May 3 2021

Books

Do you read on an e-reader? Do you buy electronic books? Do you buy paper books from stores that may or may not collate your purchases and share them with Amazon and the likes, anyway? Do you use apps like Goodreads to get recommendations, store read and want to read type lists, and to share read books with connections?

Last year, I watched “Online privacy is broken; this is how we fix it” a TEDX GEM talk by Emerald De Leeuw.

I also retweeted a tweet about an (older) mom who had been on Snapchat for a month where she captured her husband, a public school librarian, ranting in the most decent way possible. Two of the snaps stood out for me: one with him refusing to stock a biography of President Trump* and the other about Barbar the elephant being racist, colonialist rubbish. Whilst I absolutely applaud his principled stand, does he as a librarian have the right to censor information that could be put in a section labelled something like: things you should not do and people you should not emulate?

In the recent past, I may or may not have done work that may or may not have involved none or several public libraries. Whilst data protection and privacy were not the focus of that particular piece of work, the subject matter was a subset. Discussion centred around the usefulness of maintaining user reading history versus the expectation of privacy. Librarians like to have access to the list to recommend, when asked, however, the potential to profile (via the electronic management system) the individual using their reading list exists. Librarians generally voted in favour of not retaining the user history and rather discussing with the user asking for recommendations at the time. With the ability to shape the thoughts of a community, librarians are far more powerful than I think they realise.**

Articles have been popping up on my timeline recently about privacy, data protection and Amazon knowing more about you than anybody else. A certain BBC documentary aired the other evening citing the number of data points collected per person per ONE click on the website. Add to this the tracking of reading material via the Kindle ecosystem.*** At this point, Amazon could probably make you the movie of your future life and be 99% accurate.

This is not a piece on digital versus paper as I’ll point you back to the third question above and the TEDx talk. Whilst to some extent, our identity can be influenced and moulded according to the mores of the community within which we live, our identity is no longer influenced but rather curated. Also, curated at the speed of light to suit the motives of the highest bidder. What is the antidote to this? I like to think mindfulness. Do we need an antidote? What do you think?

*Respect the office, etc.
**Disclaimer: this is most definitely not a Tomcats reference.
***And social media posts, etc etc.

Mar 10 2021

Server Sponsorship for Xanadu Online Theatre

Notes From Xanadu is delighted to announce that a new server for Xanadu Online Theatre has been sponsored by County Cork company ProPrivacy. The server will enable us to customise the code for the theatre (we use open source software, in keeping with the philosophy of the arts centre), leading to a smoother and more exciting experience for both audience and performers.

ProPrivacy is a close-knit, family run data protection and cyber security compliance company based in Ireland. The company works with clientele in many sectors ranging in size, from small businesses to privacy departments in large multinational corporations. It’s lead auditor and GDPR consultant is Philipa Jane Farley; if you think you recognise that name, you would be right – multi-talented Philipa has been writing the Farley’s Philosophy column for us since the arts centre’s launch in May 2020. The ProPrivacy team have this to say about the sponsorship:

“2020 has been exhausting. More for some than others, but needless to say, everyone’s lives have changed in one way or another, some for the worst and some for the best. Unfortunately, COVID-19 has taken a toll on our entertainment community. It has affected our livelihoods, hobbies and the community around us.

While we may feel that we cannot control events on our own doorstep, let alone, globally, new and fresh ideas on how to charge through and grapple with such unknown times have emerged. New online businesses, video chats and social outreaches over the internet have been the new trends of the pandemic. New ways to connect with people have become a priority in a world where social distancing is now second nature.

This is where Notes from Xanadu has blossomed. Emerging from what was formerly an online magazine with Arts reviews and periodic COVID-19 articles, Notes from Xanadu transformed into a lively and active social page where artists from all walks of life could come together to continue doing what they do best even with the entertainment industry in complete shutdown.

Mary Tynan, who suffers from Myalgic Encephalomyelitis, has overcome extreme personal challenges and advocates to raise awareness of this neurological condition. Mary has taken back her life in a global lockdown and created this forum for her fellow artists to have an opportunity for creativity and to take the stage once again in a transformative way over the internet. And Mary has even dusted off her old coding skills, and learnt new ones, allowing her to customise Notes from Xanadu to her high standards.

As a data protection company fortunate to be able to continue working through lockdown, ProPrivacy got to thinking about how we would be able to make a difference in this industry for which we have a great love. As we have seen the Arts take an enormous knock in this pandemic, Notes from Xanadu came to mind. ProPrivacy took this opportunity to support Mary and her endeavours to grow her platform in a small but hopefully significant way by sponsoring a server for her online theatre. ProPrivacy will continue to supply data protection and cyber security support for Mary to continue running her Arts centre with peace of mind. ProPrivacy feels incredibly privileged to be able to support a woman whose values align with that of our own, inclusive communities sharing resources to enrich those around them.”

