OlberBlog | Chris Olberding’s personal website | Thoughts on life, design, and everything! | Jacksonville, Florida |

As long as I can remember I’ve always had a difficult time managing my hobbies and interests… there are just too many things I want to do and learn: Raise my proficiency in French, get better at piano, write Shakespearean sonnets, pick up oil painting, learn how to play the Trumpet, actually put some real time into blogging, etc etc etc.

When I started working as a web designer/developer this problem only multiplied. Now I needed to sharpen my design skills, get better at Photoshop, Illustrator, wrap my head area pre-press production, keep tabs on the latest developments in xhtml/css, javascript, ajax, get my understanding of asp.net, database design, and C# up to snuff. Of course my bosses also wanted me to work with clients doing online marketing, search engine optimization, online ad management, so that was a completely new field for me to dive into.

Now that I own my own business the range of skills I feel I should dedicate time to has exploded. Now I have business development and marketing, heading new internal projects, business plan writing, sales and presentation techniques, bookkeeping, and accounting skills to work on.

For the most part I try do everything. Spending a little time here and a little there, and, while I can see how far I’ve come since last year, progress just seems so slow.

My (Latest) Solution: Focus, Focus, Focus

Okay, so what I’ve come up with is to create a side-project schedule. I’ll have two per week so if I just don’t feel like one I have a backup without becoming too scattered. Gonna plan it out a month or so but not be strict if I want to change things up. Also this wont apply to relaxing or casual hobbies such as playing a few tunes on the piano after work but would apply to say actively expanding my repertoire on the piano or focusing on my technique, etc. Also going to try to keep the two items somewhat different from one another.

Four-Week Schedule

• Week of 09/01
  • Ruby on Rails
  • Drawing
• Week of 09/08
  • Design Techniques (concurrent to redesign of Station Four’s website)
  • Poetry
• Week of 09/15
  • Javascript Frameworks
  • Piano (begin lessons?)
• Week of 09/22
  • SEO
  • History or philosophy (wikipedia free association)

That should do for a bit