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I was encouraged by a little nudge from Aaron over at Personal Development Partners to report on my progress from a committed goal of getting back to regular exercise in November.  Although the topic over there is very interesting, I would like to say a few words about the value of web communities.

People might wonder, “Why would I sit online and type short messages to people I may have never even met?”  Ok, for most other people they would be short messages – I don’t seem able to do that.  That’s neither here nor there; it’s not my point.  My point is that many people don’t see the point.  Get my point?

So I want to give you a few reasons why I feel that it is beneficial to find a community that you can join – and contribute to.  Just going and reading forums can be addictive – there’s a voyeuristic quality to it.  That’s why they call it “lurking,” as in lurking in the shadows.  So why participate in these communities.  Oh, oh, I feel a list coming on…

1. You get to meet distant people.  Sure you can meet people in real life.  But from Australia?  From Guatemala (or Canada 😉 )?  Not much of that happening pretty much in the populational and geographical center of the ole’ U.S. of A. (actually that center is about 2 hours south and west of here, but close enough.)
2. You can find people with similar interests.  This beats bar hopping!  I know people who have had romantic involvements with people that went really bad.  “Why did this happen to me?” they moan.  Well what did you have in common?  You both were willing to troll around in a smoky bar looking for love in all the wrong places.  Why not go where you can find people with the same mindset and interests as yourself.  I also know people who have met online and gotten married (well, only two off the top of my head – but that’s not insignificant!).  They knew (and loved) each other from the inside out.  Which brings me to my next point.
3. You get to know people by their character and their thoughts and opinions – not just their looks.  One of the big advantages to online communities is you don’t have the problem of judging the book by the cover.  You are forced to at least skim the contents.  I’ve had the opportunity to be a part of an online community and then have a party were members came from near (mostly near – this was college days…) and far (like states away…) to meet in person.  It is a huge shock!  There was one guy who was a close friend online, but when I met him I thought, “If I saw him coming down the street my way, I’d cross to the other side for safety!”  Hey, King Zombie, if you’re out there drop me a line… I haven’t heard from you for forever!  — Elias  (sorry about that, but you never know what Google will dredge up…?)
4. You get to have your own thoughts and assumptions about life challenged and stretched.  You can do this in person as well, but with such a high concentration of activity online – it is magnified and intensified.  There’s nothing like an advanced course in multiple perspectives that will open your eyes to how small your world view has been.
5. Oh, come on, there’s got to be at least 5 reasons!!  Oh here’s one, “they’re always there for you.”  No not in the sense of emotional support, although that’s available in many places.  I mean that it’s a place that’s jumpin’ in all 24 time zones.  It doesn’t matter when your where you are – you can hop online and engage with others.

Well that’s a little starter for reasons to participate with others online.  Now I’m still learning all this social networking stuff (is that the same as Web 2.0? I don’t really think so…  Ok, don’t drift off – stay on target…).  So I’m going to take this opportunity to try to link this post over to the community mention in the title up there.  I’m also going to do what I see at the end of so many other blog posts – let’s see how this works…

So, how about you?  Do you participate in online communities?  Why or why not?  Do you have other reasons why you do(n’t)?  Leave a comment here and tell me, er I mean us, about it.

(not too cheesy was it?  I sure hope I have my comments functionality properly enabled.  That would be embarrassing wouldn’t it?  I probably should’ve checked before I posted.  No time now, if I don’t go exercise I’ll miss my window of opportunity and have to go on to work!)

Discuss this post at Personal Development Partners

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As October crawls into the past, things seem as hectic as ever. I’ve neglected chronicling my antics as I geared up for the Iowa-Missouri Peacemaker Retreat that my wife and I presented. It went very well and I think a handful of people are motivated to make changes in their homes and communities. The week before we were at a church presenting on the same topic. So the last half of this month has been dedicated to Biblical conflict resolution and interpersonal reconciliation.

So what of November? I would like to see November become a month of shoring up bookkeeping, for the business, for the home, and for my personal projects. I also expect to get some web content/applications moved, updated, and created. And lastly, I want to make some measurable strides in getting at least one of the three books in my head out into electronic form. This has already begun, but the expectation is measurable progress through November.

On the family front, we’ll have a visit from my Mom for about 20% of the month (almost a week). I’ve taken each of the older kids out for time with dad. But I’d like to find some projects around the house to do together. There needs to be some more effort in this department. What could November contribute?

That should make month #482 a valuable month. I still have a couple of days for planning and I hope to take advantage of that. Getting up too early this morning has contributed to that goal, however.

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• A new project deadline! We are now shooting for 12/10. Any takers on how long that will last? #

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For me, I am a list person.  And I’m not.

I like making lists.  It can actually feel the items dripping out of my brain and onto the list.  I then have space to add new things to my mental memory banks.

But there’s the problem I see in many places.  I don’t have a good name for it though.  Well, when you don’t have a good name for something you give it a little description and call it a “syndrome.”  So this is “I declared it, so it’s done” syndrome.

