024 — Perfecting My Reflecting

Hey. How's it going? I'm Ryan Hefner, and this is the All Play podcast. So, obviously, it's approaching the end of the year, and it's a time for a little introspection, a little time for reflection, a little time for, you know, all that good stuff, or bad stuff depending on, you know, how things are going. But, regardless of that, I have been trying to do a bit of a technique that, I'm hoping to continue into the next year and actually hoping to kind of evolve.

So let's say over the last couple years, and actually for the longest time, I've been jotting down all my to dos and ideas and everything in between within, Field Notes. So, like, the Field Notes Notebooks. I've tried to use a bunch of different to do it to do apps and whatnot, but, I just never really found a good consistent, system with any of the the digital stuff. You know, I was using things for a while, tried out a bunch of different stuff. I tried using Notion and then, logging stuff with an Obsidian.

And, you know, even just using GitHub issues or GitHub projects, you know, for, like, the the coding side of things. But the one tried and true thing that I always have with me and that, I guess I've just really introduced as like a as a practice is is jotting everything down within field notes. And so at the end of the week, I kinda do or at least I I try to do on a pretty consistent basis, a little thing that I call reflect and project. So Sundays, you know, I'll sit down. I'll start flipping through, shit seeing if there's anything that I need to, that maybe I missed and didn't check off and kinda going back through, back through time a little bit.

And, you know, I'm not working in just one field field notes book. I actually have, probably, like, 2 or 3 that are outside of my, like, main one that I also kinda start flipping back through. And, you know, the these are things that I've accumulated over the last couple years or not years, but, over the last couple months of just, you know, constantly kind of jotting ideas down or or to dos. And, so I I basically kinda go and I reflect on those on what I did get done or maybe, you know, what I didn't get done. And then that kind of, reflection then almost kinda like kindles a little bit of inspiration of, like, what I wanna do in the coming weeks.

So that's where I end up doing, more of the projections. So I start just like anything that comes to the top of my head, I just jot it down, you know, whether it's something I wanna do on a project, maybe a new project idea, you know, random stuff. Like, I I'm I do I need to get a new accountant because I had one in New York. Never really had, like, a proper relationship with my accountant. Not to say that I'm, like, trying to, you know I just want someone who can who I can, like, talk with and talk through decisions.

Like, I currently have a New York LLC, but I wanna shut that one down and start up a new one. I know that with LLCs, you know, you can either do it in the state that you reside in or, I guess you can actually I guess, like, the most, like, tax advantage there. Like, the most tax advantage way of, doing an LLC is in with in Wyoming, similar to the whole, Delaware C Corp thing. But, you know, I'm not really sure what the requirements are around that. Do I need to set up, like, a weird forwarding address?

Is there any sort of repercussions when it comes to, you know, filing? Do I need to file taxes for both Wyoming and Georgia since I'll actually be residing in Georgia? And I'm a sole proprietor at this point for the LLC with no other members. So just, you know, wanna try to figure out what all that is and, like, to have an account or someone who can maybe guide me in the right direction and, help me do the right decisions a little bit more, like, premeditated before all of my weird reactive stuff that I end up trying to do at the end of every year. You know, throwing money into different things, hoping that it'll with, you know, offset a little bit better to, like, tax stuff.

But, so yeah. So that's the, you know, that's, again, just something that ends up in this thing. And, over the last couple weeks, I've been thinking about the whole reflect and project stuff, and I realized that actually there was something missing. And it's something that I've been trying to do a little bit more, but I haven't really made a conscious effort. And that is, I feel like I need to add a third part to it.

And so I wanna reflect, I wanna project, but I also need to connect. And that means, you know, reaching out to friends, seeing how they're doing, just basic catching up and maybe sharing what I'm doing and, and all that good stuff, reaching out to, people who are doing similar things as I am. And, you know, I'd I'd say I kinda started doing some of that stuff with the jam sessions podcast that I'm doing, and I I wanna do more of that. And so, I know Brian Castle who, was last on, he was a second jam sessioner. He's already expressed some interest about hopping on the mics again and, jamming on some of the stuff that I'm doing with starter packs and around potential guessing monetization or pricing stuff, or I don't know.

