Posted: Wed 5 November, 2014 | Author: Lyle | Filed under: 2013/14, 2014/15, 42-43, D4D™, Domestic, Five Year Plan (now Ten), Getting Old(er), Getting Organised, Health, Own Business, Project 42, Weight Loss, Work-related, Writing |
Today, I is forty-bloody-three. It doesn’t seem like a year ago I was forty-bloody-two, but there we go. Time flies when you’re having fun. (Or dashing around trying to avoid a shower of shit. Either way)
I’ve looked back to what I wrote this time last year, the usual ‘plans’ post and it’s not been too bad for once.
And in general it’s worked out for the most part. Goals in bold, explanations in normal text.
- Weigh Less – Successful. I’m now more than two stone lighter than I was a year ago. There’s still a considerable way to go, but it’s been significant progress throughout the year.
- Write More – Also successful, albeit not to the degree I’d have liked. I’ve got more ideas and more plans of what I want to write in the coming year, I’ve got two projects started and significant progress, and completed some shorter stuff, including submitting three pieces to competitions. None were successful, but it’s still progress.
- IAM – Didn’t do. Mainly because of the fluctuations of the year, the IAM thing just didn’t happen. It will do this coming year, though.
- Own company – Successful. Again it’s been knocked a bit by fluctuations and inconsistencies, as well as a couple of let-downs, but generally successful.
- Business Ideas – Kinda successful. I know more about the direction, but need to do the work.
- Rebuilding the finances – 50/50. It was successful – but then with those fluctuations, and the shower of shit, it’s back to square one at the moment. At the same time, it didn’t descend into “being in the shit”, although it was close. So, you know, little victories.
And for my 43rd year? Much the same, I think…
- Weigh Less (continued work)
- Write More
- IAM Test
- Own Business Ideas
- Build the Finances
There may be others, there may not. But if I can have the successes of this year without the downsides and letdowns, it should be pretty positive. That’d be nice.
Posted: Thu 16 October, 2014 | Author: Lyle | Filed under: Domestic, Finances, Five Year Plan (now Ten), Getting Organised, Interviews, Project 42, Thoughts, Work-related |
At the end of September, I quit my job with nothing to go to. It’s been an interesting couple of weeks – and it’s hard to believe it’s only been a couple of weeks. Anyway.
I mentioned it earlier this month, but haven’t said a great deal in the meantime.
When I handed in my notice, it was with immediate effect. The company in question – well, it hadn’t been fun. Being underpaid by 20% didn’t enamour them to me – and that’s a situation that’s still outstanding – but despite that, they still assumed I would continue to work all hours in order to bring their badly-timed and shitly-specced projects in on time. Indeed, I say ‘assumed’, but it was actually expectations – with real shock when I would have a life outside of work, and wouldn’t be available to keep their arses out of the flames yet again. The additional fact of not having a contract provided the seal on things.
I did get a contract in the end – one day before I left, and certainly well after the 8-week limit. Happily, it was breached and invalid immediately, because they’d written the original offer salary on it, which hasn’t been paid at all in the three-and-a-bit months I was there. Oops.
I left with immediate effect, and with nothing to go to. Not necessarily my wisest move, and not necessarily one I’d choose to make again. I had a bit of confidence from my previous history with interviews and contracts, but all the same that confidence could’ve been a real kicker if I wasn’t careful.
As it is, that hundred-percent interview success rate is now gone – although not by much.
I had two unsuccessful face-to-face interviews – which didn’t disappoint me. For the first, the commute would’ve been at least 90 minutes each way. Great for the whole “unemployed for two days”, less great for energy, sanity, or having a life. For the second, it was based in London, and the evidence afterwards is that it wouldn’t have been right – I would’ve been offered it, but the company in question U-turned their plans post-interview, so the role I interviewed for didn’t even exist.
Other than that, I had three phone interviews, including the one I accepted. Of the other two, I’ve since been offered one, and got to face-to-face interview on the other.
I haven’t worked out the actual success ratio, and don’t really need to. All that matters is that it took me two weeks from leaving one place to starting another. And that’s no bad thing at all.
Posted: Thu 29 May, 2014 | Author: Lyle | Filed under: Depression, Domestic, Five Year Plan (now Ten), Health, Insomnia, Project 42, SAD, Words, Writing |
Over the last couple of months, my creative side has felt like it’s completely locked up. I don’t particularly know why – although I suspect it’s linked to feeling constantly tired, burned out, and unwell.
