What Kind Of Year Will It Be?
Posted: Thu 1 January, 2015 | Author: Lyle | Filed under: 2014/15, 2015/16, Business, Creativity, D4D™, Domestic, Finances, Five Year Plan (now Ten), Getting Old(er), Getting Organised, Photography, Resolutions, Sociable, Thoughts, Travel, Weigh Less, Work-related, Write More, Writing | 1 Comment »As regular readers know, I don’t really do New Year’s Resolutions. It’s partly my knee-jerk response to the whole “Everyone else is doing it” ethos, which means I won’t. But also New Year is just an arbitrary day for making plans – and I tend to do it from birthday to birthday, for no better reason than that it’s an easy day to remember as a start/finish date.
Anyway, with that said I do have plans for 2015. Sometimes plans work better on a calendar year instead of birthday-to-birthday – although there’s also a couple of ideas and plans this time that would also work better to a fiscal year, April to March. But for the sake of argument I’ll stick (for now) to my usual resolution/plan structure, while also acknowledging the whole 2015 thing.
What I won’t do is go into reams of details – I know what I want to do, and I’ve got most of it written down in to-do lists and the like – but it can all be summed up in four key points, which can be summarised as:
- Create More – includes writing, photography, and web-based work/business plans
- Do More – includes activities, day trips, longer weekends, and perhaps even a holiday or two.
- Save More – working to rebuild finances, build up some backup savings, and restore the credit score.
- Weigh Less – the goal is to lose another two stone in 2015, which is what I also lost in 2014. So it’s feasible.
And that’s “it”. Obviously there’s details, sub-plans and sub-goals in there as well, but they’re the key points. They’ll do me for now.
I’m hoping that 2015 will continue in the positive direction that started in the last quarter of 2014. I’m quite sure there’ll be some hiccoughs and roadbumps along the way – that’s realism rather than cynicism, my life is never a truly smooth process – but with any luck at all it’ll be a positive year, and lots will get done.
And if not, if things go wrong, then I’ll just do what I can, and keep on in the same way as I had to with 2014.
But I do hope that 2015 is positive and constructive. That’s the intention, at least. But we’ll see.
What Kind Of Year Has It Been?
Posted: Wed 31 December, 2014 | Author: Lyle | Filed under: 2013/14, 2014/15, Domestic, Finances, Five Year Plan (now Ten), Getting Organised, Health, Reading, Seeing Films, Thoughts, Work-related, Writing | Leave a comment »(With apologies to Aaron Sorkin for nicking/appropriating a title he’s used in every series he’s written)
2014 hasn’t been an easy year, with some real ups and downs. Some of the downs have been pretty bloody down, and back in August/September was about as low as I’ve been in a long time, with the finances right back to Ground Zero. The last couple of months of the year have been a massive improvement, a real resurgence that’s left things on a very positive note, and that’s nothing but good.
But man alive, there’s been a lot going on.
Work
I’ve had two spectacularly bad jobs – both permanent roles – this year, the second of which took three months to escape from, cost me a buggerload of money (the owner decided to arbitrarily cut my offered salary by £10K, a drop of just under a thousand a month, with no warning or notification) and affected me a lot more than I’d ever have acknowledged. In small ways it’s still ongoing – I’ve invoiced the dickhead for the money he screwed me for, and my New Year’s present to him will be a claim through Small Claims Court (well, now Money Claim Online, but who’s counting?) so that should be fun.
I’ve also had three contracts (plus one that over-ran into the start of 2014) with two being OK and one being less so. That one was an easy life, which was more about being a bum on a seat “in case anything happened”, rather than actually doing stuff. Easy, but not my kind of thing, as has been written about elsewhere.
The final contract of the year – which flows into the start of 2015 – has been the catalyst for getting things on a more positive footing. It’s been work that suits me, as well as being one where I’m able to work from home for the majority of the time, which also suits me.
Finances
As per the work notes, the London job cost me a lot of money, with the savings I’d made up ’til then getting used for keeping things afloat while I still believed that The Dickhead would actually pay what was owed. Even while everything was down at lowest possible, I still got through – no borrowings, no late payments etc. So it’s not as bad as it could’ve been, and yet again showed how far I’ve actually come – but it’s still annoying to have been knocked back after a year of being successful on it all.
I’m back on the up now, things in credit and so on. I still need to build up the funds again, but that’s happening, and will continue to do so through into 2015.
Creative / Writing
This year’s writing and so on hasn’t been great – because of everything else going on, it just hasn’t happened as much as I wanted it to.
Writing-wise, I have done some stuff. I’ve entered some small pieces to some competitions, although without any decent results. However, at least it’s been about getting things done and submitted – which is more than I managed in 2013.
Photography’s been a lot slacker. Along the way I’ve got out of the habit of carrying a camera all the time, and it’s proving harder to get back into doing it. I love the SLR I’ve got, but it’s a pain in the chuff for most of the time.
The daytrips of late have been partly about taking photos again as well, although they’ve all ‘only’ been taken on the iPhone, but at least I’ve been taking photos again, and they’ve been pretty decent.
Summary
So while 2014’s been a ropy old year in many ways, it’s ending up with a lot of promise, and lot of optimism for 2015. Whether that will be justified or not, who knows? But I’m going to give it my best.
And really, what more can anyone ask than that?
City Link
Posted: Sun 28 December, 2014 | Author: Lyle | Filed under: Cynicism, Domestic, Interviews, Work-related | Leave a comment »Sometimes it’s odd how things work out. On Christmas Day, the courier group City Link announced they were going into administration. There’s still lot of ongoing fallout, and unions wazzing on about how City Link are still a viable concern – because of course, who would know better than a fucking union?