I'm not sure where, where his head's at, but, I wanna do more of that. I wanna connect with people, you know, even if it doesn't mean that it's going on a podcast, just could be a conversation in a Telegram group or on Discord or a text message or a phone call or, you know, or or if it does justify, you know, opening up a stream or or recording it and sharing it with everyone, that's cool too. But I really wanna introduce that connect piece. So I wanna have reflect, project, and connect, and then I started thinking about it. The connection piece is awesome.

I really wanna do that more. But then the connection piece introduces this whole other spectrum to it. And, you know, of course, I was trying to figure out a word that could kinda flow with this whole reflect, project, connect. And, you know, I'm thinking about the the connection. I'm thinking about getting feedback or suggestions or, you know, trying to to to get to something better, and I realized that I think there's a force piece piece to this.

And that is essentially reflect, project, connect, and correct. And the correct thing there is kind of interesting because the way that I've been doing it before is, you know, I kinda I go through, I check all the stuff that I did that either, provides maybe some inspiration or even reminds me of other stuff that I didn't even jot down that I end up jotting down. The connect piece, I wanna basically be really conscious about trying to reach out to like, I'm not really sure how many people, but a good amount of people that I can just like talk through, stuff throughout the course of a week. And then the correct piece is kinda interesting because basically based off that reflection, I've made a projection. And, again, I'm not time boxing this stuff.

So the that projection, it's not stuff that needs to get done necessarily the next day or the next week. It's it could be something that eventually gets done within the next month or even off to the next year. But the connection piece is where that stuff can then kinda get a little bit more rather refined. So if there's something that maybe I don't really have a super clear vision on, maybe that that connection piece will help smooth out some of the rough edges that I haven't really quite captured or grasped within these ideas. And then there's, I guess, there's also the other side of that where it might not necessarily be refining stuff.

It might actually just totally detour me off into some other direction. And that's something I'm gonna be mind trying to be mindful of. I mean, I already have bad enough shiny object syndrome that, you know, introducing obviously too much feedback or something or early on in a project or even, you know, unsolicited feedback that actually just totally diverts you to some other thing. I already know that I already do that stuff myself, so I'm gonna be trying to manage that as best I can. But at the same time, having those conversations, just having the, the space for that stuff to happen, me trying to self regulate and make sure that I don't go too far off the tracks or get diverted down something where I shouldn't lose focus on the thing that I'm, you know, trying to achieve is gonna be, well, you know, my own mental, physical hurdle, but or challenge, I should say.

But yeah. So I don't know. I just wanted to get this out. I've been thinking about the end of the year. I'm thinking about how I can kinda go into 2025 with a, you know, sharper, clearer mind, really try to commit to what I wanna get done, and evolve that vision as well throughout the way and try to refine it.

So I give you reflect, project, connect, and correct. It's a system I'm gonna try to use from today moving forward as I'm I'm working on stuff. I'm curious what you all do to try to manage this stuff and just sort of wrap your head around it and and try to stick to stuff or not. You know? I mean, it's totally valid to have think you want something one day, and then you realize that maybe it's just not quite the right fit either once you find more information on it or just once you go down that path and you realize that maybe maybe something else is, is the better way to go.

But I'd really love some insights on what you all are doing. And if you find this concept, interesting. So like I said, I'm Ryan Hefner. This is the All Play Podcast. You can find, previous episodes @allplay.fm.

I'm gonna be posting more updates on when new episodes come out on Bluesky @allplay.fm. That's the handle. And then, obviously, my personal, Blue Sky account is at allplay.ry all @ryanhefner.com. And you can obviously see some more of my stuff going on at ryanhefner.com. I am gonna I have a few blog posts in the works.

I'd actually try to do a year in the review, which I feel like I've attempted that to do a couple of attempted to do that a couple of times, but I've never really committed to it. But for whatever reason, this year feels like it's the year. These podcasts are way easier for me to do then, then blog posts, even though they kinda end up turning into 1 if you have to actually check out the show notes. But yeah. So I'm gonna leave it there.

I'm over I'm rambling on. Check it out. Also, if you listen to this, you know, drop a rating or, like, review or something on the podcast. I don't know if, I guess I I I need to actually go out and, like, look at these different things to see if people are doing that. But, yeah, I don't know.

It just helped me out just to make sure I'm just not kinda talking into the void here. But, yeah, I'm gonna leave it there. So reflect, project, connect, and correct. And I hope y'all are having a great year and looking forward to 2025 and tackling whatever you wanna do. So have a great one.

Later.