After this weekend, I’m making some changes again – mainly employment stuff (of which a bit more tomorrow) but also a few life-based things.
With the new job, I’m aiming to limit myself to work-based stuff just in work hours. With the last couple of jobs they’ve been coming home with me, and it’s been sitting in my head. I suspect that’s been a mistake. It’s certainly put me in a position where a lot of the time I don’t even want to look at a computer while I’m at home – although again that may be down to also feeling depressingly run-down – so I’m currently hoping that if I limit myself a bit more workwise, I might have the time and inclination to do other stuff when I’m back at home.
It could also be that I’m going through a bit of a depression dump. It wouldn’t be the first time that I get affected like that once the days have started getting longer. I can deal with – and fight – the seasonal depression of long nights and grey days, but once the days get longer I lower my guard, lower my resistance, and sometimes it just hits hard for a while.
I’m hoping I’ll find some ways to reset myself a bit over the next couple of weeks, but we’ll see.
Posted: Fri 16 May, 2014 | Author: Lyle | Filed under: 2013/14, Bankruptcy, Change, Commuting, Depression, Domestic, Driving, Finances, Five Year Plan (now Ten), Getting Organised, Housing, Own Business, Project 42, Thoughts, Time, Work-related |
Over the last couple of months, I’ve been thinking a lot about location – where I live, where I work, where I want to live, all that. I’ve been in the current house for two years now, and I know I’m getting a bit twitchy.
The current tenancy doesn’t expire ’til November though – due to an initial six-month one, followed by 12-month ones. As a result, I’ve had plenty of time to think about it, look at the pros and cons, and – I think – I’ve now pretty much made a decision.
As has been noted on many occasions, I’m not all that good with permanence – I like change, embrace it even. It suits me. So two years in the same place is enough to make me twitchy, to start to feel that itch in the back of my skull.
It’s not too bad at the moment though. I’ve certainly had it far, far worse than this. If I were still in the same job as well, the options would be different – I’d be needing to move on in both cases. As it is, I’ve been back on the contracting since July, and it’s kept things decently varied – which means the house side of things can relax a wee bit.
There are places I’d like to move to, some new locations and some old. (Or at least close enough to qualify as revisits) They’re more about reflecting how much life has changed in the last few years, most particularly the ability to drive, which opens up whole new vistas.
For example, I’d like to go back to the North-West, live around the Peak district somewhere. I wouldn’t live in Manchester itself again, but there’s loads of places around it that I really like. It’s still a front-runner when the move does happen. The same applies for the South Coast, and Dorset in particular. It’s an area I love, but didn’t really get to appreciate as much as I could’ve done, because I didn’t drive. So yes, that’s also a front-runner.
There’s other places too. A revisit to Bath and/or Bristol wouldn’t be out of the question – particularly when not combined with an insane commute, ideally – and there’s new locations too. I’d consider most places, but Nottingham and Derby have always been good to me, and there’s a whole heap of other places. (Plus a long-standing idea to sod off to somewhere like Cork)
However, right now there’s also a bigger plan in place. Rebuilding after the bankruptcy, seeing what comes next, as well as looking at work and finances and what the hell I want to do/be when I grow up. There’s ideas on that score, but I need to have the time and inclination to do something about them. Time I’ve got. Inclination? Less so, right now. But that’s a post for another day.
I could move, sure. But practicality-wise, where I am right now is pretty much perfect for me right now. It’s not a long-term location, but for now it’s good. I’ve got all the transport links I need – my commuting radius for work covers an insane amount of miles. It makes my contractor life a lot easier. Location isn’t in many (if any) of those calculations I have to do. For me, right now, that’s an important factor, and outweighs pretty much everything else.
Financially, it’s easy. If I move North then the odds are that my rent would drop. But for where I am, for what I’ve got right now, I couldn’t do much better. I’d like some extra space, an extra room or two – but it’s not something that’s necessary right now either.
All told, while I would kind-of like to move, I don’t need to move. And staying put has its advantages too – location, money, blah blah.
That means that – in the lack of a good reason for moving other than “But I want to” – I’ve decided I’m going to plan to stay where I am for the next eighteen months. The six months from now for the current tenancy, and then extend it by another twelve.
