20 Days into the 30 Day Challenge for "The Month of Building". A lot of projects are in motion, and I'm feeling good about the progress so far!
Last month's Groundhog Day Resolutions Report (GHDRIf you are new here, see Glossary: Groundhog Day Report for a primer!) declared a Month of Building with a 30 Day Challenge inspired by this 2013 challenge where I tried to make a new thing every day. It had been super draining but also really satisfying!
This time around, I used the Activity Bingo BoardSee the journal post Making Operational Diagrams for Motivation for the list of categories on the Bingo Board. to help seed the initial projects and gave myself weekends off so I wouldn't burn out. The goal, though, wasn't to pursue maximum productivity as it had been in 2013. Instead, I wanted to use the challenge to reskill myself in daily writing, production, and related tooling. So long as I stuck to stuff that was on the Activity Bingo Board, I could be assured that I wasn't wasting time even though I picked a highly "emergent" approach to the work rather than sticking to a strict production plan.
The First 20 Days
There's a mix of software, e-commerce, and design projects in the mix. All of them are in the Activity Bingo Board list except for Design Business ReflectionInitially, I didn't want to offer any "design services" when I initially drafted the Activity Bingo Board. However, answering questions of identity and relatability are important when I'm meeting people and talking about what I do. Plus, it would be nice to have a new business card that reflects me today!.
Public Software Projects
Information Sharing
Design Business Reflection
- Build 03 - A Review of Old Work and Stories
- Build 10 - Identity and Logo Thinking Pass
- Build 11 - Unprofessional Business Cards
Personal Days
- Build 05 - Productivity Energy Crash
- Skip Day 01 - Day Trip to Concord
- Skip Day 02 - Nausea Recover Day
Process Development
Physical Product Production
Private Product Infrastructure
- Build 12 - Word Counting Calendar Reboot
- Build 13 - Word Counting Calendar Interim Release
- Build 14 - Calendar Layout Code Progress
- Build 15 - Super Simple PDF Progress
- Build 18 - Programmatic Drawing of Word Counting Blocks
- Build 19 - Calendar Day Drawing Progress
Organizational Theorycrafting
- Build 16 - Articulating Friendship
Reflection
Looking back at the list, it feels like significant progress even though I thought I wasn't doing very much every day! This was particularly true after the first week, when I started to limit the amount of work to 3 hours max so I had 3 hours to write the blog post that went with it.
I feel pretty good about it. The process seems sound. If there is any worry, it is the fear of not making money soon enough but there are three in-progress projects in development that are related to that:
- The resumption of production of ETP Mini Notebooks...hopefully back on Amazon before Black Friday!
- The software-generated Word Counting Calendar will make it possible to sell these again as digital downloads as well as do custom orders for any date range or number of "countable objects".
- The definition of my new business identity that is totally aligned with my values may open opportunities for paying gigs, though I'm not holding my breath.
Additionally, these are possible targets for the remaining 10 days of this challenge:
- Redeveloping my digital storefronts, as the ones I'm using now are apparently run by jerk CEOs that I don't want to be associated with, which may lead to new digital product sales.
- Redesigning old forms so they can go on
dsriseah.comand create a new collection of stuff - Supporter access to customized form solutions, an extension of the software I'm developing, to add value to my Patreon and Discord presences.
Assessment
This year has been one of the best Groundhog Day Resolutions runs to date. Just look at the last three months:
August 8
The Month of Change ended many old chapters, declared return to blogging+design, after ten years of support Javascript other people.
September 9
The Month of Motion recognized that I needed to physically move to maintain mental activity, and this was channeled into fixing my blogging infrastructure and developing new strategic planning documentation.
October 10
The Month of Building put the strategic plan into effect through a blogging challenge designed to force me to keep applying the movement directives from September.
I feel pretty good about my momentum!
The Month Ahead
As I'm still in the midst of the 30-Day Building Challenge, there are no new declarations. The last report of the year with be on December 12, and I'll likely provide a summary of everything I learned this year.
That said, I'm workshopping stuff related to fusing my person values with public branding into a theme for authentic personal expression. I'm not sure what that means, but I could see GHDR 2026 being all about becoming comfortable being myself in public.
It's taken a good three months just to make blogging part of my daily routine again, after over a decade away from it.
I like being back!
Hopefully, others will like what I'm doing too, and we can all figure out how to find each other so we can play with making cool stuff!
We chat about personal projects and challenges on the DS|CAFE Community Discord Server every day. Come visit! Maybe you'll make some friends!
You can reach me at Mastodon or Bluesky. Or subscribe to the blog feed to stay up-to-date.
INDEX of GHDR 2025 POSTS
This year's inquiry: Will deep, daily conversations with like-minded people naturally drive creative independence?
Reframing the inquiry as a mission: I want to create a sharing, caring place where genuine friendships can form!
Rethinking psychological safety as the foundation for creating sharing, caring places in a less serious way.
Taking inspiration from Hong Kong film director Steven Chow, a new mission directive is proposed in the form of a simple question.
Insight from my Taiwan trip leads to the definition of "sentiment-first" communication patterns (aka 90S) as a critical part in "being present".
Applying the 90S communication pattern with acceptance of my peculiar "cognitive architecture" leads to increased optimism and confidence.
A month of endings and new beginnings. I want to express myself with unapologetically in a way that honors my own values while reducing friction with others. It's time to reboot.
With the blogging systems now in place, I am free to talk to the world! But what comes next? Time to draw up a new master plan to serve as the cheat sheet for remembering my motivations, values, and desires.
The time for reflection is over! Rebooting the design business is the core strategic goal and will begin with a new 30 Day Challenge as last seen in 2014.
Up to Day 19 of the 30 Day Challenge! It's going well so far, but the real assessment will come in December.
Dec 12
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