My wonderful wife got me a membership to the California Academy of Sciences for my birthday, which is officially reopening this weekend after being under construction for the last several years. It’s one of the ten largest natural history museums in the world and houses the Steinhart Aquarium, Morrison Planetarium, a four-story rainforest exhibit, penguin exhibit, and more. I absolutely love aquariums, and we didn’t have a great one here in the city until now, so I’m really excited. We went to a member’s preview today, and I was very impressed. The building design is phenomenal, with lots of open space and natural lighting. And the aquarium is sweet, with catwalks over the water so you can view from above, below-waterline viewing areas, and even a tunnel that cuts through a sunken rainforest freshwater exhibit. Very cool.

I was also very excited to learn that they’re looking for volunteers to help with all aspects of the museum, including hands-on stuff with at the aquarium. If you’re rescue diver certified, you can even be a volunteer diver to help feed the animals, clean the glass, etc. I’m not rescue certified yet, but I definitely will look into it.

I didn’t bring my camera, but here’s a Flickr group that has some good photos…enjoy!

http://flickr.com/groups/calacademy/pool/

I’m getting a little tired of Republicans attacking the integrity of my political positions and assuming that because I don’t agree with them on something, I’ve been duped by the “liberal media”. If you want to actually talk about the issues, then we can. However, avoiding intelligent and reasonable dialogue by questioning the intelligence of anyone who disagrees with you is insulting and only highlights the weakness of your position.

Most Republicans that I talk to always seem to assume that to the extent that I disagree with them, it must be due to my being influenced by the bias and attacks of the “liberal / left-wing media”. What’s worse is that they’re always peddling conservative pundits and commentators like Rush Limbaugh and Sean Hannity as better sources of info. They freak out if I post an article from the Wall Street Journal or The Associated Press, but then gleefully send me articles from CitizenLink, WorldNetDaily, and ExposeObama.com. Many of these people might be surprised to know that I already regularly read articles and posts from sources like that, some for the info and some for the pure comedic value. I’m also happy to check out the ones that I haven’t read before and see if I find anything interesting. I regularly read conservative and Republican blogs and websites, and I look up clips from conservative TV shows when they deal with something interesting. Anytime I’m in the car, I try to listen to political talk radio, which is overwhelmingly conservative. But you have to keep something in mind: for almost ALL of those sources, I am listening to them for their OPINION of the facts, not for the facts themselves. Here’s why:

Almost none of the sources that Republicans (at least the ones I’m always hearing from) trust are sources of original research. In other words, those organizations, which are almost all self-described as being biased to the conservative side, have a mission of giving a conservative viewpoint and perspective to the facts. There is nothing wrong with that, but it is crucial to understand that they are editorial sources, not original sources. They do not send out reporters, they don’t conduct investigations, they don’t interview people, and they don’t cover events live. They are NOT news sources, they are opinion sources.

So ask yourself this: where do THEY get their facts? If you read pretty much any article on any of those types of sources, they talk about how Obama did this and McCain did that and this is what it means. They quote people and they give numbers and they build a case for their opinion. All this is well and good, by the way. But where do they get that information in the first place? What’s the original source? How does Rush know what Obama said at a press conference, or how much McCain has collected in campaign donations, or where Palin was mayor? Where do the quotes and financial numbers come from? Where do the photos come from? None of these organizations are collecting them themselves, so they must be getting them from someone else.

Turns out that they’re getting their facts from the same place I am: the mainstream media. They watch the wire services (Associated Press and Reuters), TV news channels (CNN, MSNBC, Fox), newspapers, and other “mainstream” journalistic sources.

(Side note: I’ve often wondered exactly how these people determine what sources are “left-wing / liberal”? Is it just anyone who disagrees with them or ever prints anything positive about Obama or negative about McCain? What’s their evidence to support their indictment that certain sources are “left-wing” and therefore not to be trusted? I haven’t gotten an answer yet.)