Of course, the landlord might decide to sell up or something, or work may throw up something that makes me have to move. Neither option is likely, but they could happen. But short of those kind of eventualities, I’m going to face up to things, and not move.
By that time – November 2015 – I’ll have been in this place for three and a half years. Then I think it’ll be time to move on – or at least move up. If my work is still keeping me based in a way that the current location is still OK then I’ll just look at moving to a bigger place locally. If things change or work isn’t a limitation (I can work from pretty much anywhere, after all) then it might be a big location change too. We’ll see.
Posted: Sat 3 May, 2014 | Author: Lyle | Filed under: 2013/14, Commuting, Domestic, Driving, Getting Organised, Project 42, Thoughts, Words, Work-related, Writing |
This last week, I’ve been working from home – which is something I usually enjoy, but it’s not been overly assisted by feeling like rubbish, and somewhat demotivated.
Alongside that, for whatever reason, the cats have been super-demanding and really whingy, which has pissed me off more than it should.
All told, it’s meant I haven’t got as much done this week as I should’ve done, so it’s time to do things differently.
I’ve been aware of ‘co-working’ spaces/offices for a few years now, but never really felt the need to make use of them. I did look at them quite seriously when I had the possibility of the long-term ‘working from home’ gig earlier this year (which fell through) so I had some decent contacts.
As it turns out a couple of new ones have opened up quite near me in Milton Keynes. One in particular is ridiculously priced (as in ridiculously low) so I’m going to give that a go this coming week. Four days for £30 all in. I can live with that.
Of course, I still need to find out what the catch is. (If there is one) But if it works out and I like the place, it might be worth my while to make use of it for longer (depending on what other projects come up, naturally) Looking at the costs, it could cost me £80 for the whole of May, which is pretty insane…
We’ll see how the first week goes. But this could be the start of the next step up the ladder, having a place to work from for myself…
Posted: Mon 21 April, 2014 | Author: Lyle | Filed under: 2013/14, Bankruptcy, Domestic, Finances, Five Year Plan (now Ten), Project 42, Work-related |
While the last eight weeks have been pretty tight (as written about earlier this week) with the weird and slow pay structures of the agency behind my current contract – well, current for this week, but thank God, it’ll then be over – it also has been (yet another) illustration of how far things have come. As if I needed it.
Two years ago, this whole thing would’ve been a nightmare, and would’ve left me deeply in the shit.
Now, it’s been OK. It’s been tight, I’ve had to move some things around, and make some arrangements – but it’s been OK. Some of that has been because of being able to invoice some other clients and have smaller amounts of money coming in from other sources. Of course, at the moment I have no other safety cushion – no overdraft, minimal savings to speak of (although both of those will be changing) – but it makes things a bit shakier than I’d like. Not as shaky as they have been in the past by any means, but I’ll be happier this year to put some fiscal cushions in place as well.
Until then, obviously I’ll be happy just to actually get paid, and have money in my account again, but it’s another thing I’ve managed to get through. And really, that’s no bad thing.
Posted: Sun 20 April, 2014 | Author: Lyle | Filed under: 2013/14, Domestic, Five Year Plan (now Ten), Food, Health, Project 42, Weigh Less |
This year, as I’ve said before (and on many occasions) I’ve been working at getting more exercise, with an aim of losing some weight, improving health, and all that standard crap. At the same time I’ve been keeping track of food intake and so on, which has been interesting rather than overly useful.
I’ve been doing fairly well for a start- I’m tending to average walking about 3-4 miles a day, including at least a mile round the village every day. I started off just making sure I did it even on days when I wasn’t in the mood, or when the weather was vile (and lord knows we’ve had plenty of those so far this year) so that I could establish it as routine, and thus have even less excuse when the weather was good.
It’s slow-going though – which I’m not happy about. I’m eating less than the ‘recommended’ calorie count, and I’m doing more exercise. But weight has stayed fairly stable. As it is, I’ve lost half a stone this year – which is better than it could be, but it’s still hard to monitor when it takes so sodding long.
This week has been different, because of stuffing my back last weekend (which is improving, but still insanely sore in the morning) I made the decision to lay off the walking etc. as much. It’s about halved from the usual, and I’ll actually be glad to get back to it.
Anyway, there’s been progress, it’s just been ridiculously slow. Next step, once I’m back to not hurting (pardon the pun) will be to get back on my bike again and do more work on that score as well. Maybe that’ll help things progress. We’ll see.