The new theatre software is going to be built by Philipa and Mary working together, and we will, of course, share news of the development as it happens. We live in exciting times for online arts and Notes From Xanadu and Xanadu Online Theatre will continue to do our utmost to stay at the cutting edge of the field. If you are interested in working with us on a volunteer basis in any capacity, please drop us a line at notesfromxanadu@hotmail.com.

As of 2021, ProPrivacy are expanding their services to support small businesses through their offshoot, The Career Designer. This new line of services and digital products is informed by the company’s primary focus, data protection, privacy, and cyber security, and deals with the inner workings of starting up a business with an online first focus from scratch.

The Career Designer is to be launched within the next few months for people who want to make their ideas pay. It’s about helping people and transforming their skillset into a business, especially for those during this pandemic who are out of work or are struggling to make an income. Philipa and team want to share their many years of business experience and niche skills in an easy to understand way which can help people turn their ideas into stable and thriving businesses. They will walk you step-by-step through the process of building a business from start to finish, accounting to marketing and all the legal requirements in-between. Macro-knowledge for microbusinesses if you will, catering for business construction as well as business maintenance.

If you are interested in The Career Designer or other services offered by ProPrivacy, please visit their website, or email the team at info@proprivacy.ie.

Feb 9 2021

Generation Pandemic

The most socially awkward thing I’ve ever done. So awkward I’m not going to * anything.

Have a baby in 2020.

But first, please enjoy the preceding few weeks’ hilarity in my meme and photo folder.

It was really awkward. Not least because of how it happened. One-time-only bad decision making, if you know what I mean, after a few glasses of Irish-cream-what-what from Aldi. I mean, can we be more classy? I’m thoroughly embarrassed as I type this and remember myself saying something like: “it’s the end of the world, who cares anyway?” (April ’20). In any case, one fine day sitting at the computer, the nausea hit me from my toes up. My first thought was, no. Just no. No way. And then himself got sent straight to the pharmacy.

Back to the awkwardness. For a while, it just looked like the Covid Stone. Then it started looking like a real baby. I was stuck at home, as we all were. Going literally nowhere except to hospital appointments by myself. Time went on and it was just too late to say anything on all the work video calls. I mean, what do you do? Stand up and show off your belly in an ‘accidental’ side shot? Yawn and stretch? Or do you interrupt proceedings with an “excuse me I have some news?” While debating these various different and equally awkward scenarios, so much time passed that it was nearly time to have the actual baby. And then he arrived early. So then the message had to very quickly turn into “hey, I’m off here now for a bit of personal time, but not for too long. No, I don’t have Covid. BRB”-type messages. AFK for a few days.

I had my baby on the 29 November, by section, in CUMH. It was a Sunday night – change of shift time. It was really scary and very unpleasant, with Graeme (my husband) waiting outside in the car park for hours and nobody knowing what was going on. I was admitted to the Emergency and was in for about five hours, in labour, on a narrow bed, not able to reach my phone. By the time I got somebody to pass it to me, I was pretty much being dressed for theatre. We thought I’d go in, be calmed down, and sent away again. Not that simple. Graeme was allowed in basically as they were cutting me open – after they had to repeat the spinal block that didn’t work the first time. Just a really unpleasant evening. He had to leave when they wheeled me out of recovery. He hadn’t been able to attend a single doctor’s appointment with me.

Ruairí came out shouting the odds though and was pretty okay. This was the biggest relief for me at that moment. We had a difficult pregnancy, him and I. Besides it being incredibly awkward, I was diagnosed with gestational diabetes. From start to end, the ball was dropped by the doctors and midwives involved in that regard. If not for our GP and the village pharmacy, I don’t know if we would have come out okay. That, and all the delicious healthy snacks Graeme made. Endless snacking. Snacking till the food is up your throat with the nausea.

To this day, I’m waiting for the South Infirmary to phone me back to get my sugar readings from about 6 months ago. And yes, assholes, I left multiple messages on your various answering machines. Can you tell I got sick and tired of injecting myself with insulin? I have the biggest respect for anybody who lives with diabetes. I did a needle count one day, rough estimation: I had to prick my finger seven times a day in order to test sugars and inject insulin twice a day. I will be avoiding the follow-up fasting glucose test for a while, possibly until the trauma subsides.