Now, journalists aren’t perfect. They’re human beings, and they have natural bias that DOES creep into their work. This bias goes both ways, but let’s assume that bias in the “mainstream media” is primarily liberal in nature (highly debatable). The fact that there is some bias doesn’t mean that those sources have no value. We must be careful not to throw the baby out with the bathwater. Journalistic integrity is not completely dead, at least not yet. Journalists actually DO strive to be fair and balanced for the most part. Some might disagree with that last part, but my question is this:

Why not go to the original source? How can one make the case that instead of going to the slightly biased original source, I should instead go to someone who takes that original source, wraps it in their opinion so it fits their ideology, and then feeds it to me as news? And I should have that be my only source of information? And the worst part is, those sources have told me that they’re biased! So why should I trust that the picture they’re painting for me is the whole picture? Why should I believe that they’ll faithfully report the facts, even if they’re damaging to their cause? Why should I think that they’re going to show me both sides equally, the pros and the cons? Of course they won’t: they’re in the business of selling a conservative ideology, and those things don’t sell their product very well.

The entire problem can be avoided by going to as many of the original sources as possible for yourself, taking them all with a grain of salt, listening to the conservative and liberal editorial voices on both sides, and making up your mind for yourself. But some people can’t stop advocating for only listening to the conservative editorial voices. So either they can’t think for themselves, and thus have to rely on a “conservative” editorial source telling them what to think, or they’re not really interested in the truth, just in hearing what they want to hear, so it doesn’t matter to them if the conservative source is biased to the point of distorting the truth.

Which is it?

Warning: the contents of this post are personal and probably won’t interest the majority of readers. These “progress update” posts are as much for me as anyone, but I encourage you to read through them and post any questions or encouragements in the comments. Thanks!

I’m halfway through my first month under my new goal plan, and I just wanted to give a quick update.

Habits
The first week of the month was rough…I got caught up in client work and trying to get BlueSwarm.com out the door and things unraveled quickly. I spent last week trying to get things back on track and stabilized. Things are running smoothly again and hopefully I’ll be able to keep it up through the end of the month. I’m also considering dropping the “morning pages” daily habit, but we’ll see.

Oh, and I didn’t manage to do my weekly review for GTD on Friday, so I’ll be doing it today instead

Projects
I had a bit too much on my plate, so I’ve cut one of my projects out and severely de-emphasized another. I’m hoping that this should free up some time and mental cycles. I’m hoping to clean out a couple more projects within the next few months.

Goals
My 30-day goals are going ok, but I’m running about one week behind where I should be on most of the goals. I’m going to severely kick it up a notch over the next seven days, which should put me in striking distance to most of the goals with a week to go in September. I’ve also decided to drop one of my goals, which was to go completely paperless in my record-keeping. The scanner I want to use for that costs several hundred dollars, and I feel that some other things are a higher priority right now, so I’m bumping that goal back to the 90-day mark.

Thanks to all of you who have asked how I’m doing with my goals and habits. Your interest and encouragement have been most helpful. Please continue to keep me accountable!

The last week has been a rough one. I’ve been very busy juggling client work and working feverishly to get BlueSwarm.com out the door. We’re very close and I hope to be posting about that any day now. Anyway, my daily habits fell apart sometime around last Wednesday and I’ve been fighting to catch up on things and get back into the swing of it since then. I realized today that a third of September is now gone, and I can feel the weight of my 30-day goals pressing in on me. I think I’m going to hit most of them, but there’s one or two that are going to be a real stretch.

Sometimes I feel like I can never get ahead, but I have to remember that perfection is NOT the goal, progress is. If I set perfection up as the ultimate aim, I tend to wait until things are perfect, but they never are.

So I’m jumping back into things today, even though it’s already past 5pm and I’m swamped and the easy thing to do would be to tell myself that I’ll get a fresh start tomorrow. The problem is that tomorrow turns into next week and next month and next year and never. Today is all that matters.

And please, If you see me on Twitter, ask me how my daily habits and goals are going

I’ve spent the last few weeks putting together a master goal plan, and I wanted to share a few things that I’ve learned from the process.

1. Keep it SMART

It’s cliche, but the SMART acronym is actually a useful device for ensuring that your goals are as effective as possible. It stands for Specific, Measurable, Actionable, Realistic, and Timely. These five words vary slightly depending on who you ask, but the basic concept remains the same. Goals like “get in better shape” are not that useful because it’s hard to know when you’ve achieved it, or even what you’re working towards.

2. Categorize for balance

I like to break my life into different areas, like Personal, Professional, Financial, Physical, Spiritual, etc. and ensure that I have one or two goals for each category, to ensure that I’m not ignoring a large swath of my life as I strive for success in another.

