GHDR Report 0404: Shrinking The Execution Gap

⊕ show captionI love spaceships. Blame George Lucas when I was in the 5th grade, for creating Star Wars. This love, combined with the love of two other things, might be the strengths I possess that I never gave a chance. This month’s report outlines that possibility.

Recap of March

In my last Groundhog Day Resolutions report, I noted that executing on my goals is still difficult despite being for my own benefit. Shouldn’t I be more excited? Shouldn’t it feel easier? Why does this keep happening?

RECAP: MARCH HYPOTHESIS

My hypothesis was that the cause is not method or process, but long-held anxieties and frustrations generating powerful emotional frictionMore specifically Persistent Demand Avoidance (PDA) which I outlined in the previous report., and that addressing anxiety itself might yield improvementI should note that friction also comes from frustration with messy realities, but that’s a topic for another post..

RECAP: THE MARCH WAGER

My wager:

I think this is a form of exposure therapy, but my approach is built on a simpler understanding that having positive experiences tend to reinforce a behavior.

In my particular case, exposure therapy is targeting the anxiety I feel from failing to connect or be connected through meaningful project work. If I can reduce anxiety, I can reduce the emotional friction:

• Breaking feelings of isolation that drain my energy and morale, leading to the feeling that nothing matters.
• Pushing through the endless mundane tasks that feel like disconnected chores, done for an uncaring audience that might not even show up.

RECAP: THE CONNECTION STRATAGEM

It is not like I haven’t tried to break my isolation before. I’ve tried this many times. Over those trials, I’ve learned that I have a strict value system driven by a neurodivergent cognitive profile that seemed to make connection difficult. It is only recently that I came up with a modelDescribed in the post sentiment-first communication. that helps me bridge the communication gap.

This time, I entertained the idea that I didn’t need deep and intense connections. Perhaps simply sharing warmth (sentiment) is enough? So that’s what the March Directives started as:

…and…

The desired outcomes:

• increased feeling of connection
• increased motivation due to connection improvements
• notable increase in morale and productivity

RECAP: THE E-COMMERCE DIRECTIVE

There is still the practical matter of making an online store because I need to make money. Not all the hugs in the world will make that go away! It is, however, a task that I find monumentally boring despite small moments of interest. Working on such things by myself drains my motivation rapidly, and this leads to chasing related side projects that simply feel more rewarding because they address the connection strategem.

I acknowledged it because I have to:

The desired outcome:

• free productivity forms in Shopify store
• something to publicize for feeling of momentum

Overcoming the resistance that comes from working solo toward an uncertain reward, when connection is really what I want, is the tangled reality I still didn’t know how to untangle. I hoped that the ongoing connection work might suggest a solution.

How March Went

From a production perspective, I think the month went okay. My communication directives, being people-based, attracted far more attention from me than the boring e-commerce stuff.

Connection Directive Evaluation

• Hashtags (#smolweb, #openweb, #indie) produced engagement on Mastodon
• Reddit first post made
• Bluesky reply made
• Multiple one-on-one connections made (AY, ML, TC, W8)
• DS|CAFE role reframed as active host rather than passive moderator
• Physical outreach: neighbor w/muffins, lunch arranged with SC

I felt pretty good afterwards, particularly after talking to people directly. Engaging with online communities was more informative than it was engaging. My interest in genuinely social applications of technology is rather rare, so I’ve been harvesting hashtags to help find more people interested in the very architecture of an independent and humane Internet.

Shopify Directive Evaluation

• Domain, customer accounts, and image standards resolved
• SKU template and directory structure built
• study Shopify template customization
• 6 product drafts created but only placeholder stubs

It doesn’t look like much. Out of the entire month, I spent maybe 3-5 days. In my defense, there was quite a lot of organizational work to store multiple products across multiple platforms with different needs. The hard part was just getting to the point where I had a few product drafts written, and it was like running head-first into a raging blizzard of absolute indifference on my part.

It also occurred to me that setting up an online store in 2026 is enormously complicated, with far more steps I had mentally been prepared for. This is not something to build in a couple of weeks. This is going to take me months.