I sit in meetings where we discuss a course of action.  The discussion can get elevated and when we come to a decision, it feels like we really did something.  But we didn’t do anything!  We decided to do something.  That’s not the same as carrying out the decision – I have to keep reminding myself of this, because I suffer from this syndrome.

So when I make a “to do” list (or a “will do” list, or a “wish to do” list, or a “should do” list, or now a “do do” list…), I think that putting it on the list accomplishes something.  I think that is because I feel the dripping out sensation.  I think what I need to find is the feeling of accomplishment.

This leads me to a life coaching question, “What have you done well, lately?”  This could be refined to yesterday, or even so far today.  This question puts aside the nice feeling you get from “I declared it, so it’s done” syndrome, and actually asks you to dig in and recognize actual accomplishments.

Then as a follow up, you just ask clarifying questions.  “How do you plan to continue doing this?”  “What else could you do to build on this?”  “How did you feel when you recognized you achieved this accomplishment?”

This is a great self-coaching session you can have with yourself whenever you need to step it up a notch and actually accomplish what’s on your list and not just be a list maker.

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Wow, it’s been almost a week since I posted.  I read an entry on another blog that you should only write a blog post 2-3 times a week.  You will wear people out with all your drivel otherwise.  To each their own.  If I was blogging for them, I might take that advice.  But at this point – I’m blogging purely for myself, so…

I just read this morning about two things to do to conquer procrastination:

1. Break it up – look at tasks you are putting off in small, manageable, bite-sized pieces.
2. Write it down – writing goals is great, but to help with this problem you need to log what you’re doing so you can look at it with honesty and see where you are wasting your time.

I think I’m up for this.  As a major procrastinator, I want to find something that works.  Because my whole goal in the “SetOfSail” thing is to find things that work and share them with “the rest of us.”

So how do I achieve that?  Do I use my Palm and put entries in DayNotez?  Do I put entries in Twitter (which will be rebounded back to here)?  Nope – nixing that one up front.  Could use AirSet… that’s a possibility.  Or could use my text TODO trick…  I hate having so many options!  Just kidding.  Options are a good thing – when you take one.

So my Will Do list today consists of:

• Decide how to track my procrastination list (I’ll call this my “Do Do” list 😉
• At work – try to understand the CAL since I’ll be working on it for a few days 🙁
• Have an outline for this weekends Sabbath School lesson (handouts would be good)

Let’s not get carried away.  This is plenty.

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So what should be done today?  I’ve already had some time reading about building an extraordinary life, specifically about the influence of friends and peers in our choices and outcomes.  I’ve also cleared out my e-mail (I get about 2,000 e-mails a day, 1,980 of them are junk!  Maybe I should but getting a better spam filter as a task to accomplish!).

I got an e-mail from a friend about their support of Ron Paul for president in 2008, I went and looked at his positions.  I strongly agree with all of them except two, so does that mean I should support him?  Something to think about…  I enjoy watching and learning about politics.  I happen to live in a country where I actually have an option to participate.

So that’s quite a bit accomplish and it’s not even 7 am.  So what will I commit to do today?

1) Finish my sermon (no option there).

I think that’s all I’m going to commit to today.  The rest will just be a bonus.  Hurray!

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• I have made my phone call (denied!) and I have about 30 minutes left on my last goal for tonight 🙂 #
• Finishing my 40 minutes towards paperwork and going to bed at a decent hour – night all! 2 out of 3 for the first day… I’ll take it. #
• Ok, Ajax is going to work. That’s comforting. I got the trim. I will start on the sermon. So all the will do’s for today are now done. #

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Andrew was a veteran at the Thirty Day Challenge. And he has decided to pursue an online career. He gave this video as a rationalization for why. This is really something to think about.

I added this article thinking that you’d be able to see the video here, but I guess you would have to leave the site by clicking on “read more” below…  I would like a better solution.

read more | digg story

What did we learn from yesterday?  For one thing, the Twitter Tool doesn’t update late at night, so all my updates on meeting my commitments weren’t logged yesterday.  No big deal.  And I missed one item on my list of three things – terrible?  Maybe, but we won’t look back.  It’s hard to drive by steering through the rear view mirror.

For today I have a few things that I will do:
1) Get a haircut
2) Start on my sermon
3) (for work) Have a determination on whether Ajax will work for me – or decide on an alternative.

Very simple.

Something else I thought about (showers are great places for ideas!).  At the end of the day I’ll have questions such as, “Did it make a difference that you were a father today?”  Well, should it?  If it didn’t what needs to change?  You can use that for any area of your life.

I watched some videos this morning about setting up an on-line business.  I think I’m making this thing way to complicated.  I’m sitting on the shore in the morning watching the sailboats launching out and mourning the fact that I don’t have anywhere to go…

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• Leaving work. Did not get Price Sharing done. I worked on AJAX all day. #

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