March 25, 2025

Look 111: The three little priorities

Fellow angler,

Between apartment repairs (ongoing), a busier work schedule (reasonable though seemingly never-ending), and the current state of the US government (unreasonable though seemingly ending), it’s been a hectic start to the year.

Luckily, things have been settling down for me in the past few weeks. The slow turn to warmer weather is helping. Later sunsets since Daylight Savings are also do their part, though I did have to get over the initial shock of leaving the office and seeing the sun so late in the day.

As I get into the rhythm of the year, I’ve been thinking about what my goals are. Not in a New Year’s resolution-y way where I pick one thing that I want to add to my life but will forget about in a couple of months. More so, I want to understand my life priorities and ensure that my actions align with them.

A rule of three

A few years ago I read a book (and I’ll be honest I can’t remember if this is the book but I’m 99% sure that it is) called Exercise of Power by Robert M. Gates. It’s a political book. Gates is a former secretary of defense who worked under multiple presidents. In the book he analyzes US foreign policy in the past 70-ish years.

This isn’t about his politics. In fact, I don’t remember any of the politics. I remember exactly one thing from the book. Gates argues that being president is difficult and you can’t expect to achieve everything you’d want. The best someone can do is pick three things that you truly care about and work toward those at the expense of all else. If something falls outside your top three priorities, let them go or delegate them to someone else.¹

I remember this idea from the book because as I’ve been exposed to more politicians in my life, I’ve noticed a trend where those who have 1-3 simple and clearly articulated guiding principles seem to do better overall.

But as it affects me, the idea of sticking to a few priorities has proven a good mental framework.

My 3 wishes

If I could have just three of the things I want, what would they be? It’s a simple idea but there are a thousand and one stories about people failing to wisely choose three things.

For me, I’ve mostly settled on:

1. Finish my novel.

Focusing on my writing is my top priority this year. Experience tells me that I write best in the evening and since that’s a popular time for seemingly everything else in my social life, I am going to have to say no to more things. Since I also like using evenings for unwinding after work, I’m going to have to adjust my habits to either unwind more efficiently or to avoid tiring myself out as much during the day. Ironically, I think that means less daily reading of the many newsletters I subscribe to.

I’ll also have some late nights this year if it means fitting everything into my schedule. I don’t like missing out on sleep but as the Brits say, needs must.

2. Exercise (and recover) regularly.

I’ve been slowly deteriorating this winter and it’s time to get back to being active. That will happen somewhat organically as outdoor soccer restarts. I’ve also been able to create a more regular exercise schedule in the past couple of weeks. I enjoy working out so this is relatively easy for me. But there’s a new wrinkle this year of getting my daily 8,000 steps.

Beyond all that activity, this will be a busy year (I guess it’s always a busy year) and I’m including active recovery in this goal. Maybe it’s cheating since it could be its own task, but there’s overlap. For example, I take a long walk every weekend where I walk through green spaces (cough cemeteries), watch birds, and catch up with family or friends over the phone. It’s a great recharge after a long work week and it’s some of that zone-two exercise all the influencers dance about.

3. De-google

I wanted this third goal to be regular reading. I wasn’t getting that last year and so far this year I have an 83-day streak of reading at least one page per day.

BUT sometimes you’ve got to play the hand you’re dealt and for reasons that aren’t even entirely clear to me, last month I decided it was time to de-google and move away from the surveillance capitalism that is only becoming more prevalent in our country. I did not expect this process to be as hard as it is, but it also feels rewarding to take back control of my personal data. I wrote about this recently so go find my thoughts on Google there.

In closing

Focusing on these three things means that at some point, my reading streak will almost certainly end. I won’t read as much as I want or, more realistically, watch as much TV as I want. I also wanted to watch more movies this year (and have largely succeeded thus far) but need to put that on pause. My friends probably won’t see me as much and I may go to fewer events overall.

I suppose you can’t always get what you want but if you try then sometimes you get what you need. And I’d love to claim that as an original sentiment but it was Jagger-Richards. And Mick Jagger has admitted he was only copying Hey Jude.² And Paul McCartney wrote that song to comfort John Lennon’s son, who was only sad because John left his first wife. So I guess thanks to… Yoko Ono?

Anyway, three priorities. I’ll give it a go. What could possibly go wrong?

Title song

On the theme of wanting to do more than I can realistically handle, I bring you Fidgety Feet. It’s an old jazz song and this version (from 1957) is by the fantastic pianist, Willie “the Lion” Smith.

I don’t know if this is the best showcase of the Lion’s talent, but it’s the exact type of song I love: The band starts on an upbeat, it feels like a jam where the band is just having fun, and each band member takes a turn in the spotlight (including a drum solo).

Until next time,

Happy fishing!