Several weeks ago I wrote the following in one of my weekly reviews:

Quote from Review week 39-2008:
On another note, there are several developments in my life right now. Good developments and very exciting as well, but I can’t break the news just yet. Keep following these updates and you’ll know soon enough. I’ll be setting new goals by then as well.

The next day one of my co-workers enthusiastically asked whether I was going to be a father again… That was NOT what I was thinking about when I wrote it. I meant something entirely different, however…

It was also true! If all goes well, I will be a father again in May next year. And I totally love it! Here’s the first “picture” of the little one:

It was amazing again to see the little one, and if you can tell anything from the images we saw last Friday…this is going to be a lively one as well! He or she was moving around a lot and waving arms and legs. It wondrous to be able to “see inside” and witness your developing child inside the womb. Although Jesse (our son) couldn’t care less, he just wanted to open the door to the hallway again, that’s his newest trick: opening and closing doors.

That was a happy moment for us and we needed it. Pregnancy isn’t always fun you know. My wife is very sick from being pregnant. Imagine morning sickness, only all day long. Eating has lost all its fun, because she needs to eat when nauseous and right after puking her guts out. If she doesn’t it only gets worse. No fun at all.

She’s very thankful and happy to be pregnant again, but she feels awful. She had the same when she was pregnant with Jesse, so it wasn’t really a surprise (although we hoped to skip that part this time around). It stopped at 14 weeks pregnancy then, so if it’s the similar this time she should feel better in about a week from now. I surely hope so!

In the past few weeks, running the household has been my responsibility though. We used to have a 60-40 distribution (yeah, she did more), but now with a 15-85 distribution the weight is primarily on my shoulders. And then there’s some additional care for my wife, especially preparing food and bringing it to her. So I do whatever I can to get us through this part of the pregnancy. But it leaves little time or energy for other things (but that doesn’t stop me from trying…).

The frustrating part is that there’s not an awful lot I can do to make her feel better. All I can do is support her, and help her. When I bring her breakfast in bed for example (which is like every day now), she says “Thank you. Blegh…I’m nauseous. Yuck…I hate that food.” Which is pretty much a mixed message, don’t you think? Am I doing her a favor? Or am I tormenting her with food?

Anyway, I we will be very happy when this phase of the pregnancy is over. So we can enjoy it the rest of the time. And so the distribution in the household can normalize again. Like I said there’s little time and energy left. That doesn’t keep me from working on my ambitions, but it is keeping me from writing about it.

P.S. I have an article published in the current edition (vol 2 ed 2) of “Personal Branding Magazine“, about productivity pitfalls in personal branding. If you want to read it, you need to buy the magazine ($12.95 for 4 editions). And you’ll get interviews with David Allen, Gary Vaynerchuck and others as a bonus

Every other week I review the past two weeks. The contents of this review may vary, but among the returning topics are the performance figures of this blog, my progress towards my goals and my experiences with productivity systems and habits.

Here I am sitting with my laptop on the couch, trying to come up with a good beginning for this bi-weekly review. I’ve tried several already, but I can’t seem to find that one that describes the madness that the past two weeks have been.

Got some credit?

Of course there’s the madness that the credit crisis is causing on stock markets around the world. It’s been interesting to watch how the numbers kept on plunging towards deeper and deeper levels. Fantastic! I like serious change, and it’s happening all around us. Mind you, I don’t own stock, so I basically lack the emotional effects a lot of people will feel. If this is you, I’m sorry for your losses. I don’t know what you should do either…

I have learned two things from this crisis so far. First of all I have learned a lot (big events tend to invoke a need to learn in me). I have gained more understanding about the foundations on which our financial system has been built, and why it’s shaking on that very foundation right now. If you’re interested in that, check the 47 minute video “Money as debt” for a starter. It’s a great introduction into the banking and monetary system.

Second, I have told a lot of people that a part of me likes it that the economy is weakening while I’m moving towards entrepreneurship. It’s when the going gets tough that quality arises, so if I can start in bad times I’m going to make it through all cycles. It seems that the universe has upped the ante by pulling the magic credit crisis trick from the big hat. My plans haven’t changed, my attitude hasn’t changed, but the challenge is even bigger now. Bring it on, I say!