When I went into labour, they gave me medication for high blood pressure, as that was playing up too. They explained at the time, but, honestly, I wasn’t listening to anything or seeing very much. I met so many people there that Graeme remembers; don’t ask me who they are though! That medication did something, and Ruairí’s sugars crashed at 48 hours. He landed up in the neonatal unit with a sugar level of 1.9. This was at 10pm at night.

After I had been told that afternoon that he had a murmur in his heart, I had to tell Graeme in a text message. I couldn’t voice note or call because the other children were listening in. Then I had to message, from the deserted basement passage of CUMH in the middle of the night, while our baby was being revived. He got through that. The murmur disappeared. And then he was jaundiced. So jaundiced he went back into the neonatal unit for a few days and sessions under the lamps. We had been able to take him home for one night only at that point. I had to go back to the emergency for very high blood pressure. Sitting, alone, again, on a tiny bed, my milk came in leaking all over. I pumped. He drank. We got through it. He was allowed home when he was one week old.

I don’t think anything gets more awkward than this experience.

All that trauma with nowhere for it to go, in the middle of all the trauma of our lives every day these days. At times, the awkwardness is really funny. But, at other times, I cry.

When we need the hugs and the chat the most, they’re not there anymore. We need to fix this. Be kind to the people around you. Ask how they’re doing. Make space for people to tell their stories. We’re all going through something, and we need each other. Let’s take turns having a bad day and allowing ourselves and others to have a bad day. We’re nearly there. Let’s not leave anybody behind.

As my niece says, he is our tinnnnyyyyy piece of cheese.

Jan 12 2021

Welcome to 2021

Merry New Year to all of you! I went AWOL for a good reason there – to be revealed in the next column as The Most Socially Awkward Thing I Did in 2020 and Ever.* In any case, here we are. Locked down. Again. The third time over. Well, it’s more like the second time, as the time before this didn’t really count. Or did it? Time is a bit hazy at the moment. I find my mind reverts back to our Southern Hemisphere, South African calendar in a Clockwork Orange-type blip from time to time. Is it the start of the school year? Is it the end? What’s happening? It feels like July, but it’s not. Will summer ever come back? If I start posting pictures of crossed out I I I Is send help!

At least this time I’m allowed alcohol. Counting down the days till my Kahlua arrives. I plan on making copious amounts of Dom Pedros.** The older children have asked for banana bread. This is such old news for me, I’ve decided that we’re clearing a shelf in our front entrance little room which is as cold as a fridge.*** This shelf will be dedicated to all things baking. I’m going full Martha Stewart this round of lockdown – minus the securities fraud and Snoop Dogg collab. Expect a slew of overnight and two day fermented yeast baked good pictures if you follow me on Instagram.****

Other coping slash distraction mechanisms include binge watching series. Schitt’s Creek has opened up a world of meme-age.***** We’re onto Brooklyn 99 now. It’s making me regret not going into the police service and becoming a detective (that is one of my lesser-known regrets – I think I would have made a very good detective. I also have a queue of schmaltzy 90s and 2000s romantic comedies to get through; Sweet Home Alabama ticked off that list. Mental chewing gum is where it is at.

Seriously though, what are you doing to cope? Retail therapy is dire. No more middle aisle shopping at Aldi and Lidl. Who the fuck classified that as not essential? Can we have a word, please and thank you? I’m still on Amazon – yes, with my Prime account intact. I spent a couple of days doing calculations and comparisons with .de; shipping is a monster, yoh! Still cheaper on Prime. And for those of you buy-local loyalists, the money I save buying on Prime gets spent on (Michael McIntyre Voice) spicey bags (normal voice) at the village takeaway. My version of shop local.******

In any case, fuck Brexit. Really. I don’t say much about it publicly, but I am sad it actually happened. I’m sad for all that could have been and now never will be. I’m sad for people who believe they’re so much better than everybody else that they put walls up, slam doors shut, and retreat. Small people with small minds. Nationalism turned disease. There, I said it. Ugh. In protest, I check out my items on Amazon one by one,******* while I watch my romcoms, eating alcoholic milkshakes and dreaming of UBI and communal gardens.

Welcome to 2021, everybody. The year we all eat less and walk more. Or not.

*As in EVER.
**Discovered this is a Very South African thing. Basically, adult milkshakes. Double cream, ice cream, and whiskey whizzed up together. Can substitute whiskey for Kahlua, Baileys, Frangelico, etc. I might try a chocolate/orange combo.
***We could right now skate on our swimming pool. Yes, the above ground pool is still up. Totally ran out of fucks to give.
****Don’t follow me on Instagram. Most vanilla happy-snap account ever – more for my own amusement. Twitter is where it’s at – JustCallMePips.
*****David Rose is a gift.
******Just go with it.
*******Avoid VAT and import duties: tick with Prime. You’re welcome.

