Q2 2023 Review
When a young comic asked Jerry Seinfeld for tips, Seinfeld shared his now famous don't break the chain advice. It goes like this:
Put a calendar on the wall.
Write one joke every day.
After you write the joke, put an X through that day on the calendar.
As the days string together, you start building a chain.
Don't break the chain.
The essence of this advice boils down to two simple instructions: find the smallest thing you can do every day and do it with relentless consistency.
That's the theme of my review for this quarter. Do less, and do it consistently.
As I mentioned in my last review, my daughter was born in February. The havoc a child wreaks on one's self improvement routine is not immediately apparent. In my daughter's first two months of life, she was pretty easy. My life didn't change much.
But as she gets older and more active, she needs much more attention. Don't get me wrong, I'm happy to give it to her, but something's gotta give.
As you'll read below, a few things gave, namely reading, writing, stretching, and my overly ambitious level of exercise.
It was still a great quarter, but it required some refocusing of expectations and actions.
I had to find the level of less that worked for me and then pursue it with relentless consistency. I'm doing my best not to break the chain.
Let's dig in.
Complete Successes:
These are the goals I nailed.
One investment program analysis.
In keeping with what I wrote last quarter, this was a very boring quarter for investing.
I made some regular purchases of VTSAX with funds I deposited in my solo 401k last quarter, but otherwise I didn't make any investing moves.
I'm focusing on saving as much cash as possible right now, as I plan to do for the foreseeable future. While I could potentially make more in the market, my cash is earning 4% currently, so I'm still earning while also increasing my security and optionality.
On another note, I'm still holding all 26 small cap stocks I mentioned in previous quarterly reviews. I purchased equal dollar amounts of all 26 companies in May 2020, November 2020, and May 2021. Now the plan is to hold through 2025 and see what happens. As of this writing, the "fund" is down about 24% since inception, up from a -27% paper loss as of last quarter, and down from a 128% paper return at its all time high. What a wild ride.
Spend less than $18k as a couple.
My wife and I set a goal to spend less than $72k this year, or $18k per quarter. In Q2, we spent $19,566.63. While this was over our goal, that included a pretty sizable hospital bill from our daughter's birth. If we didn't have that expense, we would've come in significantly under the goal.
So far this year, we've spent $35,573.69, so we're still slightly under budget for the first six months and well on track for hitting our full year goal.
Send 13 newsletters.
This one is pretty straight forward. I sent 13 issues of The Lake Street Journal—one each week. At this point, I've sent 183 consecutive issues of The Lake Street Journal. I haven't missed a Friday in three years. If you're reading this and aren't subscribed, I'd love for you to sign up. Drop your email in the box at the bottom of this article.
One workout program analysis.
Some stats for the quarter:
41 CrossFit classes attended.
3 runs for a total of 10 miles.
721,123 steps or about 7,924 steps per day.
Last quarter I attended 39 CrossFit classes and ran 16 times for a total of 55 workouts. I attended two more classes this quarter and ran a lot less. I tallied 44 workouts for the quarter.
I did a bit more walking this quarter with some midday walks pushing the stroller. Unfortunately, if my watch hand is on the stroller, it doesn't count all my steps. So I imagine my steps number is a little lower than it should be.
Although I ran way less this quarter, I'm really happy with my overall performance here. I had less time to exercise, so I prioritized CrossFit, and this was the most classes I've attended in a quarter since starting more than a year ago. This is one of those areas where I'm doing a little less than I'd like, but I'm doing it consistently.
I also hit a new PR on my power clean this quarter at 225, which is 40 pounds more than when I started CrossFit in February of 2022.
Send 26 Wonderful Words newsletters.
As expected, I hit send on Wonderful Words 26 times during the quarter. These were issues 27-52 of 104 issues I plan to send this year. Growing a newsletter is a challenge, but there's nothing to grow if you don't send consistent emails. I kept up my end of the bargain and will continue to do so.
Check it out and subscribe here.
Partial Successes:
These are the goals I didn't quite nail but I didn't strike out on either.
Spend 50 hours reading.
This wasn't the best quarter for reading, but I spent 28 hours and 15 minutes with my nose buried in a book. I read for about eight, ten, and ten hours in April, May, and June, respectively. Reading time has definitely decreased since my daughter was born, but I'm finding little spots to sneak it back in.
I finished six books in Q2: The Tiger by John Vaillant, When Breath Becomes Air by Paul Kalanithi, The River of Doubt by Candice Millard, Education of a Wandering Man by Louis L'Amour, A Night to Remember by Walter Lord, and Plain Speaking by Merle Miller.
As you know, I track the number of books I finish, but it's purely for the sake of having information. I care about time spent reading far more than number of books finished.
I also spent a ton of time reading articles, which I don't track. Many of them end up being shared in The Lake Street Journal.
Spend 20 hours writing.
I spent 14 hours and 57 minutes writing in Q2 for a total of 16,897 words written. I'm pretty happy with this performance, but I'm a little bummed about the content of what I was writing.
Most of my writing time this quarter was spent on Wonderful Words. I enjoy writing the WW emails, and the format makes it much easier to write in short bursts, which is conducive to my current lifestyle as a new parent. But it doesn't feel quite as rewarding as writing longer form articles.
Hopefully I'll get around to writing a few more articles in Q3. I have plenty of ideas, I just haven't sat down to write them.
