Lifestyle Design Archives - Living the Dream

Goal Setting in an Era of Isolation – Reworking My Routine

Like most people, our newfound lifestyle change caught us somewhat off guard. Not being able to travel, go out, or do most of our favorite activities left us with, well, a lot more time than we were used to.

In a way, I've been setting myself up for this moment, albeit inadvertently, for quite a bit of time. I've been working remotely for 500+ days, and during that time have had many long stretches without interacting with a single human other than my wife, occasional restaurant employee, and friends on social media, of course. In January 2020, I took that a step further by taking more-or-less the entire month off work altogether and pursuing a digital detox.

Then this happened.

In a way, that month off work helped me streamline my business in a number of ways and freed up valuable time to work on new projects and focus on self-care. Coincidentally, now that our website traffic has decreased 75% practically overnight, with an income drop to match, I realize that my mental shift in January was good timing in making sure that I don't simply lose it and panic right now.

Today, I want to dive into more about how I adjusted my mindset to focus on goal setting during this time- both in reworking my daily routine to minimize the hours on existing projects and in coming up with plans for new projects moving forward.

3 Step Guide to Find a Wine That Will Go Great With Any Meal

I've been getting into learning everything I can about wine and have hit things hard between reading wine books, prepping for my WSET Level 2, trying samples at high-end wine bars (like Wine Bar George at Disney Springs- run by a Master Sommelier), and more.

But learning everything there is to know about wine is only part of the equation. Putting it into practice is a different matter entirely.

Between figuring out the best wines to order at a restaurant, finding great bottles to have with meals, and building our own cellar at home, there certainly is a lot that goes on behind the scenes.

In this one, I wanted to go more into the aspect of wine that is one of our favorites- how to find a wine to have with a meal at home. To do this, I've come up with a pretty simple three-step method that you can utilize with every meal!

How I Reset My Work Life Balance With a 30 Day Digital Detox

I overworked myself in 2019. There is no doubt about that.

In my first year of running my online business full-time, I hit things hard in order to increase my online traffic (and therefore income) to offset the day job income that I walked away from. I achieved this goal, but also pushed myself to the breaking point in the process.

I was exhausted (both physically and mentally), acquired a few bad habits, and gained weight all at the same time in order to achieve this “success”. By the end of the year, I had to take a moment and reflect on why I was doing what I was doing, and I realized that my goal for quitting my day job was to have more time for me just as much as it was to have more time to work.

So, I put together a 30-day digital detox for January and stuck to it fairly hard. In this one, I wanted to share the results and lessons learned from the experience.

I’ve Monetized My Life – So Now What Do I Do?

It has taken me over 10 years, but I have finally completed part of my lifestyle design quest- namely, achieving digital independence via blogging.

I've built my websites to the point where they provide a comfortable and regular income stream such that I felt safe to make the leap into blogging as my full-time job.

It has been nearly a year since I made that decision to go full-time on the sites, and while I'm quite happy with that decision I've found out an ugly truth: I've monetized my life, and now everything is work.

De-programming myself has been one of the hardest parts of making the leap.