2024 Yearly Theme: Control

The word ‘Control’ evokes various thoughts and emotions, many of which are negative. Control is often associated with an excessive desire to dominate or dictate every aspect of a situation.

The bad guys in movies and in real life desire control at almost any cost.

Emperor Palpatine in Star Wars said the only way to improve life in the galaxy was for him to seize control. Thanos said the only way to save the universe was to control the population by controlling the infinity stones.

Countless dictators and wannabe dictators have justified taking control because they’re the only ones who can save us.

It sounds micro-managy, almost authoritarian when you say, “I want to be more controlling.”

But Control at the right scale is super important. If you don’t control your car, bike, or other vehicle, for example, you will end up hurting yourself or someone else.

In thinking about my next yearly theme, a recent conversation I had with my therapist was top of mind. I told her that I didn’t feel like I was in control of anything.

Not my health. Not my money. Not my time or schedule.

As you’ll see when I grade 2023: The Year of Budgets, it was a pretty tough year. I don’t think I fared well.

When I watch my kids play Super Mario Bros (the NES version, natch), they just kind of mash buttons and wonder why they died.

2023 kind of felt like that for me. I wasn’t doing a good job of controlling myself — which is why 2024 is The Year of Control.

But first, let’s look at 2023.

Grading The Year of Budgets

I’ll be straight up: At the beginning of December, I would have called this theme a near-complete failure.

Sure I read a couple of books (The Year of Less, You Need a Budget) in January, but I didn’t really make appreciable moves until later in the year.

Honestly, I didn’t find You Need a Budget all that helpful. It seems like all they’re doing is selling you a subscription for an overly complicated system. I think that system only works in the way it’s intended when you don’t have kids¹.

But I also appreciate that I obsess over my finances more than most, and if you’re not watching your finances like a hawk, the book is probably very helpful.

So let’s look at what my main tenants of The Year of Budgets were:

1. Stop frivolously spending money, especially when it’s scarce, by creating real budgets.
2. Properly spend other things of limited quantities (like time, patience) by budgeting my own time and creating better systems.

And how did I do? Let’s look at the scorecard:

As a reminder, check is done, red X is not done, traffic light is half-done.

Looks like a score of 7/15 to me (where half-done is half points). Less than 50% would be a failure in school, but luckily, I’m not in school.

See, the great thing about a yearly theme is that it gives you the full year to make changes and better choices based on the theme. It’s not necessarily about specific goals or streaks. A yearly theme is the anti-New Year’s Resolution.

It’s about making good, long-term changes. And in the last 6 weeks, I lived my yearly theme better than I did the previous 46 weeks.

What did I do? Here’s the finance stuff:

1. I eliminated a large portion of my credit card debt and moved the rest of it into an 18-month 0% APR account. I will pay it off in less time than that.
2. We set up a “Reserve” savings account for vacations and other events so we’d use our credit cards less. In-fact, for the first time in a long time, we didn’t use our cards at all during the holidays.
3. We’ve moved 99.9% of all of our expenses off of our credit cards. We aren’t using them for anything except the Apple Card for App Store purchases at this point.
4. My business is getting the same treatment, as far as debt goes.

Going into 2024, I’m very pleased with where the family and business finances are. I feel like I have the best handle on them since having kids. Looking at just those changes, The Year of Budgets would be a raging success.

Here’s what I did for the “personal” budgets stuff:

1. I started BetterHelp again. My wife said very bluntly in July that I need to start it again. I signed up again that night, and it’s been a Godsend.
2. Thanks to that, I’ve learned a number of things about myself, such as I’m an HSP and subject to overstimulation.
3. Knowing that, I’ve implemented techniques to help mitigate some of the issues that arise with being overstimulated. I do a shutdown routine every day after work so I’m not thinking about work, for example. I’m also spending more time listening to nothing, or white noise.
4. I’m time tracking properly. I’ll outline my strategy more for my members, but I’m using Timery, an app that sits on top of Toggl (covered in my Favorites of 2023), and the Focus app on the Mac to help me be less distracted.
5. I’m using an app called ScreenTime+ on my phone to remain more engaged with my family. I’ve deleted all social media apps except Instagram, too…and that’s probably next, despite how good Parent IG is.

Earlier in the year, I also got a proper Sleep Apnea diagnosis, which means I got a CPAP machine, which means I’m sleeping much better, too.

All of this makes it sound like The Year of Budgets was a success. It’s true, there are a bunch of wins here.

But on top of basically sprinting to the finish line as far as actually following the theme, I think there were a few crucial misses:

• I didn’t make more time for friends (I didn’t make less either).
• I was still on my phone too much.
• I didn’t budget my energy properly.

