“Crunch”

The key to developing a routine is to keep going through the motions no matter how much you don’t feel like it. Eventually it will become a habit, but you have to keep at it. I said I was going to try to post something every week, so I’m holding myself to it.

Boom.

“Pittsburgh”

I haven’t been doing so well with a lot of this the past few months. I haven’t really been writing… I’ve taken (literally) thousands of pictures without posting anything to Flickr… I’ve fallen behind on several of my goals.

I often find myself getting caught up in feeling like I’m behind. I look at my pile of projects and feel discouraged because they just keep growing and growing. The bigger the pile, the more daunting the idea of getting back on top of it. Heck, I’m even a month behind on my RSS feeds! I’m sick of it. I’m now at that point where I need to force myself to get back to doing what I want.

For as far behind as I feel, I haven’t just been sitting on my hands. I’ve been making a point to keep going out there and networking. I’ve been traveling around a lot the past few months. (Denver, Omaha, Rochester…) I’ve taken on some freelance work. And I’ve tried to slowly make more time for some of my on-going responsibilities. It’s been kinda crazy lately. I kinda like it. Some of it’s good, some is stressful… But it’s all worth it.

“Freestyle Motocross”

I’m starting to slowly chip back away at the pile. I was really inspired by a post about photo workflows on Chase Jarvis’s blog. (Worth a read if you ever find yourself wondering how you’ll ever find time to go through all of your pictures.) After reading it, I decide that I wanted to give it a try. I kept thinking, “I can do that… That’s easy!” So far, so good. I’m going to make an attempt to post a new batch of pictures every week, even if that just means one or two.

The freelance project I took on, while it won’t require a TON (*knock on wood*) of time, the reality of getting paid to do something outside of work is a pretty good motivator to try to get back to working on some of my programming projects. It’s an interesting project. I can’t really share anything right now, but it involves me diving back into the world of PHP again and also involves an iPad. (No, I didn’t get the new one yet… I’m rocking steady with my original.) I think just getting back into a routine will be a lot of help towards chipping back away at my stack.

I’m no longer content to sit back and take life as it comes. If I want something, I need to bust my butt and make it happen for myself. Life isn’t going to just come along and drop everything in my lap just because I was patient. It’s all about the hustle.

As a certain cartoon fish once said, “Just keep swimming.”

“The United States Air Force Thunderbirds”

PS I’m super excited to have grabbed a ticket to see David Hobby and Joe McNally when they swing through Pittsburgh on their Flash Bus Tour. It sounds pretty awesome from all of the posts I’ve read about it. If you’re into that kind of thing you should definitely try to check it out. I even got selected to be a VAL [voice activated light stand] so I’m hoping that means I’ll get a chance to talk to David and Joe beforehand. (I already paid for my ticket so I won’t get the freebie, but I’m not upset about that at all.) It looks like it’s going to be a great time.

Until next time…