I am going to need a LOT of motivational energy.

Corrections for April

The Connection Directive seems to be working, so I am going to continue to run with it. I’m unable to strictly quantify the effect beyond I feel “happier” and “more in tune with myself” than before. But the execution gap still exists between WHAT I WANT and WHAT I NEED TO DO. The Shopify Directive continues to be ugly and hard, despite me wanting it not to be.

The Execution Gap—what I call the barrier that suppresses my will to do what I want to do—has existed for as long as I can remember wanting to do things. Over the years, I’ve had some success in trying different processes and tools, redefining the goal posts or eliminating them entirely, deviating from standard practice toward something weirdly my own. Each tactic produced outcomes, but the energy cost was high and always burned me out. The March Shopify Directive is just the latest in a long line of such initiatives that are falling flat.

Changing the Game, Keeping the Old Goal Posts

Since methodology and process hasn’t worked, I started thinking about alignment of task to strength. Sure, I can totally understand what I need to do, and I’m even good at articulating plans that stand up to scrutiny. But that doesn’t mean I am good at it. I am good at other things. What if I changed the game so it fit my peculiar strengths as I define them?

In discussions about finding one’s strengthsHere I’m thinking in the context of SWOT Analysis (Strengths, Weaknesses, Opportunities, Threats)., there is the implicit assumption that we are playing a particular game with a deep cultural history of successes and failures. Finding one’s strengths in this context is more like fitting into this cultural history, and that is what I’ve tried to do. The games I’ve trained for are Freelance Designer, Interactive Software Developer, and in the past Video Game Designer.

I have to admit that I don’t find these games interesting anymore now that I’ve experienced them. The compelling part was always the joy of finding good people who were empowered to do cool things.

There it is again. The desire for connection and meaningful work. That is the game I want to play. And interestingly, the goal posts are the same: finding good people, making money, working together. That’s my vision of success. Or at least it feels that way on this rainy Easter weekend.

Consistent Patterns of Distraction are Strengths?

I am going to share a piece of free versecondensed from a long private ramble I wrote to try to figure out what I was trying to figure out. It is a bit cringe, but it is honest:

the cat wants to swirl and thrive
not alone not hiding
to reach out with paw
to share warmth and be warmed

the cat leaps and flows
where others prefer not to see
those irrelevant and inconvenient places
where paths of single dimension do not exist
deemed unfathomable and inefficient
those irrelevant and inconvenient places
where the cat leaps and flows

I stared at this for quite a while, trying to relate what I felt here with what seemed to fit. I don’t see digital media designer or online merchant here. None of the roles really do.

But then I remembered that many of my distractions follow a pattern. In the non-directive things I recorded in March, I can see that these fall into a few main categories:

• building/researching infrastructure to lower friction for collaboration
• things that streamline digital workflow or remove barriers to flow
• doing things to bring happiness to others through shared spaces and food
• writing down experiments and sharing the takeaways with others
• discovery and annotation of cultural theorycrafting articles in related communities

None of these are roles like I defined. But they do align strongly with areas that I seem to allow easily into my distracted moods.

• hospitality and the operations that drive it
• infrastructure that sustains positive experience
• preparedness and caring that provides guidance when needed

INSIGHT A

This immediately reminded me of the cruise director on The Love Boat, and of innkeepers like Lorelei and Sukie on Gilmore Girls, and Lance Reddick’s concierge character in John Wick. I’ve always been drawn to the idea of a really awesome resort or conference center, finding it an easy fantasy to fall into. I could go on and on about this, but I think you get the idea: I like hotels, boats, and events that deliver life-changing elevated experiences. Perhaps getting into video games was my introduction to the idea, what was accessible to me before I could drive to places by myself.