3. Consider scope

I’ve got my goals split into different timelines for different periods of time. Here are my current time periods:

• 30 day
• 90 day
• 1 year
• 3 year
• 5 year
• 10 year

I generally have more goals in the timelines that are sooner, and fewer goals in the timelines that are farther out. And the goals get a little more general and higher-level the farther out you go, because so much in my life will change over the next ten years that it’s hard to say who I’ll be or what I’ll be interested in.

4. Don’t forget habits

In addition to the actual goals that I want to accomplish, I maintain a list of habits that I want to do on a regular basis that will help me move towards those goals. I have seven daily habits that I do Mon - Fri, a couple weekly habits, and a couple of monthly habits.

5. Plan for review

One of the biggest reasons that my lists of goals have slipped in the past is that I didn’t have a clear plan or process for reviewing my goals on a regular basis. One of my daily habits now is to review my goals. I’m currently reviewing all the goal timelines, but I think it would be fine to review the ones farther out on a more infrequent basis, such as weekly or monthly. The point is, determine an actual schedule to read through your goal plan and consider whether your current daily actions and habits are moving you closer towards those goals.

6. Track your progress

In addition to reviewing your goals on a regular basis, you’ll need to keep creating new goal plans and recording the outcome of the previous one, in accordance with the timeline of the goals. For example, at the top of every one of my goal timelines, I’ve got the date where that goal plan ends. At the end of that period, I’ll record the progress for every goal and write a new one for that length of time. For example, at the end of the next 30 days, I’ll record the progress for my 30 day list of goals, and then write my list for the next 30 days. After 90 days, I’ll put together my next 90 day list of goals, and so on. That way, I’ll always have a list of things that I’m working towards, and there’s a natural and organic progression of creating new goals based on the latest

7. Be accountable

You have your goals, you’re rocking along, and then you hit a snag. You’ve got a goal deadline coming up and you’re just not there yet. The easy thing to do is just push it back to another timeline and not worry too much about it. This is especially easy when no one will know except for you. But when you’ve got friends and family asking you how your goals are coming, it becomes harder to put them off until later. Find someone who is as passionate as you about reaching their goals and ask them to keep you accountable. It makes a difference.

8. Be flexible

People change. What you think you want in ten years will almost certainly change over the course of a decade, and it doesn’t make any sense to force yourself to adhere to an end that you’re no longer passionate about. So don’t be afraid to change your mind along the way, and adjust your goals accordingly. On the other hand, sometimes you gotta stick it out. One of my favorite books for figuring out the difference is The Dip by Seth Godin

Warning: this post is personal in nature and relatively useless unless you like dogs. So if you’re looking for action-oriented info or something other than entertainment, this isn’t the post for you

About five weeks ago, my wife and I welcomed two new members to our family: two beagle puppies named Barkley and Bianca. They’ve been a lot of work, but we’re really enjoying them. They’re almost twelve weeks at this point, and we’re both really shocked at how good they are. They sleep in separate crates at night, they sleep through the whole night, they don’t cry when they’re left alone, they don’t really bark, they sleep a lot, and they have a pretty well-adjusted nature in general. Hopefully this isn’t just a phase, but we’re working hard with them on training and we’re taking them to puppy classes so they get plenty of early socialization with other people and dogs.

Though they’ve been great overall, it’s not all awesome. For example, it’s been pretty difficult to get into a routine with them. Before we got them, I would get up every morning at 4:15am and head to my office, but now Alexis and I trade off days getting up with them in the morning and taking care of them for the bulk of the day. As I can’t get a lot done while at home, this has impacted my productivity. However, we’re getting back into a routine and I’m hopeful that my productivity will end up close to pre-canine levels.

If you want to see more pictures, check them out here:
http://flickr.com/photos/ryanwaggoner/sets/72157606335459315/

Today is my 26th birthday. It was a low-key affair, just hanging out and spending a bit of time with my wife before grabbing some dinner. Relaxing. I can’t help but be a little depressed on my birthday…I always feel like I should have accomplished more over the previous year than I did.

I just finished reading “How to Get Rich” by Felix Dennis, a British publishing mogul worth somewhere in the neighborhood of $900 million. The book is an incredibly frank appraisal of wealth, what it takes to get it, keep it, enjoy it, and the prices you pay along the way. Best of all, it’s actually written by a guy who built incredible wealth, rather than a guy who made most of his riches off of books he’s written telling people how to get wealthy. Anyway, one of the things that stood out to me was where he said that he would give it all up and everything he would ever make just to be young again. And I think that many wealthy people would say the same. He states that if you are young, you are far, far richer than anyone much older than you can ever be, because you have a lot more time than they do, and time is the most valuable resource we have.