Nov 19 2020

Why Lockdown has been a Lifeline for me, by Mary Tynan

Lockdown may have made life smaller for many people, but it made mine bigger.

Unlike most people, I wasn’t that upset when the first coronavirus lockdown began. As far as I could see, it wasn’t going to make much difference to my life. But I was wrong: it made my life better.

As a chronically ill, disabled person (I suffer from the neurological condition Myalgic Encephalomyelitis) living alone in a rural location, I had long been used to spending most of my time alone. Many weeks, if I didn’t visit a shop, I didn’t see anyone. And shopping was becoming harder – I had already begun the transition to grocery delivery before the pandemic. I connected with people mostly via telephone or, more and more as time went on, via the web.

I used social media such as Facebook for two main purposes: to keep up with people that I rarely saw, such as friends from my previous life as an actor in London, and to make new friends, especially within the ME and chronic illness communities. I joined support groups, book clubs and other interest groups; I attended and ran virtual pub quizzes and parties. I also used the internet for solo activities, such as practising and learning languages on Duolingo, and studying everything from Archaeology to Cyber Security. I was well-practised at living life online. What happened early this year is that everyone joined me.

Right at the beginning of Lockdown, some friends and I decided to set up an online school. Ar Líne Le Chéile was small, and part-time, and wasn’t intended to replace or compete with anything that children were getting from their regular teachers – rather, it was to help combat loneliness and isolation. In this it succeeded, and our small class of primary school children had formed great friendships by the time we finished in June. As I was already an experienced teacher, I took an active part in this, the highlight of which was the weekly multidisciplinary lesson where we made virtual visits to such places as the British Museum, NASA and the London Underground. It was a lovely feeling to have my own class again, for the first time since 2008. A side effect of this for me was that my old interest in coding was reawakened by a Scratch class run by another teacher (Philipa Farley, the writer of our Farley’s Philosophy column), and I ended up learning the Python programming language during the month of April when Pluralsight offered free courses for a month.

There was so much life online all of a sudden! Musicals by Andrew Lloyd Webber and plays from the National Theatre, for example, were available to watch free of charge. I attended an online 80s concert with a couple of friends, who didn’t know each other previously; we watched in our separate homes and chatted via text at the same time. I joined an online choir, and played board games with friends all over Ireland via WhatsApp.

I had an online magazine, Notes From Xanadu, predominantly an arts review, which had been semi-dormant over the preceding five years. I had written a couple of Covid-related articles, and was in the process of revitalising it. Then I had an idea: instead of relaunching as just a magazine, why not do something novel and create an online arts centre? I set the date for the May bank holiday weekend, and got in touch with artists of all genres. Over the four days of the launch we had 20 different features, ranging from writing to opera (world-renowned soprano Ailish Tynan was one of our first contributors) to puppetry. We had visitors from numerous countries on six continents, and have continued to gain new followers and artists since then.

Although I don’t generally manage to get out much, I always do something for my birthday, whether that’s a restaurant and/or pub visit, or a small party at my house. I decided not to let the virus stop me this year, and organised my first audio-visual virtual party. I had guests from as far apart as London and New Mexico, and we played games, performed music, chatted and generally had a “night out.” Unfortunately, problems with internet connections kept a few people away, but the evening was enough of a success for me to decide to develop a theatre as part of the online arts centre.

On 23 September 2020, Xanadu Online Theatre was born, with a launch concert/variety show featuring artists from three different time zones, and an invited audience from countries stretching from Finland to the US. Unlike other similar ventures that have begun since Covid 19 gave us the New Normal, which use Zoom and other such platforms, this theatre is embedded in the Notes From Xanadu website and uses the open-source software Jitsi, which very much fits ideologically with the values of the online arts centre.

As part of the launch concert, I decided to perform a short scene with an actor friend in New York, Ash Reddington, and thus I found myself practising my craft as an actor for the first time in almost 6 years. I have since set up an in-house theatre company, and we are having our first show in December. Thus, as a result of the virus, I find myself where I thought I would never be again – in the rehearsal room, preparing to act on stage in front of a live audience.

This is the first in a series. Watch out for accounts of other people’s positive lockdown experience in the coming weeks.

Oct 9 2020

Wheels Within Wheels – Part IV

Glad to see you back for the last part of this four part series! In Part 1 we had a look at what the Wheel of Life is about, in Part 2 we had a look at how to start using the Wheel of Life, and in Part 3 we looked at how to set and assess goals. This final part is on how to review and assess your life and goals using the Wheel of Life, changing for the better along the way.

