Eric Forbes

It’s fitting that I’m writing this blog post on the first day of 2010.

I’ve been up since 6 AM this morning having fallen to sleep just hours earlier from my successful (but far from excessive) New Year’s Eve celebration with some friends in San Francisco. I awoke with many ideas in my head, a succession of inspiring grand schemes, and a solidification of a long sought after dilemma in my personal life. I’d say that 2010 is off to a crazy start for me. And from the looks of things on my Facebook page, my friends are generally optimistic and hardly nostalgic for the year that used-to-be. Everyone except Jay Brannan. Two years ago, he was another rising star on YouTube, where he created videos of his bathroom-chic acoustic guitar torch songs. Nowadays he does world tours of his music. And he’s forever suicidal from the looks of his tweets and Facebook updates. I love him all the same. His music inspires me to record and publish my own music. If he only knew.

Big Ideas for 2010

Here’s how I got off to a good (and slightly overwhelming) start for 2010:

1. Drink more Green Tea (L-Theanine)
   1. I’m running out of an amazing premium Oolong Tea I picked up in Taipei a few years ago.
   2. I did some searching, found a source, and bought a test order.
   3. Da Yu Ling Oolong Tea from Taiwan
2. Watch TED Talks regularly. Fascinating. Inspiring.
   1. Videos viewed early this morning:
      1. Tony Robbins asks why we do what we do
      2. Chris Abani muses on humanity
      3. Matthieu Ricard on the habits of happiness
      4. TED Blog: TED2008: What Stirs Us?
      5. Helen Fisher tells us why we love + cheat
      6. Rick Warren on a life of purpose
      7. Dan Dennett’s response to Rick Warren
      8. Karen Armstrong: Let’s revive the Golden Rule
   2. And then I looked for a TEDx event nearby. Found one coming to UC Berkeley.
      1. But they require an application to be considered. Am I special enough?
      2. Register | TEDxBerkeley
3. Learn something at Lynda.com:
   1. Learn about Search Engine Optimization (SEO)
      1. Learn from SEMPO.org
      2. Learn from Google Webmaster Central
      3. Learn from Google Webmaster Central Blog
   2. Creative Inspirations
   3. Cascading Style Sheets (CSS)
   4. Audio (especially ProTools)
4. Subscribe to GoogleBlog
   1. Read Relevance meets the real-time web post and watched video. (Real-time search? I missed the memo.)
   2. Installed Google Mobile App for iPhone. (Speech->Search!)
5. Check in with Engadget
6. Visited the rumor mill around the new Apple Tablet. Bated breath.
7. Personal-Musical Development
   1. Researched Digidesign Eleven Rack.
   2. Researched electro-acoustic guitars. So many options.
   3. Question: Do I want to learn to play the guitar? Will my fingers ever wrap the fretboard?
   4. Talked to my friend Robert about recording my first real song with vocals. What comes first: vocals or piano part?
   5. I’m used to playing piano solos. Now that I have a song with vocals, how do I re-arrange the piano to support the voice part?
   6. I got a little further recording my annual Facebook video song last night but ran out of time. Excellent excuse.

Wow! Some list, eh? It answers a question I asked myself while taking Bo for a walk earlier today: How in the world am I going to organize my life this year? With many important and compelling projects popping up on my radar today, I want to capture all of them and take time to sort through and decide what to do with them.

I usually get overwhelmed, do a few things and then get distracted. But I want to change. I really do.

Will this be the year that I finally adopt David Allen’s GTD methodology? I’ve attended one of his seminars. I’ve read his books. I have my file cabinet organized and my Brother P-Touch label printer standing by to print new file folder labels. What keeps me from capturing things and deciding what to do with them?

I think I might have discovered a system here in the meantime: a blog. I’ve used this blog to capture most of what had my attention today, and can now decide what to do with it. Most of the links above will help me recall where I got an idea or where I still want to go when I have some free time and want to put it to good use.

January will be a busy and exciting time. I just signed a 3-year lease on a new office space nearby to move the business to. The office move is happening in the next few weeks and I expect to be completely moved out of Santa Cruz by the end of January. The office is now 100 miles away. Soon it will only 3 miles away. I’ll be closer to the office and plan to spend more of my work week there in the coming months. I wanted more involvement and immersion in my business so here we go!

Do your best. Forget the rest.

Happy New Year!