(106) Days of Summer

Posted: May 11th, 2014 | Author: | Filed under: Uncategorized | 1 Comment »

Not taking summer session this year means I have 106 days between my last Final Exam of Spring and my first day of class in Autumn (or what we call “autumn” around here, which is really just an obnoxious extension of summer). While it’s important to relax and recuperate from an exhausting school year, I figure that dropping all learning and the habits that enforced that learning will only spell trouble for me in the fall. Sort of like a professional athlete that doesn’t work out all winter and reports to Spring Training with 30 extra lbs. No Bueno.

Things I Can Try to Learn this Summer

Ha ha, who am I kidding? I’m already a terrific dancer under the right circumstances. I could also turn this into something that’s productive but not strictly academic.

Things I Can DO this Summer

  • Help someone everyday (or at least try to)
  • Start a “100 Ways …” blog about Phoenix (taking a queue from Randy Gregory’s great work here)
  • Clear out as much of my Goodreads “To Read” shelf as possible
  • Same as above, but read all the random books I’ve bought because I thought they’d look cool on my bookshelves at home.
  • Work on SEO techniques I’ve never tried (like Link Building Outreach)

Alright, that seems like a robust-ish list. But are they all realistic? What are the constraints I might be facing?

1.) Should take ~ 1 hour a day. Absolutely less than 2 hours daily or I’m certain I’ll fall off after the first week.

2.) Must be portable.  I’ll be spending two weeks in Europe and at least 1 week in Seattle this summer, so whatever I do needs to be something that can be done on the move, from anywhere.  (Another reason why the first constraint is so serious. Giving up multiple hours daily on vacation is a bummer.)

3.) Should have some tangible/measurable outcome at the end. I should have either produced or completed something entirely. Spending 100 days learning Mandarin to be “only sorta maybe able to speak it” would not be the wisest use of time.

Time is already ticking away, but I think I’m going to enjoy the read of this lazy Sunday and then make a decision tomorrow morning. If you have any suggestions on things to add to the list, please let me know. What are some of your goals/projects for the summer?

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One Comment on “(106) Days of Summer”

  1. 1 I've been lazy, but it will pay off - Relevant Wit said at 9:39 am on November 18th, 2020:

    […] started the summer with a list of goals, or at least a set of ideas that I wanted to work towards. I thought I’d picked out the ones […]