My 5 year plan

June 8, 2006 at 10:03 pm | In technology, meaning in life, personal work, open space, dreams |

Last August I made myself a two-step, 5-year plan to quit my job entirely. Step 1 is to find a way (or ways) to make some money so I can feel confident dropping to part-time at my job (knowing that I might lose it entirely in the discussion process). Step 2 is to use the extra time freed up to continue those passions that also make money from time to time and be able to quit entirely. In the last few months I’ve been feeling more confident about the direction I’m going, having oppotunities come up to gain experience opening space at the o/net July conf and at WikiSym in Denmark in July.

In the last month I wrote my first useful computer program in a long, long, time, which gave me an amazing feeling that this is not simply an intention, I now have evidence that it can be a reality. Sure, no money yet, but no rush, I’ve got 5 years.

And in the last week it became clear that 5 years is too long. Without deliberation, I have now shortened the plan to 3-4 years. Rich Henry suggested a book to me on Wednesday (yesterday) called Callings: Finding and Following an Authentic Life, by Gregg Levoy. I read the first hundred pages or so on the train this evening.

That’s where I’m at.

5 Comments

  1. be sure to talk with zelle nelson and maureen mccarthy at the wedding, ted. they brought gregg to town to do a weekend retreat with us, probably 6 years ago now. at the time, maureen thought that was abuot the best book she’d ever read. and for what it’s worth, i think you could move faster! [grin] for me, anything more than one year plan is too far out to have any real traction in my day to day moves. conscious plans, one year, tops. unconscious leanings, they take a bit longer.

    Comment by Michael — June 10, 2006 #

  2. Yes, I’m sure I can move faster. As you’ll note from the plan, it’s pretty loose on details. I still feel that’s appropriate because I’m still feeling that I don’t want this move to be driven by money or the pursuit of money. So moving forward on getting more open space experience and continuing to solve interesting problems through programming is my immediate focus. When the time is right I’m sure we’ll see an acceleration in the plan. So far it’s still VERY conservative. I’m very aware of that. I’m hoping not to freek myself out too much. That’ll come later. :-)

    Comment by ted — June 10, 2006 #

  3. Living inexpensively, like dieting, has two directions of attack. Dieting you can reduce the eating and/or you can increase expenditure of calories. You can make more money and/or you can spend less. You could buy an extra house and rent it out for income. You could find a five buck idea.
    http://blog.acmelab.org/?p=35
    Best Wishes.

    Comment by Kristinwt — June 14, 2006 #

  4. http://news-service.stanford.edu/news/2005/june15/jobs-061505.html

    Here’s a link to Steve Jobs’ graduation speech at Stanford. Quoting The Whole Earth Catalog, he ends, “Stay Hungry. Stay Foolish.”

    Comment by Kristinwt — June 22, 2006 #

  5. finally, a use for spam!

    This website is set up so that anytime someone comments for the first time, I get an email asking me to approve posting it. The bulk of these comments are spam, that I mark as such, and you never see them. Annoying, to say the least. And yet today, …

    Trackback by Humanize the Earth! — July 25, 2007 #

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