Today I’m running towards…

…the exit? Neh, towards the finish! That’s what I’ve done today. I finished my running goal this week.
Click to continue »

On Sundays I’m looking back on the past week. How did I perform towards my goals? How did my blog do? And how am I keeping up with my productivity habits?

As I copy and past this blog post from the previous one, I can’t help but notice that the above section isn’t quite true anymore. For a couple of months now I haven’t been reviewing every week. Both online and offline, because those are pretty correlated. If I don’t do a review online, I did not do a review.

I’ve got the feeling that this review is gravitating towards a biweekly rhythm. And that would match up quite nicely with my todoodlists, which have a two week focus as well. You know, I’m going to decide right now to make this a biweekly review from now on. Let’s see how that works out.

Blog performance

Average daily subscribers:	1143	( 13)
Average daily visitors:	357	( 80)

The moleskine captures did well on StumbleUpon. I thought that was pretty enlightening, a regular post would not have done quite as well. I may just use this tactic more often. I like writing in my Moleskine, and if that type of posts appeals to readers and visitors, it’s a win-win situation right?

I know it’s bad for SEO, but I don’t mind. I’m not here for search engines, I’m here for people. And if they find me through social media that’s perfect! And by the way I learned some tricks for SEO and images in SEO School, a hands-on eBook by Naomi Dunford of Ittybiz. She previously took it off the market, but as of today it’s available again.

I already knew quite some things about SEO, but Naomi added quite some marketing knowledge and advice to the book. That part was particularly valuable for me. I haven’t really used it on this blog yet, but I used quite a lot of it for the mini-site for my eBook. It was very valuable in for setting up that site and the book has paid itself back several times already.

If you have a blog or website, and SEO is still a mystery to you, or you could have some hands-on marketing advice, SEO School is the eBook to check out. It’s available for $39, and if you use the links from my blog you’ll split your money evenly between Naomi and me. Thanks a lot if you decide to do that!

Progress towards goals

Again, I haven’t trained as much as I would’ve liked to. Downgrading my goal to 6 kilometer, sensible as it may be, is not helping in keeping my motivation as well. I know I can run the 6 km, as I already did that last week as a training run. All I need to do is keep it up in the two weeks that remain to the event.

After that I’ll have to find another way to keep up with the vitality habits. Vitality is one of my important values. It’s not one of my core values, but more of a prerequisite value. Without vitality a lot of things are just not as fun anymore. But I’m digressing, I need to find another way to keep up the vitality thing. Soon it’ll be too cold for me to run outdoors. No, I’m not a wimp (okay…sometimes I am), but I get asthmatic symptoms if I exercise outdoors at low temperatures. And that ain’t a lot of fun.

On another note, there are several developments in my life right now. Good developments and very exciting as well, but I can’t break the news just yet. Keep following these updates and you’ll know soon enough. I’ll be setting new goals by then as well.

And although it’s not a goal (and as such should not be in this section) I’m still enjoying playing the guitar. My fingers are getting used to pushing the strings, and I’m getting experience in some of the basic chords. Currently I’m practicing on a Spanish guitar, which makes some of the chords really hard because the neck is quite wide. And my hands are not that big… which is frustrating at times. In the guitar store I noticed that regular guitars and electric guitars have a much slimmer neck, so it will get easier once I get my own guitar (I’m borrowing this one from my brother). And I might start guitar lessons in a few weeks.

Productivity Habits - weekly review

Not that much to say in this section. The amount of work is increasing though, both at work and at home. I need to make sure that I don’t fall off the wagon on this one, because it’ll pile up in backlogs in no time.

On Sundays I’m looking back on the past week. How did I perform towards my goals? How did my blog do? And how am I keeping up with my productivity habits?

Blog performance

Average daily subscribers:	1130	( 57)
Average daily visitors:	277	( 54)

A nice rise in subscribers, welcome all! The stats I’m sharing here are the subscribers of all three feeds combined.