I completely agree, and for me, building wealth is about building the ability to own my time and do what i choose with it. Additionally, wealth buys access to better health care, which can both improve the quality and the quantity of the time that we have in our lives. And if radical life extension becomes a reality during my lifetime, the unfortunate truth is that those with wealth will have access to it sooner than others.

I guess the trick is finding an area to build wealth in that you enjoy, so that you don’t spend your entire life toiling away at something you hate just to build wealth, and thus lose the time you were trying to save in the first place.

In August of 2007, I quit my job as a product manager at CNET Networks and started freelancing full-time. I do mostly web development and social media consulting, and I’m really enjoying it. I thought I’d share a few of the lessons that I’ve learned along the way.

1. Working at home sucks

Maybe it would work if I was always working at home by myself, had a separate room that was just for work, and had everything setup just so. Maybe. But I find that being at home has too many distractions, from TV, to my wife, to our new puppies. I get 2x - 4x as much done at my office as I do at home. What that means in practical terms is that paying a few hundred bucks a month for a small office or co-working space is well worth the price. Even a coffee shop is usually an improvement for me over being at home.

2. Working from anywhere you want rocks

On the other hand, having the freedom to work from home, or a coffee shop, or the beach on a tropical island, is one of the best things about working for yourself, especially in the line of work that I do. My wife and I have travelled a lot over the last year, something we never could have done if we were holding down jobs.

3. Everything takes longer than expected

From finding new clients to signing contracts to finishing projects to getting paid, everything seems to take longer than you expect. I guess this is because I’m an optimist by nature, but it’s something I’ve definitely had to adjust to. My advice: make sure you always have a decent reserve of time, money, and goodwill. You’ll probably need them.

4. Process is important

I guess this isn’t limited to freelancers, but I’ve just realized how important it is. When you do development work, you find yourself doing the same types of things over and over. I find it hard to force myself to take longer the first or second or third time around to setup shortcuts and process enhancements that will enable me to do it faster in the future, but it’s definitely worth it. If you find yourself cutting and pasting the same piece of code, then making a bunch of adjustments to change minor details, consider making it a class or a library that’s more flexible. Organize, optimize, and review your processes regularly. It takes more time now, but it saves a lot of time in the long run.

5. Small gigs > large gigs

All else being equal, smaller jobs are far better than large ones, in my opinion. It’s the same reason that small entrepreneurial projects are better than large ones: they tend to get finished on time and under budget much more often. Large projects have more room for error, ambiguity, scope creep, and miscommunication. Additionally, I find that I get fatigued when working on projects that stretch on for weeks or months. It becomes more of a struggle to get excited about working on the same thing yet again, whereas for a small project, you can maintain your interest and excitement through most or all of the project. The best project is one that you can knock out in a day or two.

I’d say that the one thing I have learned is that if you’re doing a large project, break it into phases and try to think of them as discrete mini-projects in themselves. But small projects are still better.

6. This is a stepping stone for me

I never intended to stick with contract work long-term, and the last year has just reinforced that in my mind. The hard part about freelance work for me, a born entrepreneur, is that it vacillates between two extremes: either I’m working on projects that I’m not particularly passionate about or interested in, usually because they’re not going to go anywhere and I know it (and I tell the client), or I’m working on really interesting projects that I know in my heart will succeed or continue to be a success. That sounds awesome, I know, and I’m fortunate to work on more projects like that than those in the first category, but the problem I have is that I’m helping another entrepreneur achieve his or her dream, rather than achieving my own. I love helping people, and I especially love helping people accomplish their goals and dreams, but I hate the feeling of being a hired hand when I should be whipping up my own success. Does that make sense?

As a result, I’ve started aggressively pursuing more entrepreneurial projects of my own, some of which you’ll be hearing about in the coming days and weeks. I’m enjoying freelance work and I’m very grateful to all my clients for the opportunity to work with them, but I’ll be really glad to eventually be done with freelance work. It’s just not as free as I’d like

If you’re a freelancer, let me know how this lines up with your experiences. I would love to hear from anyone considering making the plunge who has questions or comments.

My wife and I were out walking our puppies today, which is always an interesting experience because probably 50% of the people we pass want to stop and pet them and ask where we got them, etc. It’s generally an interesting experience, and a good opportunity for the dogs to get out and socialize with new people and other dogs.

