Getting More comfortable and Tactical

 

I take very few selfies

Time again to write.  Reviewing my last post I realized I had omitted one element from the opening paragraph.  That was to discuss something I thought I would do but ended up not doing.  Let me start with that.  One thing I thought I would do that I have not done much of is watch TV.  I grew up in what could be considered the golden age of television.  That coupled with the variety of streaming services it would have been very easy to get into the habit of watching a couple hours of TV a day.  I have not done this.  I watched a couple movies during the day when I had covid.  I may still watch some news and weather in the morning and the evening national news.  I find I am doing less and less of that as well.  I joked the other day that all I needed to do was watch the news on Monday and it is the same the rest of the week.

I am sure you could count YouTube viewing in the same category as TV viewing.  Along with the sites I mentioned last week I also keep up with the latest in the cycling world with the Global Cycling Network (GCN).  For mountain biking, sites like Berm Peak are interesting.  When I write I usually have a classical music Youtube site playing.

I will now have to admit that I still do not have it all figured out.  I am comfortable with not ever figuring it all out.  Posting the picture of myself indicates my increasing comfort level in this blog as well.  I also feel secure enough to solicit comments.  I would love for any one visiting this blog to leave a comment below.

As I have stated I am getting more comfortable in this new phase of my life.  Most retirement sources support the need for a plan as you enter retirement.  Other than not going to work my only plan is to see how it goes.  Creating a retirement plan faces 2 obstacles.  The first is that my wife is still employed in a traditional career oriented job.  Any steps I take in retirement must take into consideration the importance of her career.  It not only provides financial resources it is also very important to my wife.  The second hurdle is that I am not a great planner.  I am especially poor at large scale strategic planning.

I just do not think my underlying nature supports strategic thinking.  It was late in my professional career that I realized that I excelled at tactical planning.  I quick search for "tactical vs. strategic" on Google yielded:

Strategic planning lays out the long-term, broad goals that a business or individual wants to achieve. And tactical planning outlines the short-term steps and actions that should be taken to achieve the goals described in the strategic plan.

I definitely tune out when goals are broad and loosely defined.  I am much more comfortable discussing specifically defined goals.  We get together as a family once a year.  The destination is the strategic goal.  Should it be the beaches of Florida or the mountains of Tennessee?  Would the lakes and rivers of Missouri be a better experience  for the grand kids.  I give my 2 cents when these are discussed but my involvement is minimal.  However, once the destination is decided my tactical brain goes into gear.  I get the route planned, what roads and alternate routes.  I get lists of attractions in the area and begin to plan the itinerary.  I plan the meals.  I look up where the closest grocery store is (most importantly where to get beer and wine).  All very tactical.

In the IT field I managed several large scale projects.  Whether it was replacing critical equipment or migrating resources my plans were detailed down to the movement of cables from one port to another.  I could do "dry runs" of the plans to make sure every possibility was accounted for.  My plans also included fall backs to return the environment to it's original state, just incase things went complete off the rails.  As much as I tried to avoid it they did go crazy once and a while.  The plans also had to minimize any downtime as well.  I found it very surprising how little this type of planning was employed in the IT industry.

So that is where it stands I am about to start my tactical plans for retirement.  Any suggestions?