INSIGHT B

That said, I don’t want to work for other people to simply entertain and support them. I am not that selfless a person. This line of thinking led to the Enterprise D from Star Trek: The Next Generation. Unlike previous incarnations of the Enterprise, this ship looks like a spaceborne family resort with nice carpets and facilities. It is a comfortable general-purpose exploration vessel serving multiple missions. As a college freshman that loved all spaceships I had not really appreciated it, thinking that starships should have lots of guns and torpedos so things went BOOM, not this giant floating living room in space…

The idea is much more appealing to me now.

INSIGHT C

I still love ships and other vessels for what they provide. I like the liminal spaces between terminals at train stations and airports, watching people coming and going to places unknown. I am bummed that I have not experienced what it’s like to be on a real ocean liner before the days of air travel.

Hospitality and Ships. Hm. Could these deeply held interests point to a different set of strengths?

April’s Wager: By operating a ship instead of a business, the execution gap disappears?

WHAT I KNOW

I spend an enormous amount of time managing my online community at DSCAFE when I “should be working on Shopify”, but I’m not a community manager.

I spend an enormous amount of time researching web technologies that could help improve the online experience for people working with my software or website. But I’m not a UX Designer, software engineer, or website specialist.

But I am absolutely someone who enjoys the challenge of helping people have a good experience, because their joy becomes my joy. It is not quite the same as being an educator; I tried this once as an instructor for beginning web tech students and I didn’t enjoy it.

I am also absolutely someone who gets nerdy about any type of knowledge that helps me realize ideas, for myself or other people, to create an interesting experience. Memorable. Joyful. A bit unhinged. Unexpected. Earned through effort, tears, and laughter.

WHAT THIS MIGHT BE

I like to reduce complicated thoughts into simple lists that feel deeply true to myself. For example, last year I workshopped what deeply-held values were essential while testing Values-First Productivity. I may have identified another triad of deeply-held interests that help ground me.

To start:

1. I simply like being noisy-yet-endearing for those who enjoy it.
2. I simply like hospitality as a framework for formal interaction.
3. I simply like ships and ship operations as the context for excellence.

I am simply drawn to the shape of these ideas more strongly than others. In that sense, they are strengths.

My hypothesis is that I can change my mental framing of things like boring marketing tasks by imagining them in terms of these strengths:

• Noisy-yet-endearing is the way I wish to communicate. I can be formal when I need to be, but I would rather have the heart of a cat that knocks things over and occasionally inspires good ideas. Experimental. Cheerful. Takes lots of naps.
• Hospitality is a much nicer way to frame online commerce. I’m making comforting artifacts that put people at ease. I’m not making product listings to fulfill some boring marketing step to build a sales funnel. Ugh!
• Ship and Ship Operations harness my interest in engineering and logistics in the context of mission. Like the Enterprise having a mission to go to where no one has gone before, I have something similar. It is something that wants to move and engage with others, find willing passengers and maybe crew with a taste for the kind of adventure I’m seeking.

I think about these ideas all the time, every day. Many of my tangential explorations are related to the philosophical basis of why I enjoy these shapes, growing my appreciation and experiencing pleasure in it. Most importantly, they are all about connection, if you squint at them under the right light. In my case, it is illuminated by the light that comes from somewhere inside of me.

So for April, the new directive is all about establishing that I have something I’m calling a “ship” as opposed to a “web presence” or “company”. The distinction is important because in my head canon the purpose of a ship is mission-defined, and ships move with autonomy across uncertain seas. This sounds a lot like being on the Indie Web to me!

The To-Do list items don’t change. The success metrics are just reframed as hospitality and ship operation problems instead of as “self-improvement” and “productivity” optimizations:

1. Reach out to form more connections
2. Get the shopify product listings out there

In Summary

I am feeling pretty good about where I am right now, but I am concerned at how slow the entire process has been. I sometimes feel that I’m indulging creative process over getting down to the bottom line and crunching hard to get clients and income. That’s the business ideal. Maybe it is okay that I am just not built that way, but even if that is the case I do want to take responsibility for coming up with my own ideal. My own ship, if you will, with my own mission charter and people who choose to sail with me on a wondrous journey of exploration and profitable trade.

Will this make it easier to execute? We’ll find out in the next report.

INDEX of GHDR 2026 POSTS