Noise from the Basement

I have been mastering small (and some medium-sized) goals, like working out every other day, purchasing a study manual for the APCAT (the written entrance exam for EPS), volunteering twice weekly at the John Howard Society, and driving around with a tiny police cruiser perched on my dash (for good luck, of course), to name a few. Committing to do each one of those is far easier than declaring, “I want to be a police officer,” and then feeling hopelessly lost and overwhelmed because the entire endeavour is so daunting that one might not know where to start.

As we continue to work on Goal Buddy I’ve been reading books and research papers about goal setting and its cousin productivity.  Productivity is just a fancy word for saying “get stuff done”.

Some interesting articles/podcasts about productivity I recently read/listened to are:

Freaknomics: How to be More Productive

Joshua Kennon: The Secrets of Highly Productive People

However, these articles don’t hold a candle to this best article about productivity.  Be warned that reading this article will shake you to your core.  You will re-think how you approach work and view your co-workers in a different light.  Make sure you are sitting down.

Support can make or break a goal. When we circulated a survey several months ago, asking the general public how (and if) they would use an app to help them achieve a goal, a large number of respondents indicated that lack of support was a primary reason that they had not met goals in the past. Support often comes from an external source - another human being close to you, typically - but powerful support also exists in electronic guises like social media platforms, forums, online discussion groups, and in apps.

[caption id=“attachment_1141” align=“alignleft” width=“169”] The very first Splash Screen. That sun can see dead people.[/caption]

I spent the better part of last Sunday doodling on an ancient version of Photoshop (ver. 5.5, but I’m dating myself), working on the welcome screen for our Goal Buddy App. I laboured over rolling green hills (going to town with the ‘gradient’ tool), soaring mountains (gradient!) and ethereal blue sky (gradient!). It’s the first serious version of the splash screen yet, and I wouldn’t argue that the previous version was a strange three-way mix of scary, hilarious and creepy.

We have been in the “goals” mindset at SMP for a quite a few months now, as you’ve doubtless noticed. We (and by “we” I mean “Chris”) spend most of our time on the programming end of things, but also continue to learn about the psychology of goal-setting. We ponder: why do we achieve some goals but not others? Support? Determination? How realistic is the goal?

We set goals for ourselves and discuss them weekly. Mine have all been fairly pedestrian and, hence, very achievable. I felt a huge sense of satisfaction when I cleaned and organized the storage room, but knew that action was unlikely to alter the course of my existence. I practice the bass guitar three times per week. It feels great to rock out, but my downstairs neighbour just doesn’t share my appreciation of Billy Idol or Def Leppard (I can’t turn the volume above “2” or he thumps on the ceiling). It took me nearly two months to put the Christmas decorations back in the storage locker, and it felt good to finally get those cursed tote boxes out of my office.