After curating my first monthly recap for March, my April 2024 turned out to be even better thanks to my increased intentionality. As I tackled a few tasks from my Impossible List and pursued my 2024 goals, the accountability of these monthly posts has truly made a difference. At the end, I'll share some of the methods I've used to keep organized. I've also made a conscious effort to keep track of "micro-memories" along the way, here are a few I experienced in April.
April Adventures
Heather and I kicked off the month with a visit to the grand opening of a Raising Cane's restaurant in Northern Virginia. I had Cane's for the first time when I went to Salt Lake City and I had to get it again ASAP. We tried to be super early to see if we could score some coupons, free Canes for a year, or something like that. Lo and behold, a fast-food chicken restaurant opens at 9 AM; you're just as surprised as I am. They had shut down the whole block with armed security and a loud DJ to let everyone know to come and get some. We didn't make the cut for coupons, however, we did get a lanyard and the red sunglasses I'm wearing in the picture. It felt wrong to eat fried chicken at 10 AM, but it was a fun date.
The following week I had our yearly lunch with Coach Joe, Ethan, and Hunter from BW soccer in high school. Ever since we graduated, we've always tried to have a lunch gathering with Coach and some other guys I graduated with. I always enjoy talking with Coach and having an excuse to see the guys again.
The following week I bought a motorcycle! I'm so pumped about it and I'm super excited. It's a Kawasaki Ninja 300, a pretty basic sports bike that I wanted to learn to ride on. It's by no means my forever bike, some dinks and marks here and there from being laid down before but I'm not super worried about cosmetics. I took a Safety Course the last weekend of March as a prerequisite to get my license and it was so useful to help me learn to ride. I got to ride brand-new bikes in a closed parking lot and I highly recommend anyone interested in riding. I (of course) got all the gear along with it: helmet, jacket, gloves, pants, and boots. I have no clue how people would ride one without a helmet, but it seems like a pretty universal non-negotiable for me. I got a super cool purple one that I'll definitely be taking pictures of soon with the bike haha.
Heather and I went to a restaurant on the water in Arlington to celebrate our 1st anniversary together. I loved all the memories that came up as "1 year ago today" and I absolutely love our story of how we met. It's crazy to think about all the things we've managed to do together in just a year. Traveling around Hawaii together seems like quite an obvious favorite, but I also love going to all our favorite concerts together.
Productivity
Keeping track of all the ideas, plans, and goals that flow through my head isn't easy to track. Having a production workflow helps and here are a few tips that I use!
Notion- A free production software that has fully customizable notepages. It has all the functionality I could ever want in the free version and I use it just about every day. I have a fitness tracking page, a journal, finance tracking, a travel planner, and shopping lists just to name a few.
Jira board- I use this tool for work specifically for task tracking, but it's also great with personal tasks. It has a task board feature that actively tracks what stage a project is in either to-do, up next, in progress, or done. There's a backlog section where I can brain-dump tasks I eventually want to do, and then pull them into an active working frame. This follows the Agile Methodology that focuses on active planning and development processes.
An Impossible List- You saw this one coming. I always encourage everyone to write an Impossible List. It helps me visualize my long-term goals into small actionable steps. Even just articulating desirable ideas that I have "someday in the future" onto paper leads to keeping the intentionality aspect alive. That "someday" can disappear in the blink of an eye, and the next thing I know the time to achieve something that I longed for has passed.
The Big A## Calendar- No I'm serious, that's the actual name. Jesse Itzler describes the calendar so greatly here. Granted he is the founder of the calendar, but he convinced me to get one.
As April showers away, May is looking bright ahead. Two of my great friends are getting married in a few weeks and I couldn't be happier for them. The wedding is surely going to be unforgettable and I can't wait!
Thanks for reading this far along! You must be dedicated, or just super bored. I encourage you to leave a comment about one achievable goal you'd like to reach in May.
Until next time, keep the shiny side up and the rubber side down.
Ty
Updated Impossible List:
A few completions and changes have been made within the last few months, so here's the highlights:
Completions
Get a motorcycle license
Get a passport
Create 250 connections on LinkedIn
Score under 100 in a round of golf
2024 Goals
Read 10 books
Go to 5 concerts
Finish 75Hard
Run a Spartan Race
CompTIA certification
Current Focuses
Max Roth IRA in a single year
Train for a Spartan Race in Oahu, Aug 17-18
Do you have any ideas or have a helping hand in making one of these goals possible? I'd love to connect, leave a comment!
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