Reading back, I realise I might have missed out a small, but rather vital, piece of information for you. That is, when you’re setting your focus for the year or quarter or month, to pick out two to three things to focus on. So, if we look at our categories for the year – and we’ve scored them in light of what our level 10 life looks like – in order to start achieving balance, we’d likely pick up the two to three lowest scoring categories and assign them highest priority. On my Wheel of Life, my three lowest scoring categories are: Health, Personal Development, and Fun and Recreation. I decided to concentrate on these for 2020. When I set my goals, I make the goals set in these categories a priority. Other goals come second to these.

Practically, we have determined the scope of what we’re doing; we’ve decided on the categories for that scope; and we have set some high level goals for the year. These high level goals have been broken down into goals per quarter and then into actions we can take per month. And now we’ve added a priority to the goals we need to concentrate on.

We want to document a formal review date for the end every month (make it about 5 days before the end), where we evaluate, mark off, strike out or carry over actions to the next month. At the end of every quarter, we want to do similar with our quarterly goals, but at this point assessing if we’ve climbed up closer to our level 10 goal from our current score. At the end of the year, we do the great big review, and see how close we’ve come to achieving balance – with similar enough scores between categories – and to see how close we are to that level 10 life. We like to do some reviews together as a couple or as a family, sometimes informally over dinner. Our work-related reviews might be more formal, as they require a bit more complexity in assessments – they are company goals mixed with personal goals. Personal goal reviews might require you to take some proper time out, alone.

A note on the granular level reviews. You might find at the end of the first or second month that you aren’t getting around to the actions that you set. At that point, you might look at your list of monthly actions and attempt to determine if you were trying to do too much as part of a single action, or if you have not assessed the time you can spend on those actions accurately. Take a step back, and look at your monthly and weekly schedule as a whole. Who gets what proportion of your time? Or, you might look at the black and white in front of you and realise that you actually just don’t want to be doing that. If this is the case, then don’t do it. Make peace with this fact and move on.

Take recreation or hobbies in my case. At the beginning of this year, 2020, the year of all that is Corona, I decided to brush up on my piano playing skills. Again. I thought I’d be able to sneak an hour a couple of times a week while the kids were at school to do this. And then we all laughed together. About halfway into lockdown, I realised that instead of carrying this over as a ‘priority’ task that I was never going to get to, I could shift focus and make sure that I spent at least half an hour to an hour, before I went to sleep, reading novels. This helps me to wind down and shift focus onto something that is not work or family related. I love reading candyfloss time-crime dramas or thrillers. Honestly, it’s as much me-time as piano was ever going to be. I’m not about to be sitting at the Heuston Station piano enthralling all who come and go with my talents, believe you me. It was purely for me to do something different. Reading has the same effect. It is okay to change that specific action of play piano for three hours a week to read for half an hour before bed every night.

In terms of my health, I was determined to lose weight and get fit this year. Life had other plans for me. There was a shift in focus there, but that shift in focus turned out to be me eating far more healthily than I ever have done, and, through this change, losing weight without that being the focus. Flexibility is key when we look at our higher level goals. We should not be too specific at the top level. Keep the specificity for the monthly (or weekly actions).

Our work goals have had to change drastically since lockdown happened. That required a conscious sitting down with real facts (not media hysteria) and doing a simple SWOT analysis on the facts plus business landscape. Out of this has come a new focus on longer term, higher value retainer clients, versus a bit of a putting out fires for clients approach. My business will be more robust and able to withstand the upcoming Brexit shakes through this move, too. I should have probably done this analysis a year ago with Brexit in mind, but I didn’t. Mistake acknowledged, lesson learned, and changes made.

Before I finish up, I want to note again that this is not a race to reach ten in your various categories. The point of using the Wheel of Life as a personal growth tool is to achieve balance between the different areas of your life and then to level up realistically to reach the life you want to live. You will learn so much about yourself along the way and your life will only be the richer for it.

So, I’m going to end the last part of this four part series with this part of Ryder Carroll’s quote.

“What’s important is figuring out which incomplete Tasks are worth your limited time and energy moving forward. Strike out those that aren’t, and migrate the ones that are.”

If you take anything from this process, take this with you. We all have limited time and energy, and the intention throughout has been to figure out how to spend this limited time and energy in the most productive way we can, in order to choose and achieve what we see as being our best life. I can tell you now that when you start out, what you think is your best life is probably not going to be what you will think it is 6, 9, or 12 months down the line. The beauty of this process is that we learn more about ourselves and what we really cherish and value along the way. Do not be afraid of changing your goals along the way or your focus, BUT make sure you give yourself enough time on something before you make big changes.

