GHDR Reboot 010: Mistakes Were Made

Posted Thursday, August 18, 2022 by Sri. Tagged GHDR

Give an Inch, Lose a Mile

So last night I went to sleep as planned:

  • put all devices outside of the bedroom downstairs
  • got into bed before midnight
  • set the alarm clock up across the room to go off at 9AM

I popped back awake around 2AM, and tossed and turned for about an hour. I decided that maybe I would drink some water, maybe have a snack. Then I thought I'd maybe play 15 minutes of a video game...six hours later it was 9AM and I had to pop into a quick meeting with my sister over Zoom, but she was not feeling well so we cancelled the call. Then I made another poor decision to eat some Japanese cold noodles for breakfast. The resulting acid stomach and sleepiness, combined with the video game induced schedule weirdness, knocked me out until 330PM. Which is now. I still feel pretty bad.

The Moral of the Story - don't even try to play video games before 9AM, and for goodness sake don't eat any refined carbs. These were things I knew were probably bad but I was in a state of mind to think that I'd be okay. THE LIZARD BRAIN strikes again! I have to assume the lizard brain is all-powerful.

Old Process Graphics

In other news, someone in the coworking cafe asked me about an old form that turned out not to be a form, but this diagram!

Agenceum was a 'pretend agency' that I ran in 2010 to frame my various personal projects as my 'job', so I would start to feel more serious about it. It didn't really last.Agenceum Business ProcessesAgenceum Business Processes (full size image)

The original blog post was part of my Agenceum fake agency in 2009; I had maintained a separate blog in the 2010s with pretend staff meetings (as blog posts) as I endeavored to build a web template that could be sold cheaply to local artists. As it turned out, selling the web templates and setting everything up for about $250 to $500 was fine, but it was all the TRAINING that was expected by clients that made it a losing proposition.

An example of the 'simple websites for artists' pricing, designed to be affordable for people just starting out. Today you'd just go somewhere and make a 'one-pager' using a template, but back in 2009 it was a bit harder to find solutions that looked nice. Here's the fake staff meeting notes that went with this!Agenceum Catalog PageAgenceum Catalog Page (full size image)

Before it was confirmed that the above was the graphic they had been looking for, I thought it might have been one of these:

From Groundhog Day Resolutions 2012Big Picture ProcessesBig Picture Processes (full size image)
From Groundhog Day Resolutions 2016GHDR Tracker 2016GHDR Tracker 2016 (full size image)

I had trouble finding these because they actually aren't part of my patreon mega archive. This is a good reminder to review all the graphics on the old davidseah.com site. There is a lot of good stuff there to dig through.

Old Diagrams are Still Valuable! - I have a LOT of ideas scattered all over the place. It would be great to start packaging those as part of the NEW PRODUCT A DAY challenge I'll be starting in September, maybe as filler.

Holding on to Focus

Version 3 'GHDR Goals' from August 8, where I tried to identity the grand "strategic horizon" I was steering toward.

STRATEGIC HORIZON

  • Sri building cool things to share
  • Sri nurtures a project incubating community
  • Sri builds public stand/magazine for sharing
  • Sri build market stand where people can buy
  • serendipity: create products from shared interests
  • eventually: revenue to travel to where the processes are

MECHANICS

  • A Tangible Deliverable Every Day (momentum)
  • dsriseah.com is the produce stand (outreach)
  • Add to produce stand as needed (outreach)
  • Identify lines of business on the fly (outreach)
  • Document discoveries on dsriseah.com (value build)
  • Document personal insights in squirks (value build/)
  • Share the Daily Deliverable (community energy)
  • Develop media channels as needed (outreach)
  • Nuture community spaces organically (outreach)

It's been about a week since I started this new GHDR Reboot series, and I am starting to forget the big picture. I think think that might be a side effect of the structured procrastination approach: if one goes too long without referring to the actual work being avoided, you are no longer procrastinating! You're just doing random stuff! I think it's probably important to remember what it is that I'm avoiding. This is a good time to do a quick copy/paste/summary of what I wrote on August 8 (right).

I don't have a clear picture of what the strategic horizon goals look like yet, but I've put down what I think the four functions are (I'm calling them "constellations")

  • Constellation 1: Sri as an crafter of productivity tools and empowering software that looks neat, an eclectic designer/stationer.
  • Constellation 2: Sri as the creator of a nice space to gather, share, and teach others like ourselves how to do things
  • Constellation 3: A place that sells well-designed and unique products catering to people who like novel ways to model how they work
  • Constellation 4: A bustling spared space for discussion, experimentation, and purchase of Sri-made goods as well as related goods from others

I think I have to refine this some more. How do I make this so concrete that I can attach all of my activities to one of them throughout the work day? Tomorrow I should hit this...writing an index card to remind me.