I mentioned that this year was tough. I was sick a lot more than usual. The first half of the year got me thinking I should fold my business and find a “real” job. And I put way too many of my business expenses on the credit card, hoping spending money would fix my problems.

So I can’t give the year high marks.

Overall Grade: C+

While the back half of the year was MUCH better for my business, and I’m finally seeing good traction in my transition from web developer to podcast coach, it was still a very stressful year where I lost the thread on my yearly theme.

If I hadn’t “remembered” my theme in the past 6 weeks, it would have been an utter failure.

But hey — live and learn, right? I’m taking those lessons and moving them into this year’s theme.

2024 is The Year of Control

As I reflect on The Year of Budgets, I can’t help but think “Control” is the next logical step.

If budgets are about understanding how you spend your time, money, and energy, control is about implementing those budgets.

After all, a budget is pointless if you don’t follow it, which means exercising self-control.

So what’s this yearly theme all about?

I’m going to take control of what I can, and let go of the things I can’t.

It sounds pretty simple, right? Except I have a hard time letting things go — especially if there’s some injustice attached².

But that’s the healthy side of control, right? I know I can’t control everything, and trying is a waste of time and energy. It distracts me from the things that matter most to me.

What finally drove me to choose this theme was the Cortex Yearly Theme episode, where Grey makes two points that really resonated with me:

1. Letting go of who we thought we used to be
2. The Missing Middle

Let’s cover the Missing Middle first. I strongly encourage you to listen to the whole episode, but the Missing Middle conversation starts around the 54 minute mark. With a little help from ChatGPT, it can be succinctly summarized as such:

“The Missing Middle” refers to a phenomenon in economics and content creation where mid-range products or content become less prevalent over time, leading to a polarization towards high or low extremes. Grey observes this trend along two axes in content creation: high-effort vs. low-effort, and long vs. short content. As a result, attention and viewership increasingly concentrate on content creators who align with these extremes, affecting the allocation of audience attention in the digital space.

The conclusion is diversifying your platforms is even more important going into 2024. Relying on an algorithm is not good enough to build a business on.

I don’t think it’s particularly good for my personal life either. I feel like I let social media control my actions too much. “I need it for my business.” “This person is wrong and I need to tell them as much.”

It’s unhealthy, and it’s not correct. I know that now, after many hours wasted.

In-fact, there are a number of personal traits that have changed about me over the last several years, which brings me to the first point Grey made. Here’s the quote, from around the 30 min mark:

Understanding yourself is surprisingly hard to do sometimes. And you really need to spend mental effort on really understanding what you’re like, keeping in mind that your brain is also just delighted to trick you about what are you really like…Something has totally changed with me…and I was slow to recognize it.

Grey recognized something about himself — in this example, it’s about when he best exercises — and decided to let go of who he thought he was.

This is a really important aspect of Control, because if you don’t understand who you are, you’re not in control, and you’re probably just fighting yourself.

If I tell myself my mornings are when I’m most productive and my morning gets blown up for some reason, it kills the rest of my day.

But with if I actually learn that it’s not about the time of day? Maybe it’s some other factor that’s within my control.

Actions and Goals

So how does this translate into actions and goals? We’ll, here are my initial thoughts:

• Control impulses, first. Impulses to eat poorly, reach for my phone when I’m bored or stressed, lash out when I’m angry, etc.
• Gain more control over my schedule. There are several non-negotiables in my schedule. School drop off, and pick up, for example. But there are lots of times where I prioritize someone else’s schedule over mine.
• Improve Health. I used to think if I didn’t have an hour to work out, I can’t work out. But I can make the time to work out, even if it’s just playing the drums or using my desk treadmill. That mindset shift will help me make fewer excuses.
• Control my temper. Most people don’t know it, but I can have a bad temper. Inconsiderable people piss me off, and I get unreasonably mad. But there’s nothing I can do about them. So I need to find ways to let that stuff go.

Some of what I’ve done in the Year of Budgets will help with this. Time tracking helps me understand where I spend my time. Doing a shut down routine helps me control my work day instead of letting it control me.

But the actual actions need to be derived from 4 big questions I’m going to ask myself throughout the year:

1. Who did I think I was?
2. What needs to happen to make me feel in control?
3. What do I need to let go of?
4. What distractions are making me lose the control I do have?

The first couple of months will be reflection — then I’ll take action, figure out what works, and repeat the process. I suspect I will ask myself these questions quarterly.

In the meantime, I will continue to time track, manage my money, and work with my therapist.

The Themes That Didn’t Make the Cut

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Do you have a theme? Let me know in the comments!

1. Like most oversimplified systems. ?
2. If you’re the person putting their dog poop in my trash can, I will find you. ?