Progress towards goals

I removed the Renovation project from this overview. It’s finished, and I’ve celebrated it enough. Time to move on.

I have come to realize that the Half Marathon goal, the only active goal for now, is not realistic anymore. I’ve been training pretty steady throughout the last couple of weeks, and I’m making progress. Just not enough. There’s not enough time left to train towards half a marathon in exactly 4 weeks. So I’m making the sensible decision here, and change the goal.

I’m sticking to the deadline, and have entered in another side event of the Marathon Eindhoven. The events on that day are:

• Marathon 42.2 km
• Half Marathon 21.1 km
• City Run 6 km
• Kids Marathon 3 km

So I’m running the 6 km event on Sunday October 12. I was hoping for a 10 km side event, but unfortunately that’s not on the agenda. 6 km should not be too much of a problem. Coming week I have a 6 km run on my training schedule.

I’m also working on a new goal. It will be a goal related to my freelancing / entrepreneurial activities. I’m taking my time to define it right this time.

And, totally unrelated, I started playing the guitar this week. I’ve been playing around with that idea for a while now, and decided to just start. The challenging part: not setting any goals for it! I decided that this is just going to be a relaxing activity, and I have no goals. Just practice, play and learn. I practiced quite a bit last week, and the fingertips of my left hand are really hurting for a couple of days now. Nevertheless I’m having a lot of fun playing the guitar.

Productivity Habits - weekly review

Since the renovation project has ended I have been working my way through backlogs and archives. So far I’ve tackled most of the backlogs and gone through most of my archives. The bad part was that some archives and backlogs existed in boxes, where they’ve been ever since we moved house. That’s almost done though. And then I have finally reached the point where there are no more remnants of an unorganized past. And that feels pretty good!

On Sundays I’m looking back on the past week. How did I perform towards my goals? How did my blog do? And how am I keeping up with my productivity habits?

Blog performance

Average daily subscribers:	1073	( 2)
Average daily visitors:	331	( 63)

Blog statistics are slightly down this week. The subscriber numbers are back to normal levels after last weekend’s glitch in the reports by Feedburner. Average daily visitors is a bit down as well, but still pretty high. The number reflects visitors, not pageviews. Pageviews is a popular (advertisement driven) statistic used by websites. But I rather count the number of people that visit here, than the number of pages served. The number of pageviews is a lot higher than this number.

Visitors this week were less from StumbleUpon and more from other sources like Zen Habits. Leo linked to my eBook Personal Core Values last week and he said about it:

… I really like the job Lodewijk’s done here … these are concepts that are useful in living a simple, successful and happy life. …

I also made the dedicated site for the eBook this week. I learned some lessons in online marketing last week and decided to apply them straight away.

Progress towards goals

Some progress, but there’s only one active goal left. I already have a grasp on what the next goal is going to be. I’ll introduce it next week.

Renovation Project
Status:
Overdue, since 02/2008 FINISHED!
I’m keeping this goal here for this week, because I’m still in the victorious rush of finishing it. I’ll probably remove it next week.

Half Marathon training
Status:
No longer on schedule, but active. Deadline is October 12, 2008.
Progress this week:
I did three workouts this week. One of them was a 3.25 km run, one of them was a fairly long bicycle trip, and one of them was weight lifting. I feel they all contributed to building stamina, which is the main goal for being able to finish the 21 km distance. But I need to do more running.
Planning next week:
Three runs. Targets: 4 km (fast) - 6 km (medium) - 4 km (slow)

Productivity Habits - weekly review

Last Friday I was interviewed by a research group of the University of Manchester on user experiences with Getting Things Done. It was a fun interview that really made me reflect on my journey so far. It gave me several ideas for blog posts again, and when I get the transcript (of the 90 minute Skype call) I probably get a bunch more.

I discovered that I adopted quite a bit of David Allen’s system in my day-to-day work processes. Yet I also discovered that I dropped considerable parts of the system, because they did not work for me. I’ll definitely write more about productivity in the weeks to follow.