2016 was an absolute whirlwind of a year for me.
Over the past 12 months, I have …
- Began flight lessons at San Carlos, CA airport in the Bay Area (SQL!)
- I got married to my wife, Jennifer
- Travelled internationally to Bali and London
- Left San Francisco for a new home New Orleans, driving the 1,600 or so miles from San Francisco to New Orleans in the sweltering heat of July
- Arrived in New Orleans to find our air conditioning was broken (doh!)
- Led five idea-stage businesses through a 12-week intensive accelerator (thanks Idea Village!)
- Adjusted to leading my company 2 time zones ahead and 1,500 miles away from my closest colleague
- Went into a partnership with 2 other real estate investors to invest in a residential real estate deal here in New Orleans
…and I’m sure there was quite a bit more that I’m forgetting!
With that in mind, I wanted to publicly state my new years resolution.
Do less, but focus more on what I do
Just the act of *reading* my bullet-point recap of 2016 makes my heart speed up a little bit. Guess that’s the introvert in me 😉
Here in 2017, I really want to reduce the amount of projects/moving parts that I’m involved in and put more energy into the projects that remain on my plate.
My 2017 new years resolution: Engage in fewer things, focus more time/energy on the things I do.
— Mike Krass (@mikekrass) January 3, 2017
This realization hit me when I read a random Twitter users take on productivity. Instead of posting a story about ‘how to be insanely productive and destroy huge to-do lists’, I distinctly recall her update said “Instead of hacking my productivity, I want to reduce the number of things I have to do and focus only on the truly important ones”
This idea really hit home for me. I’m taking her advice and sprinting with it into 2017.
So … what do I want to focus on?
I’d love to finish flight school and get my private pilots license before our annual family beach trip to Florida at the end of May.
I want to bring 10 non-profit clients onto the MKG client roster, specifically to share the awesome opportunities of Google’s Grant program for non profits that gives away $120,000 – $480,000 in FREE resources to non profits every year but yet so few NPO’s actually apply and manage those resources (ahhhhhhhhh!!!!) by the end of the year.
I want our real estate project to get off the ground and get all 4 houses we bought/fixed up rented by the end of March.
Last but not least, I want to continue embedding myself in the New Orleans tech and startup scene. I want to find a BIG IDEA to work on outside of MKG, so bring me the best you have 🙂