Running out of time...
What happened to the first 6 weeks?
The nature of my job makes me think in quarters and execute in weeks.
I don’t know what happened, but the first half (!) of Q1 passed in what feels like the blink of an eye.
Taking the time to write another article felt like too much.
So many more important things to do:
decorating my new home to make it feel like a home,
figuring out how to heat the place,
annual performance review at work,
attending sTARTUp day in Tartu,
getting back into running “Decode Estonian” workshops,
settling into new routines, now being based in Kalamaja,
and so much more
January started…
…with a feeling of restlessness.
I just completed one year at Bolt and reached the point where I started to feel like it was time for a change.
That feeling is exactly why I vowed to stay at Bolt longer than anywhere else before.
I want to experience what comes after that.
Losing any kind of emotional attachment to my previous home of 6 years didn’t help.
In fact, that opened up a new fantasy:
I could sell my other apartment and the garage,
pay back the new apartment, and
have cash left over,
while removing a substantial future money sink (developing the garage/garden)
Essentially this would mean retirement: allowing me to teach Estonian only and live of whatever I earned that way.
Tempting, but also really stupid.
Both the apartment and the garage/garden are things I’d never ever be able to afford again.
Owning the garage costs nothing (well, 180 EUR of land tax per year, but that’s close to nothing).
The Mulla 2 apartment can carry itself financially.
So we’re talking about liquidating almost all my assets to save…640 EUR a month.
Not smart.
I need to write this down and publish it here, just to have proof of this being a stupid idea in case I start fantasizing about it again in the future ;)
Keep on grinding
After attending Logan’s Quarterly Strategy Workshop to get some accountability and direction for Decode Estonian, a few interesting things happened:
everybody walked out of that workshop with an action plan for the rest of the quarter,
and a high level of motivation - none of us wants to disappoint any of the other participants, let alone Logan
As a result, my days now look like this:
work (Bolt)
gym,
dinner,
work (Decode Estonian)
sleep (22:30)
And I absolutely don’t mind this right now.
Executing the plan to my business forward has become enjoyable.
Progress is visible.
Things are moving.
Going to the gym every day helps: while not the most effective thing for muscle growth, it’s excellent for flushing the brain and resetting it.
So that another round of work becomes feasible.
オフィスにいます
Speaking of strategy, I’m finally getting to the point where I feel like I can think about my future in the long term because I have dreams and aspirations now.
One of these possible futures has me teaching Japanese alongside Estonian because Japanese is actually really easy (at least it looks easy).
Since Japanese looks easy, but I have no idea what I’m talking about, I need to get good at Japanese in the next 3 to 5 years.
To that end, I’ve started just using Japanese, because language courses are useless for learning a language.
Also, I signed up for a Japanese language course.
Not to learn Japanese.
But to have an enjoyable group activity in Estonian to meet like-minded people.
For that, language courses can be great.