The Consulting Mindset and the War on Cubicle Body

I’ve been debating for a while whether I wanted to write this post, as the subject matter deviates greatly from the technical and professional writing I normally offer here. I decided to do so because my recent dive into fitness is intertwined with my professional life and affects how I approach my day, so I think it has bearing on my life as a 21st-century tech worker firmly planted in middle age.

I need to thank everyone who follows me on social media for putting up with my various “war on cubicle body” posts. You have been part of my publicly crowd-sourcing accountability for my fitness-related goals. I’ll dig into that more deeply later on.

I have been somewhat surprised, on social media and in person, to the reception “the war” has received. I expected the reception to be positive, which it has been, due to the supportive nature of the people in my extended circle. I was more surprised by the number of people who have told me it has motivated them to kick-start their own journey. I am truly humbled by that. Finally, I’ve also gotten a good dose of the expected “I don’t know how you do it” and “Where do you find the time?” comments. Because this begins to get at the conundrum faced by many tech and information workers in today’s society, I decided this post may be relevant. Settle in, there’s no TL;DR nor will I split it into parts.

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Sharpening the Saw*

I have been laying low on my blog and in social media for a few weeks. I typically go into a little bit of a “hibernation” during December as the days get continually shorter heading for the solstice. Around the holidays, I am most interested in spending time with my family.

Around this time last year, I posted my goals for 2011. Goals don’t mean much unless you go back and assess how well you did in accomplishing them. From last year, with notes:

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Turning It Up to ’11

With 2011 upon us, here are a few things I hope to achieve this year (in no particular order): Enjoy life with my family Sharpen my Python skills Get better with Javascript Build at least one useful application with a NoSQL back-end Build at least one application that runs on a cloud infrastructure (maybe in … Read more