This will be my last bit of writing for Mary and Notes From Xanadu for this year. I hope to be back early 2021 with more insights and maybe a few mini lectures. See you all soon.

Sep 1 2020

Wheels Within Wheels – Part III

Good to see you here for Part 3 of the Wheel of Life Series! In Part 1 we had a look at what the Wheel of Life is about and in Part 2 we had a look at how to start using the Wheel of Life. We looked at how to decide on the eight sections we’d use for assessment and how to work out what a 10/10 life means for us personally in the areas we choose to assess.

In this part, I’d like to have a look at goal setting and how we assess goals. I’d also like to look briefly at how to adjust goals along the way. I’m a great believer in bullet journalling and the philosophy behind the methods used. Particularly, I love the monthly migration aspect of the bullet journal methodology. In the words of Ryder Carroll teaching the methodology:

“At the very end of each month, set up a new Monthly Log. Once that’s done, review the pages of the month gone by. Chances are, you didn’t get around to completing all your Tasks. That’s fine! What’s important is figuring out which incomplete Tasks are worth your limited time and energy moving forward. Strike out those that aren’t, and migrate the ones that are.”

and

“It may seem like a lot of effort to have to rewrite all these things, but that’s intentional. This process makes you pause and consider each item. If an entry isn’t even worth the effort to rewrite it, then it’s probably not that important. Get rid of it. The purpose of Migration is to surface what’s worth the effort, become aware of our actions, and to separate the signal from the noise. This is where BuJo shifts from a system, into the practice.”

Part of our goal setting and assessment when using the Wheel of Life, and assessing quarterly (or monthly if you choose to do it this often), would be to examine the goals we’re setting and determining whether the actual goals are moving us toward our level 10 life. Weed out what isn’t working and try something different. Always, move forward.

In Part 2, one of the examples I used for a 10/10 for Finance might be to save ten percent of all income into a credit union account and have a cushion of three months expenses built up in a current account. If I assess myself now, at the start of 3 months, at a 2/10 because I have an actual credit union savings account set up and maybe two weeks of a bit of a slush fund in my current account, then what would it take to get me to a level 10? Do I have a budget set up where I know what my personal outgoings and incomings are? Do I need to set this up? Will I use an app? Will I use a spreadsheet? Will I set a weekly or monthly reminder to reconcile my bank account or accounts with this spreadsheet? Will I assess every outgoing and other spending habits to cut down? Will I need to set up a standing order on my current account to send over the ten percent on payday to the savings account? How will I stop myself from spending the three months excess in my current account? Should I open a savings pocket on the current account and put it there? And so on. There are very specific actions that need to be taken to achieve that level 10 goal. It is up to you to work out how to prioritise actions and how to work out dependencies or prerequisites.

Setting achievable goals depends on many different factors. It does require you to know yourself. I’d recommend doing a bit of research (not a lot, don’t get bogged down) on different methodologies for goal setting. The most common you’ll come across when researching in the personal development context would be SMART goals. Choose your method wisely, as the last thing you want here is to set unachievable goals that break you down and make you feel like that level 10 is unattainable. Start with baby steps and increase the goals as you go along.

Once you’ve set your goals, work out a task list of actions that you will need to actually do to achieve your goals. Set deadlines on those actions. It might work for you to set higher level goals for the year and then work out in quarters the next level action that needs to be taken. From those quarterly higher level actions, you would draw down the actual minutiae for completion on a monthly or weekly basis. Again, write all of this down in your journal. You could also make use of an app like Microsoft Planner or Trello to set up boards with deadlines that integrates with your calendar so you have reminders on actions. This might sound like a lot of work, but trust me, very satisfying when you get going.

Personally, I find this type of organisation allows me to maintain some sort of illusion of control over my life! Covid lockdown sanity retained.

In the next part, we’ll look at how to review the process and pivot or change as needed. Until then.

Aug 5 2020

Wheels Within Wheels – Part II

I hope you enjoyed Part I of this little series on the Wheel of Life. Now that we have an idea of what the Wheel can do for us, we need to look at how to start using it. This is going to require some introspection!

First, you need to decide the part of your life to which you will apply the Wheel of Life. Will it be an overview of where you’re at as a person? Will it be for a specific part of your life – maybe an important relationship? Will you use it to aim for a promotion at work?

