In 2022, I adopted a new word of the year, FOCUS. You can read all about it in my what turned out to be a lengthy article in December but the TLDR is that I was tired of my mind and life all over the place, did some reflection on what was important to me, and decided to try to focus on the things important to me and try to ignore the rest. This experiment was quite successful, and I felt like I accomplished quite a lot: I kept this site up and running to where it didn’t feel like a chore, we purchased 1.5 rental properties and I learned a ton about carbon sequestration using seaweed.

To help me remain focused, I utilized a framework of: Sustain, Grow, and Moonshot. The idea here is that I would spend the bulk of my focus on sustaining myself, I would spend maybe 25% of the time growing, and I would spend 5-10% of the time on a wild idea – my moonshot. This framework worked well in 2022 and I plan to readopt it in 2023! Here is my focus for 2023:

Sustain – This Blog

The whole idea of sustaining is that you likely have something that pays the bills and something that maybe you like but don’t love, but something that you are in a good groove of doing. In my professional like, this is my job. I get paid the medium bucks to be really good at it and for the foreseeable future, I really need to keep this job, or a job like it to where I can sustain our finances. Outside of my 9-5, I view this blog as the thing that I need to sustain. Firstly, I really enjoy doing it but sometimes it can feel like a chore. By eliminating other things in my life that I am choosing to not focus on, I have more time and space to focus on the things that I do want to focus on. This strategy helped me view the blog as less of a chore and more of something fun that I enjoy. It’s allowed me to spend more time researching new topics, more time writing quality articles, and more time responding to emails or comments from readers.

Secondly, this blog does bring in a little bit of revenue for me, in the form of sponsored posts. It’s been really fun to have that little extra income, and although it’s not paying the bills, it is a steady-ish stream of income for me, one that I would like to keep flowing in!

So, in 2023 I will spend the bulk of my free time and effort on this blog!

Grow – Tiny House

In the opening paragraph, I mentioned how this strategy of Sustain, Grow and Moonshot really paid off for me. In early 2022, Mrs. Money and I set a goal of buying 2 rental houses. At the time we had just sold our primary residence turned rental turned to sale to avoid capital gains taxes and we were anxious to get back in the game. We spent a TON of time and energy looking at houses and finally found the one for us. In the midst of all this, we also found a little surprise rental house in the form of a tiny house lot. Our neighbors where we live own a lot in this tiny house neighborhood in Tennessee and got us all excited about tiny house cabins and after one long weekend up there that involved beautiful snow, great hiking, and lots of family time, we fell in love with the area and idea of a tiny house. A few months later, our neighbors told us that their neighbors in the tiny house community were selling their lot due to some family issues. We jumped on it and ended up buying the lot sight unseen! Fast forward to late 2022, we got up there and laid eyes on the lot and absolutely love it! So, that’s why I describe our rental property portfolio as being 1.5, instead of 2.

In 2023 my growth goal is to build the tiny house and by Christmas/New Years spend at least 1 long weekend in it! 2022 saw #supplychainissues and a huge backlog (apparently we were not the only ones buying a tiny house lot and wanting to build a house on it. This area is kind of remote in Tennessee and there aren’t a lot of options in terms of builders there. So we’re a bit at the mercy of the local builder, who does good work for sure, but just has been behind. I’m told that the backlog is quickly ending and that we should be able to start construction this spring!

It’ll be a lot of work – Mrs. Money and I have never had a house built, so we’ll do all sorts of learning around picking out the floor plan, the design, the interiors, getting a construction loan, and figuring out how short-term rentals work too!

So, in 2023 my grow goal will be building the tiny house!

Moonshot

I’ve always been a big thinker and dreamer, and at any given time I have several ideas that are floating around in my head. In 2022 when I decided to get better at focusing, I also decided to limit the amount of random ideas in my head to just 1 and in 2022 I decided that was going to be around carbon sequestration using seaweed. I devoted the remainder of my free time and energy towards thinking and learning about that process. I learned a lot, and although I’m not actively a seaweed farmer in the ocean, I’m proud of myself for making some progress on 1 idea vs. no progress on many ideas.

In 2023 I’m not 100% sure what my moonshot will be. I don’t love not having one thing to focus on but I’m reassuring myself that’s ok. I will be spending the bulk of my time sustaining this blog and growing through building a tiny house so really my moonshot is where I’ll be spending the least amount of time so maybe it’s ok that I haven’t yet figured out what my focus will be. A few ideas that I have been more seriously considering: writing a book. I really enjoyed going deep on my focus article in December, and I got tons of good feedback. Perhaps I might want to keep going deeper in my writing in the form of a book? Another idea I have is around something with old people. Over Christmas I helped NanaMoneyFinance pick out a new nursing home and just hearing from my parents all the things that come with getting old like your health, trying to cash in on insurance, picking a good nursing home, dealing with all the doctors, and just trying to stay busy and enjoy life – it’s a lot and often not the best experience. I’m not sure how I could improve that situation for her or others, but I might want to spend more time thinking about it! Finally, I’ve got a few friends that are going out on their own starting their own healthcare practices and I’m learning how much there is for them to learn and keep up with. Perhaps I’ll focus my moonshot energy on finding a better solution to get them up and running quicker?

I’ve got a few solid options but nothing set in stone yet for my moonshot!

TLDR

In 2023 I am once again adopting a focus framework and I hope that by naming what I want to focus on and setting priorities for how I spend my time and energy on them that I will once again be successful!