Tag Archives: planning

New featured images – Goals

The Writing Life of a Tadpole
April 20 2020

I frequently write about my goals, but it doesn’t take long before a simple “goals” category starts to attract related posts as a dumping ground or “catch-all”. When I started posting about goals in earnest, back in about 2011, my initial thought was that I was really wanting to convey my “goals for the year”. That year, I created a layout that started with the four quadrants from the Insights Discovery personality profile model, and built upon it as my model. I developed it as my “go-forward” model, and thought it would become enduring, so I didn’t add the year.

In 2012, I updated the design, simplified the layers within the quadrants, and then added detailed tables to track my progress in multiple sub-categories, plus a bucket list.

In 2013, I combined the two previous designs a bit, thought it would be a regular way to display my to-do list (spoiler alert: it wasn’t!),  » Read the rest

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#50by50ish #40 – Plan my retirement – b. Take a course

The Writing Life of a Tadpole
November 29 2018

Since I work in the public service, I have a pretty good pension. Gold-plated, if you ask some people, at least in comparison to what the average private sector person can get from their employer. Indexed for inflation, guaranteed for life, forced savings with matching input from the employer, and for those who joined the public service before 2014, people often treat it like the classic private pensions that come with a magic number of 85 (and it used to be explained that way).

Basically pensions that use a magic number work as an addition of two things — your age + your years of service. If that number is 85 or above, you can take your pension with no penalty. More recently, there is often a small catch…sometimes you have to be at least a certain age, like 55 years old. In a perfect world, that would mean you would start working for an organization when you were 25, work for 30 years, and at the age of 55 you would have 55 years of age + 30 years of service = magic 85.  » Read the rest

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#50by50ish #40 – Plan my retirement – a. Short intro

The Writing Life of a Tadpole
November 26 2018

Back when I was looking at things to do before I was 50, there were a few items that looked rather, well, boring. Tick box items that were more “being a good little human and taking control of my life” rather than anything worthy of a 50 things list. And one of those items was something like “blah blah blah plan my retirement blah blah blah”.

To be honest, I didn’t know what it exactly meant, or would mean, when I put it on my list, and I thought it might be one of the items that I did during the year but wouldn’t include as an actual numbered item in the end. Just a to do list thing, nothing “list-worthy”. 

And then a few funny things happened. I had a conversation with my brother about his so-called retirement. He’s doing a bunch of contract work and really enjoying the freedom of choosing the contracts he’s interested in and passing on those he isn’t, as well as doing a lot of work from home rather than in an office every day.  » Read the rest

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#50by50 #27 – Write about wedding planning

The Writing Life of a Tadpole
March 23 2018

Way back when I got married, some 10 years ago now, we discussed the fact that we were taking a pretty simplified and organized approach to our planning, somewhat different from what we found online, and perhaps when we were done, we’d write it up and post it too. Well, fast-forward ten years and I’ve never made the time to do it. Lots of other topics intervened, and yet I had it on my list. Partly even just to be able to share some of the photos as examples.

A little over a month ago, I saw a guide online and thought, “Okay, we’re out of date, but maybe somebody out there will find it interesting at least.” And so I added it as a 50by50 item. Sixteen topics broken down into 9 posts:

  1. Planning a wedding in six months – Part 1 – Early planning
  2. Planning a wedding in six months – Part 2 – Engagement
  3. Planning a wedding in six months – Part 3 – The Ceremony
  4. Planning a wedding in six months – Part 4 – The Reception
  5. Planning a wedding in six months – Part 5 – Accommodations, Flowers, and Transportation
  6. Planning a wedding in six months – Part 6 – Website, Gifts, and Invitations
  7. Planning a wedding in six months – Part 7 – Parties, parties, and more parties
  8. Planning a wedding in six months – Part 8 – After the wedding
  9. Planning a wedding in six months – Part 9 – Photography

I feel like I want to go back and edit it down to a one page “do this” type list, but for now, I’m ticking the box that I told our story.  » Read the rest

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Planning a wedding in six months – Part 9 – Photography

The Writing Life of a Tadpole
March 18 2018

As I wrapped up the previous post, I said the next one was optional for some people, hence why I kept it for last. In reality, photography in general is probably not optional, everyone wants some mementos. But there are FIVE big questions you will have to decide when it comes to photography.

A. Professional or not?

Picture this scenario. You’ve just spent six months planning what is likely the biggest event of your life. It probably comes third behind buying a house or buying a car in terms of the total cost, but maybe even second if you’ve never bought a NEW car. And the amount of work you put into it is way above the research you likely did on houses or cars. It’s BIG. And it all takes place in a single day. No rewind. No take-backs. No do-overs. We’re live, baby.

In 5.

4.

3.

2.

1.  » Read the rest

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