When you have decided the scope of the application, you’re going to look at the 8 sections you’ll be assessing on the wheel. Obviously, these 8 sections depend on the scope of the application you have decided. To recap, for a general overview, the 8 sections would be something like: {bullet points}

Business and Career
Finance
Health
Family and Friends
Romance
Personal Development
Fun and Recreation
Contribution to society

On my Wheel of Life, which is in the pie style, I have the following 8 sections:

Work and Career
Finance
Health
Family and Friends
Significant Other
Personal Development
Fun and Recreation
Physical Environment

Before we start dreaming of our 10/10 life, we need to set a time scope on this Wheel. I do one for a year, and then assess at each quarter. So, to make my year scope, I decide what represents 10/10 at the end of 12 months. and then I assess where I’m at now. At the beginning of each quarter, I then assess how far I am and make adjustments to my specific goals and processes.

The next part of the process can be the really hard part. This is where you need to identify or dream up for yourself what a 10/10 life would look like in each section of your Wheel of Life. In the time frame you’ve set (3 months, a year, three years, whatever is appropriate), what is a 10/10 life in Work and Career? For me currently, it would be having a solid customer pipeline (thanks for messing with that, corona!). While I get great referrals, that are mostly word of mouth, from current and past clients or colleagues, it makes me nervous that we don’t have a stream of clients from tried and tested marketing and advertising. To get a 10/10 would be a huge achievement, and probably not quite realistic in 12 months, but I felt that this year we could make significant strides in this direction. I’d be happy if we got to a 7/10 by the end of the year. For those of you who don’t know me, I run my own company, so these goals wouldn’t be related to a promotion in my own position.

What is a 10/10 in Finance? This can be quite a tough question, as it depends on how hands-on you are with your own personal situation. Would you bring family financial planning into this? Would you consider your retirement years? Do you need to learn more about different aspects of your personal finance? A goal of mine might be to save ten percent of all income into a credit union account, and have a cushion of three months expenses built up in a current account. Last year I achieved putting into place various life covers based on our potential needs.

What would a 10/10 be for Fun and Recreation? To be honest, this is probably the hardest section for me. I love working, but my love of working isn’t conducive to a healthy work/life balance. I constantly mark myself quite low in this section, and I battle to achieve higher scores. This is where I have to work the hardest. I’m a mom of two who are now 9 and 7 years old. Who I was 10 years ago is not who I am today. Some days, I feel like I’ve forgotten how to have fun. Although, maybe that’s lockdown talking! What is fun for you? Do you have a hobby or an amateur skill you’d like to work on for your own pleasure? Where are you at with that now?

And so on, and so forth. I’ll spare you an essay on each section. The first time you go through this exercise (of looking at your level 10 life), you might take a while to work it out, so set aside a decent chunk of time for this.

In practical terms, get yourself a notebook, and dedicate a page to each section describing what your level 10 life looks like. Then, draw up your first Wheel of Life, and get ready to score your current status out of 10, compared to what your level 10 looks like.

In the next part of this little series, we’ll talk about how to set and assess goals that will help you achieve that level 10 life.

Jun 9 2020

Lockdown Lunch

It has been a while, dear readers, since I have been sat down and writing. Much has happened in ‘lockdown’ which I won’t get into right now.* Yes, I prefer the term ‘lockdown’ to ‘self-isolation’. Like, I’m not self-isolating. I haven’t chosen to isolate myself. I’m not isolating because I’m not by myself. ‘Self-isolation’ is a very confusing term. We are, according to public health advice, limiting our interactions with people outside of our core home unit to the absolute essentials. What do we call that?** It’s definitely not ‘self-isolation’ in my book.

‘Lockdown’ is far more sexy and intimates some kind of purpose or goal, maybe. If you say it the right way. You can’t say it in a sad or whiny tone. You have to say it with authority, possibly with your eyes slightly wider than usual, giving you a bit of a crazy look. Practice in the mirror.

We started ‘lockdown’ gloriously. Well, I think I did. I spent hours in the kitchen making wonderful exotic dinners for the family.*** I’ve since lost count of the cheese toasts and teas I’ve consumed. Unfortunately my waistline insists on bearing evidence.****

We have managed to avoid the whole artisan, bread starter craze but only because I’ve been there and done that. That ish is worse than caring for a baby. It gets everywhere and becomes all-consuming. The only excuse you’ll ever have for keeping a live starter is if you’re baking for your neighbourhood. Don’t bother, otherwise.***** We did build an open fire pit in the garden so we’ve reverted back to the African way of cooking over the open fire a bit. That has been particularly enjoyable. Possibly have gone feral making pallet furniture. Yet to be completed.

