I would state those two patently obvious facts, and so I shall tell you. December 20th will mark 2 months since I attended my 5 year college reunion. In that aftermath of that reunion, I evaluated a number of things in my life, and made some commitments to changes. 2 months seems a nice place to take stock of how I've been doing, and since there's nothing in the sports world that is compelling me to write about it today, I've decided to subject you as my loyal readership to this report. I know how lucky you all feel right now.

Anyhow, the primary decision that I made was that I was not going to turn my TV on until 8 pm on weeknights. On a normal workday, I get home at around 3:30, so that was a fairly significant decision. I am pleased to say that I have done very well with that commitment. Monday night I did turn a basketball game on at about 7:55, when I was done with everything else I had in mind to do and was just sitting there, but that's the extent of my "cheating". Having the DVR has made keeping this commitment much less of a challenge, because if there is something that starts before 8 that I really want to watch (mainly sporting events), I can record it and watch it after 8, and doing so saves me time spent watching it. However, there was more to this commitment than cutting out TV just to cut out TV. There were things I wanted to pursue with that time, so I'm going to evaluate where I'm at with those things.

Writing - I resurrected this blog on October 22nd, the Monday after my reunion. That means that this is Day 59 in the second life of this blog, and this post will make my 46th post in that time. I'm averaging better than 5 posts per week, and I'm pretty pleased with that number, especially when I factor in that I was gone for the entirety of Thanksgiving weekend and had 5 non-posting days just as a result of that. This is by far the most productive period I've ever had in terms of elective writing. I'd like to see the average climb to 6 posts a week as I move forward (a post every weekday and once over the weekend), and I also need to set aside some time for some non-blog writing, but overall, I'm very happy with what I've seen here.

Reading - In the last two days, I finished my 3rd and 4th book in the 2 months since the reunion. I have two more books in progress, and a 3rd that is a collection of articles that I pick at from time to time. And none of these books were/are exactly tiny. I'm going to guess you'd have to go back at least 2 years to cover the time frame in which I'd read the last 4 books I had read prior to October 20th. It might be longer than that. When I was younger, I was a voracious reader, but got out of the habit as I got older. I've been pleasantly surprised to see how those old tendencies have come back as I've set aside time for reading, and I find my enthusiasm for this particular pursuit to be growing rather than waning with time. I'm much more likely to eagerly extend my reading time, rather than to find myself impatiently waiting to turn on the TV when 8 o'clock rolls. While this wasn't a stated objective, and I don't really track it, I'm pretty positive I now spend more time reading than watching TV, and I don't think it's even that close. It's really a remarkable turnaround for me. I've become a regular at the local Barnes and Noble and on their website, although that will probably change for the near future, only because I already have a stack of books in the house that should keep me busy for at least a couple months.

Devotional time - This has probably been the area I've had the least success in, but I have kept at it. Devotional time has always been a struggle for me, primarily because prayer has often been a struggle for me. However, I've done well at reserving at least 20 minutes a day to, if nothing else, sit quietly in God's presence. Reading Philip Yancey's book "Prayer", which I reported on yesterday, gave me a number of insights that have really helped me gain some momentum in this area in the last few weeks. I'm pleased with my 20 minute start, but I'd like to see it grow to 30 in the not too distant future.

Investing in people/relationships - This has been a slower developing area as well, but also one that I've seen some momentum in recently. I am very protective of my free time. I'm never going to be one of those people who is constantly on the run and booked up every night of the week. Not my style, wouldn't be productive for me. However, I've discovered that, because I was actively wasting so much time, I was being protective of way more time than I needed to be. It's funny, these last few weeks, I've probably been about as busy and active as I've ever been, and yet rarely did I feel stressed or tired. I've always had time for people, but now I really FEEL like I have that time.

I think that covers everything I was looking to work on at the outset. I also have identified a few additional areas I want to spend time on going forward. You might say I'm getting a jump on some New Year's resolutions.

Exposure to sportswriting - I've realized I need to be much more intentional about reading sportswriting. One step I intend to take to that end is to subscribe to Sports Illustrated and commit to reading each week's issue cover to cover. I want to identify a few other consistent sources of quality sportswriting to read regularly as well.

Personal finance - For the first several years after I got out of college, I was quite meticulous in managing my personal finance. For the last year or so, I've maintained a very good handle on the overall picture, but have been paying considerably less attention to the specifics of where my money is going. Starting with the new year, I want to get my budget back in order and resume consistent tracking of my expenses.

I'm sure that's all much more than you wanted to know, but I thank you for indulging me if you've managed to get this far!