Paddling and Shifting Goals

Posted by: Ken Bolton 16 years, 7 months ago

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On Sunday, September 16, I worked for Shaun Cox of Northeast Adventure Company as a kayak guide for the National MS Society 2007 Swim the Hudson for MS event. With 75 swimmers and 25 kayakers in the waters off of Croton Point, I had my hands full one and a half miles from shore. The weather and currents cooperated, though, and Westchester County Sheriffs Department and Croton Fire Department, along with about 15 pleasure craft, helped ensure that everyone stayed safe and had a great day. I paddled close to six miles, and escorted the final swimmer back from the 1.5 mile mark to shore.

Last week while commuting home I spent about seven minutes outlining how I want to spend my days, and the aforementioned paddle re-affirmed the importance of vacations. I want to write down and publish these daily goal averages. I am also interested in putting together a web-app, perhaps for the sidebar of this site, for tracking my progress in accomplishing these goals.

The Daily Grind & Goals

• π. The dog deserves two hours every day of my time. This includes walks, grooming, trips to dog parks, and feeding. This is part of the approximately 12 hours of every day that he is able to enjoy my company.
• Reading. I want four hours a day.
• Writing. One hour a day would keep me happy. I may look to increase this.
• Roller-hockey. One hour a day. I currently do two hours per week. Two more two hour sessions and I will be there.
• Coding/programming. I need to do about two hours a day between this blog and other projects and interests.
• Snowboarding. I want to get the average to about one hour a day, so 365 hours a year, or about 40 days on the slopes. Good luck.
• Surfing. Same as above, one hour per day average.
• Fly-fishing. Also one hour per day average.
• Dinning. Until I can get everything IV, I read that we take about two hours every day to eat.
• Bathroom/HABA/etc. Sources say two hours, I think I am down to one.
• Kayaking. Lets add an hour per day.
• Sleep. Sadly, eight or so hours per day.
• Teaching. Last, but certainly not least, I love to teach. Especially technology, where I have the most knowledge and experience. One hour a day would work. I need tenure somewhere, clearly!)

Some of these things have potential overlap. I can fly-fish from a kayak. I do a lot of skateboarding as part of workout time with π. Lets add up the numbers, though, and see if this is in any way realistic. I count 25 hours in my goals. Not great, but getting there. Any chance on lengthenging the day? Probably not.

None of the above are things which will pay my bills unless I do them so regularly that they become jobs. So how do I reconcile these goals with the reality of existence here and now? I can get paid for kayaking. Programming gets me paid. I could teach snowboarding, and surfing in short order. With some training, I could work as a fly-fishing guide.

This serves as a starting point. ToDo: build a tool that lets me check off the hours I spend doing these things so I can track how close I am getting to these goals.