Update: 2024 Goals Q2

If you set goals, keep yourself accountable.

Here is the recap of my Q2 2024:

In my 2024 planning post, I said this year’s theme was:

Better is better. More is better.

And…

I’m focused on iterating on my offer, building an audience and leads, and monetization… family first and deepening relationships… buying a car and 25/25/50 savings, investing, and spending rate… go to Ireland for the summer. 

In my Q1 recap, I said my objectives and priorities for Q2 were:

• Be a good dad and get ready for baby 3 (Theodore)

• Finish the February Land A Remote Job coaching cohort strong

• Migrate all my remote work and Land A Remote Job content to a new site and start SEO work

• Ship Persefoni’s new freemium product, Persefoni Pro

• Build consistency around my training (weight lifting and BJJ) 

• Plan one side trip while in Ireland

What went well? 

Our family had a healthy baby boy – Theodore. We celebrated Oliver’s 6th birthday. And we made it to Ireland for our summer holiday.

For work, we shipped Persefoni Pro, a free carbon accounting tool companies can use to calculate their Scope 1 and 2 footprints. Then I took a proper paternity leave (3 months) — for the first time.

For the remote work career coaching, I finally committed and executed the rebrand: Remote Life OS. I built a brand new site and migrated articles and the newsletter. In parallel, 5 clients landed job offers, and I’m beta testing a new product: a “reverse job board tool”.

In health, I didn’t build up the consistency I was looking for (more on this below) but I did get back to training sooner than I anticipated after Theodore was born.

Financially, I’ve adjusted our savings/investing rate while Amy is on unpaid maternity leave and we’re in Ireland. I also kicked off setting up Amy’s consulting company. We bought a mini-van (checking off a “life goal” of mine that I wrote down 8 years ago 🚐)

What could I improve? 

Three buckets are top of my mind for Q3:

1/ Prioritization. There are lots of spinning plates. They grow exponentially with each kid (and as they get older). The only way to manage it all, sustainably while actually being, you know, happy, is to prioritize so hard it hurts.

Make the distinction between what’s important and what’s urgent.

Keep to-do lists — and just as importantly — don’t-do lists.

For example, in my 2024 goals, I said:

• No new products. I have ideas. I won’t do any of them.

• No new channels. I’d love to start TikTok. I’d love to get onto podcasts. I won’t do either.

• No scaling people. I want to hire a contractor to handle some of the processes. But hiring at this stage just means that my processes and tech suck.

I stick to these as much as possible. Most of the time I succeed. Sometimes I don’t (e.g. I did start a new product 🙈)

2/ Regression to the mean — for habits. Getting our family and household ready for Theodore — and now that he’s here! — changes all habits and patterns we’re painstakingly curated and manicured this year in Philadelphia.

Pre-kids era, this would have frustrated and annoyed me. Getting thrown off my habits would transform me into an ogre (let’s be honest: it still can). Post-kids era, I understand: that’s how it goes. No sense in getting upset. What matters is regressing to the mean, ASAP.

Now that Theodore is in our lives, we learn his cadences. We start rebuilding habits (writing, work, play, food, working out, sleep, etc) with him as part of the family.

Habits are more important than ever in a post-kids era.

Your actions build habits. Habits build traditions. Traditions build family.

3/ Play. So many of my core childhood memories revolve around play in the summer. Especially when an adult led that play: soccer games, football games, chicken fights in the pool, etc.

It’s my turn to lead.

You get a finite number of summers with your kids. Especially summers they want to spend with you. It’s less than you think. Make it count.

(How did your quarter go? I’d love to hear about your process and progress! Drop me a note!)

Goals for next quarter

Family. Play. Get in a family karaoke session. One family wedding, one family bachelor party. Continue to deepen existing relationships in my life.

Side hustle. Launch the next LARJ cohort in September. Work with 8 new clients. Formalize my “launch plan” so I can iterate on it properly. Get to 2,500 newsletter subscribers.

Health. Habits, habits, habits. Train BJJ 2x/week and weights 3x/week. Get nutrition back on track with more meal prep. Sleep more. Drink less (social drinking only).

Money. When parental leave is over, return to old spending/saving/investing levels. Finish setting up Amy’s consulting business.

Miscellaneous short updates

• Reading. I’ve been reading books a lot more. It’s wonderful. I missed it.
• Budapest. We wanted to take a short trip to Budapest this quarter but I’m too worn out from the travel in Ireland. I’m happy to stay in one place for a little while.