It’s a strange feeling; there are very few deadlines left in my life and the pace of achievement is becoming entirely of my own making.
Up until Christmas, I had two years of pursuing deadlines dictated by the need to sell houses and move between them (and their countries). Before that, the life of work imposed deadlines ad nauseam so they’re a bit of an expected feature in my outlook. Now, there’s only one more delivery of furniture that creates an event whose time is outside our control; even then, the speed at which we clear away the stuff is up to us, once it’s on the ground.
Of course, we have lots of plans and projects in the pipeline; some of them will have a priority and pace that makes deadlines appear but most of those will be of our own choosing. The trick will be to maintain a satisfying sense of progress without creating a stressful, artificial schedule. The slower the pace, the lower the stress and, as a bonus, the more money we retain in the bank. It’s going to be an interesting shift in perceptions.
Monica and I had a very constructive meeting on this subject a few days ago; the topic was “Lumps” i.e. which projects and activities get lumps of funding from our exchange-rate windfall.