Anyway, as I said, it’s odd how things work out.
A year or so ago, I interviewed with City Link to do a long-term contract in order to boost their website and on-line presence in a number of ways. It was a very cool job, and normally I’d have jumped at it. Indeed, I was offered it – but the downside was that it would’ve involved commuting round the worst section of the M25 on a daily basis – and that was what persuaded me to not take it.
Yes, sure, it would potentially have been a good year’s work and so on. But the revamped stuff hasn’t yet been released – and now looks like it never will be. So it would be pretty difficult, when now looking for something new on zero notice, to say “I did [x], but you can’t see it because they never released it”
All told, even with the way 2014 worked out on the shit-jobs front, I’m pretty glad I didn’t take on that one…
Bizarrely Chilled
Posted: Fri 19 December, 2014 | Author: Lyle | Filed under: 2014/15, Change, Domestic, Finances, Five Year Plan (now Ten), Thoughts, Work-related | Leave a comment »Thinking about things, I’m actually really quite contented as we come to the end of this year. No bad thing, considering that this year has been – variable, to say the very least.
But here at the end of the year, things have been going well, and it’s looking positive for the start of next year.
I don’t know quite why it’s all clicked into place over the last six weeks, but it has. I’ve suddenly decided to start going out, and spent time doing so. It’s a bit random still, but that’s fine. Even more interestingly, I’ve started making some plans for the new year, including addressing a couple of the things that freak me out. (Of which more later/another day)
I suspect a lot of this is all due to feeling a lot more sorted, with finances, work and so on being really pretty organised. It’s not perfect yet – the finances in particular still need some more work to get them to where I’d like them to be – but it’s a far far more positive outcome than the year-end situation I thought I’d be in six months ago.
I don’t know what 2015 will hold – but I’m aiming for it to be a good year, and a much better one than the majority of this year has been.
Busy Week
Posted: Fri 12 December, 2014 | Author: Lyle | Filed under: Domestic, Geeky, Getting Organised, Own Business, Work-related | Leave a comment »Updates have been a bit sparse this week because it’s been chaotic round here.
Monday was working on-site with my current client, and also the phone interview for the new contract
The rest of the week’s been working from home, but has also involved
- Tuesday : Organising life stuff, doing some shopping, and all that kind of tat
- Wednesday : Getting notified about the new contract, and doing a conference call with another client
- Thursday : Signing the new contract, starting to sort out a business bank account, and a bundle of other paperwork. Also, out in the evening for a geeky social event in Milton Keynes
- Today : Chasing up the poxy GP about blood-test results and the like
This weekend’s busy too – off tomorrow to see War of the Worlds at the O2, and Sunday I’ll be taking dad to see the final Hobbit film.
So yes, fairly busy all round. Kind of scary, really.
Progress for 2015
Posted: Wed 10 December, 2014 | Author: Lyle | Filed under: Business, Domestic, Getting Organised, Weirdness, Work-related | 1 Comment »For the first time in a very long time, I seem to be pretty organised work-wise and well into 2015. It’s quite a scary concept.
My current contract runs through ’til Friday January 9th, which is all well and good. I’ve got a lot still to do, but it’ll keep me out of trouble for the foreseeable.
And now as of today, I’ve got a new contract that starts on Monday January 12th – still a month away! I honestly don’t think I’ve ever secured a contract this far in advance before – it’s all a bit weird.
Basically, I got contacted about this new one by an agency, and it sounded ideal. I let them know my timescales – normally, waiting five weeks for a contractor is a definite no-no. But in this case it looks like that worked out fine for them.
I had the phone interview on Monday, and all went well. Heard back today, and the paperwork is all coming through. Based up in Leicestershire, but (as with the current one) it’s going to involve primarily working from home, so that’s not too bad.
Of course, if the current contract wants to extend then it’s going to get awkward/interesting, but I’m sure I’ll find a way to sort things out in that eventuality.
Anyway, it’s all a bit weird, and a bit organised. I’m taking that (for the moment) as a positive indicator for the coming year…
Organised
Posted: Sat 6 December, 2014 | Author: Lyle | Filed under: 2014/15, Cynicism, Domestic, Finances, Five Year Plan (now Ten), Getting Organised, Interviews, Thoughts, Work-related | Leave a comment »Every so often, you have a day where you feel like everything’s actually pretty good, pretty organised, pretty nailed down.
For me, today’s been one of those days – and indeed, a lot of this week has felt like that. Of course, some cynicism says that this is just the precursor to a failure of epic proportions, but for now I’ll take the little victories.
It’s been a week where things have felt sorted and settled – I’ve been able to get things done on/for the house that’ve been waiting ages to be done, I’ve started organising things for January when the current contract (currently) expires (and I’ve even got a phone interview on Monday for something else straight afterwards, as well as another one already showing interest) and the finances are pretty much stowed away too.
And along the way, I’ve somehow also managed to now sort out all but one thing for the Festering Season – and that one outstanding one is just a case of not having even the slightest inkling of what to do/get. I’m not actually sure how that’s happened, but I’m not going to complain. Hell, I’ve even managed to organise and decide upon a couple of birthday things for people for next year, which is downright shocking.
Today’s been more of the same. The next week or so is pretty busy what with one thing and another, so I’ve been organising some bits of life around that, and that’s all working out nicely too.
All told, it’s just been a positive day – indeed, a pretty positive week – and yes, I feel that’s worth noting after some of the shit that’s occurred this year.