Notably, I don't count any of the time spent writing The Lake Street Journal toward my writing time. I have a couple reasons for this. First, it's a little harder to track because I often write it in bits and pieces, as is conducive to the format. Second, when I'm writing the LSJ, I'm not writing longer pieces with central ideas and arguments. It's more about writing tidbits, which is great for what I'm trying to do, but it's not the same as the writing I publish on my website.
Same goes for writing in my journal. If I counted these two things, I'd probably be north of 30 or 40 hours for the quarter.
Failures:
These are the goals I didn't accomplish. They serve as good lessons and points of reflection.
Add 250 Wonderful Words subscribers.
I began the quarter with 442 subscribers and ended the quarter with 434 subscribers...yikes.
This is a bit of a bummer since I wrote and sent 26 emails, but I basically put no effort into promotion because I didn't have much time.
If I want to grow the newsletter, I need to focus a lot more on promotion—things like recommendation swaps, a referral program, guest posts, regular social media posts, and sharing with the authors whose work I'm featuring.
I'd also like to contact as many high school English teachers and college professors as possible because I think this would be a valuable resource for their students.
I have plenty of ideas on how to grow the list but not enough time to do many of them.
When I started in January, I gave myself permission to quit if I didn't reach 500 subscribers by the end of June. So I could throw in the towel if I wanted to, but I want to keep going for a few reasons.
First, I'm enjoying the writing, and I think it's helping me become a better writer. Second, I think there is value in the product and quitting before putting a good effort into promotion feels like a mistake. And finally, if nothing else, it's another good piece of work in my portfolio. The more consecutive issues I publish, the more credibility I build.
Finally, one of my goals for the year was to transition away from compliance work and toward being an independent creator. When that transition happens, I don't want to start with zero. I want to have a few projects in the works that I can simply ramp up into high gear. Wonderful Words is one of them.
So I'm pretty disappointed with my lack of progress on this goal, but I'm not surprised, and I'm not discouraged.
Publish 8-10 articles.
I published one article and one quarterly review for a total of 4,735 published words. I also published 26 Wonderful Words emails for somewhere in the neighborhood of 13,000 words. Counting both locations, I published nearly 20,000 words for the quarter.
This goal is intended to be for my main website, so I fell pretty short of the goal with only two articles. That said, I published a lot of writing on my Wonderful Words website, which was where the majority of my energy was focused. I'd love for you to check it out and subscribe.
These are the pieces I published on my main site:
Relatedly, I don't count the Lake Street Journal newsletter as part of my published writing because it is more ephemeral, but over 13 issues I wrote and sent somewhere around 10k words (most issues average between 700 and 800 words).
I'm going to continue setting this as a goal, even though I know I'm unlikely to hit it, because it's where I want to be eventually.
Journal at least once per week.
I wrote four journal entries totaling 1,944 words. This is pretty pathetic but not at all surprising. Journaling is not one of my highest priorities, so it's been replaced by other responsibilities.
We had a few visitors this quarter, so I did my best to write my entries after their visits because I figured those would be times I wanted to remember most. Going forward, this will continue to be my strategy: write journal entries to record the times I'll want to remember most.
Two hours of Zone 2 exercise per week (average).
I only logged three runs totaling 10 miles in Q2.
I still see the value in this goal. My mind hasn't changed at all on this one, but my available time for exercise has. As I mentioned above, I still got to a lot of CrossFit classes, but I didn't have much additional time for running. As importantly, I don't think my body had the capacity for the additional workouts because my sleep hasn't been nearly as good now that we have a baby.
I generally still sleep pretty good, but my sleep is often interrupted, and many nights I don't quite get eight hours. Before my daughter was born, I was getting between eight and nine hours every night, which was great for recovery, but I'm not able to do that right now. So I've adjusted my exercise accordingly.
I'd rather exercise a little less and stay in good shape than try to push too hard, get injured, and regress.
ROMWOD 68 days.
ROMWOD is a daily stretching routine with video instruction that lasts about 20 minutes. I highly recommend it.
About half way through the quarter, I stopped keeping track. This is enough of a habit that when I have time, I get down on the floor and stretch. But if the choice is between stretching and sleep, I'm going to pick sleep every time.
I still did a decent amount of stretching, and I'll continue to do as much as possible in the future, but it isn't something I care to keep track of anymore.
Conclusions:
As I mentioned up top, this was the quarter of finding the amount of less that worked for me and being okay with it.
A few of the things I'm unwilling to compromise on are fitness, finances, and the consistency of my newsletters.
I exercised slightly less than I usually do, but it was enough to maintain my fitness and even improve a little bit in some areas.
I stayed consistent with my finances—diligently saving and tracking my spending—and my wife and I are perfectly in line with our budget for the year.
And although neither newsletter grew—in fact, they both shrunk—I never missed a single issue. Between the Lake Street Journal and Wonderful Words, I sent 39 newsletters in Q2.
I didn't get to read, write, or promote my writing as much as I wanted in Q2, but I'm fine with that. Seasons of life change, and with them, expectations need to change too.
As long as I don't break the chain on the non-negotiables, I'll be ready to strike when the timing is right.
Q3 2023 Goals:
One workout program analysis.
One investment program analysis.
Spend less than $18k as a couple.
Send 13 LSJ newsletters.
Send 26 Wonderful Words newsletters.
Journal at least once per week.
Spend 50 hours reading.
Spend 20 hours writing.