On the food note, I decided to sign up to a cooking newsletter on email.****** First edition just arrived. Full of soup recipes. Soup. Even the word: soup. Say it. The mouthfeel of the word soup is not even satisfactory. If soup is not accompanied by a nice big fat plate of toasted sandwich with everything in them (preferably snackwich style for dunking), it’s not worth it. I don’t know how I feel about drinking my food. Never got into the juicing craze. Smoothies need to be thick enough to eat with a spoon.*******

I also have just realised thanks to the red underline that snackwich is probably not a well known term. South Africans call toasted sandwiches with the sealed edges from the home toasting machine a snackwich does in fact have a good mouthfeel when you say it. Far more satisfactory than soup.

Cooking newsletter did not just seem to put soup on a pedestal. It advocated biscuit making with lard. Yeah yeah to the pros. I get it. Crispy biscuits. Ireland has spoiled me for life. Butter is queen. Lard is not. I love bacon, don’t get me wrong. But knowing the fat from the abdomen of a pig is inside my delicious crispy biscuit is just not a great feeling at all. Similar to handling raw chicken. It makes me want to scrub, violently, with soap and hot water. At least I won’t catch corona in my kitchen.

‘Til next time.

*Suffice to say, I cackle every time I see a man saying we’re all inadequate if we haven’t learned a new skill, blah blah.
**Being A Responsible Human?
***Didn’t last a week.
****Trying not to bare the evidence…definitely not a bikini ready summer, lads.
*****You’re welcome.
******Feels like 1999 again.
*******Smoothies count as food only when fruit to liquid (yoghurt) ratio is correct.

May 1 2020

Summer Plans

Transplanted. Geeking out about most things AI, law and quantum, offline and online, when not spending time with the family, pets, and friends. Expect commentary on food and wine from time to time.

What are your summer plans? I can tell you that we were planning on a trip to the seaside, possibly to a hotel. This was besides quite a long list of day trips out to touristy joints such as the Cliffs of Moher. We were perhaps partly planning at some point to go to Disneyland Paris*. These things obviously depended on work going well. You know, because I’m ‘self-employed’** and these things are generally achievable and within our control.

Well, Mother Nature, God, the Universe and everything else has handed us 2020 on a plate with a side serving of ‘screw your plans, human’! I suppose at this point on day whatever of whatever we call this situation – lockdown? quarantine? self-imposed semi-solitude while we count our loo rolls? – it is as good a time as any to practice gratitude, mindfulness and everything else akin to such.

I’ll start with gratitude for the fact that we likely won’t be subjected to masses of humanity in small enclosed spaces over the summer. Most likely you, dear Reader, will have experienced the deep joy of overwhelm and meltdown, as we have on several occasions, in the midst of activities that had previously been begged for with much persuasion. So, I am thankful that I can just cite COVID-19 LOCKDOWN 2020 in response to any such Disneyland related requests, parks and cruises included. My screw you to TV advertising during prime time! We’ll save a few ‘youro’ in the meantime too. Happy days.

Let us move on to mindfulness and living in the present moment, because, let’s be honest, there doesn’t seem to be a single human on this earth that can tell us what tomorrow will bring. Our default is the present moment. And it’s pretty damn uncomfortable! I’m on the verge of doing the |||| / on the wall above my desk. I keep having to ask what actual day it is. Now, more than ever before, we realise what a man-made construct time in fact is.

Everything else akin? Well, I for one am at the stage of hands in the air and do what you want***. Really, I am. I am a compulsive goal setter, planner and organiser. These are great skills in the context of a regular and functioning system. Right now, not so much. They are anxiety causing beasts.

Which brings me to the last point of this likely last column because like our previous reality, all changes at some point****. Was ‘before’ regular and normal? Is the universe resetting? Should we have taken the other colour pill? Forgive me, I seem to have woken up in the midst of the type of ridiculous movie that I usually don’t go and watch because when will that ish ever happen to us? Daily life feels like driving in the mist. It just swirls without context or horizon.

So, with time passing as it inevitably does, this summer, you might find me and us here at home, braai’ing*****, fixing up the garden and generally enjoying each other’s company. Outsiders of the household might be welcome but keep your two-metre distance. Happy days!

*The smallies were negotiating a cruise. Not going to happen ever because I have the words DIAMOND PRINCESS forever burned into my prefrontal cortex. Everything from hereon in will be put through the COVID-19 LOCKDOWN 2020 filter.

**On my LinkedIn though, I’m a director, lead auditor and consultant. Sounds so much better, no?
***But only after the daily schedule has been strictly adhered to – school work, cleaning, meals by the clock.
****Someone else can have a turn now!
*****Because barbecuing apparently holds a whole cultural context that we have yet to wrap our heads around.

Philipa Farley

Notes From Xanadu

The World's First Online Arts Centre (Probably)

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