Anyway, we were walking down the street and we happened upon a dapper-looking elderly gentleman standing on the steps of his Victorian home. He was sharply dressed in a yellow cardigan and appeared ready to enjoy an evening out. He remarked on the puppies and we struck up a conversation. Turns out, it was his 80th birthday today and he was off to a birthday celebration. I was a little surprised, as I would have pegged his age at something like 65 - 70. I wished him a happy birthday, to which he responded with a thank-you and a “perhaps you’ll get there someday, old boy.” Classic. He also urged me to ensure that I drank plenty of gin. We wished him farewell and continued down the street. Farther down the block, I turned around to watch him and he was just standing on the step, enjoying the cool breeze and the fading sunlight of the evening. He had about him the air of a man who has lived a full life and who is still enjoying every bit of it.

I generally don’t particularly enjoy being around the elderly, partly because I feel like I have little in common with them, but mostly because their lives just seem so depressing to me. But this gentleman seemed different. Even though I only met him for a brief moment, he made an impression on me. I hope that when I’m 80 years old, I’ll be as content and happy enjoying my life as he seemed to be.

Happy birthday, sir. Now I’m off to see about that gin.

If I can do it, anyone can. As most people who know me will attest, I’ve always had trouble getting up in the morning. I blame my family, which is packed with night owls.

In high school, I got suspended on more than one occasion for missing my first class of the day. You’d think that the Navy would have changed me, and it did, for awhile. I only got in trouble once or twice in the Navy for being late as a result of oversleeping. And in spite of my lack of discipline in this area, after I got out of the Navy, I managed to crank through three years of school in 18 months and maintain a 3.9 GPA. But I remember sitting in class on numerous occasions having been in bed sound asleep less than 20 minutes before that. After college, I managed to hold down a job in San Francisco for a year before I quit to start consulting and pursuing my own entrepreneurial pursuits.

You’d think that the unstructured life of a freelancer would be bad for someone who already has trouble getting up in the morning. Well, you’d be right. For a long time, I would work late, late into the night (like 2 - 4am) and then drag myself out of bed around noon. Super lame. The thing was, I hated doing it, but I always felt like I had more to do than I could afford to put off until the next day, so I had to do it before I went to bed.

For awhile, I was afraid I had some kind of sleeping disorder. But over the last four or five months, I’ve had a real breakthrough. The last few weeks notwithstanding (more on that later), I now get up regularly around 4:30am, and am often at my office by 5am. What’s more, I *love* this and don’t consider it to be much of a struggle. If you’re looking to make a similar change, here’s what I would recommend:

1. Practice getting up

Yes, you will feel stupid. But give Steve Pavlina’s awesome technique a try. It really helped me, especially in the beginning.

2. Consider your productivity curve

One of the biggest things I discovered is that I get 3-4x as much done between 5am and 9am as I do between 9pm and 1am. They’re both four hours, but my productivity is drastically different. For some people, it may make more sense to stay up late, as they’ll get more done. In that case, my recommendation would be to just embrace it. Michael Arrington of TechCrunch reportedly sleeps from like 4am to 10am and he’s gotten quite a bit done over the last few years. Figure out what works for you.

3. Go to bed

You’d think this would be basic, right? Took me 25 years to figure it out, though. The thing is, when I started going to bed at 9pm or 10pm, I had to really force myself, because I had *so much* that needed to get done. But I knew that I would get more done the next morning than I would if I stayed up late working. And I did. And over time, I gradually managed to catch up, until I wasn’t so far behind and going to bed was a lot easier.

4. Have something to do with your time in the morning

Exercise, read, write, work, email, whatever. But don’t get up and sit around wondering why you’re up. It’ll just be harder to get up next time.

5. Stick with it

That first week or two was kind of rough, but as I kept getting up, it got easier and easier. Once you get into the routine and your body adjusts, you’ll find getting up much easier to do. Just don’t give up.

Where I am today

My wife and I got two puppies about a month ago, and they’ve completely ruined my routine I can only imagine what an infant would be like…kudos to you parents out there. Anyway, we’ve started to get back into a routine, and we’re trading off days so that I can get up early a few days a week and head into the office. It’s not quite the same level of productivity that I had before, but it’ll continue to get better.

For more on this topic, here’s a few posts from other blogs:

Steve Pavlina - How to Become an Early Riser

Steve Pavlina - How to Become an Early Riser - Part II

Zen Habits - How I Became an Early Riser