12 Things To Do Over The Next 13 Years

I tried to think of 1 more but couldn't

In the fall, new things start, there’s an obvious change in the weather¹.

But it’s also the time as an adult when there have been major changes in my life.

I’ve moved from New Orleans to Atlanta to Wilmington, NC to Nashville and now to New York City— all in August or September.

I’ve spent the past 13 years in Nashville. That’s a lot of time.

And my life has changed quite considerably: we bought houses, had children, changed jobs multiple times, changed careers, made friends, changed friends, and made other new friends.

As I’m starting life anew in New York City, I thought it’d be great to set some goals for the next 13 years.

Who knows if I’ll be in NYC that long, or how many days I’ll have, but I thought it would still be a good exercise to think through.

I tried to think of 13 (symmetry!) but here’s 12.

1. Publish 2 more novels

This is crazy, but I’ve actually published 2 novels. (ok reallly, 2.5). I don’t talk about them a whole lot. I feel like they were experiments (and experimental) and I ended up self-publishing them, with some design/editing/layout help. Some of my friends liked them. My youngest daughter is really fascinated by them. I never thought I’d really make money from them and I didn’t!

Here they are if interested: 1) Taco Jehovah 2) PLS Advise (about New York!) 3) Ambient Florida Position (this is the 1/2 novel or novella and it’s Out of Print, ah too bad)

I’d like to do 2 more in the next 13 years.

Seems do-able even with a day job. We’ll see how things go. Like with a lot of writing, we build up these big projects in our head, and then they don’t have to be as grand or amazing as we think they need to be.

Part of the reason I liked them writing them before is because of how it was a diversion. My life didn’t depend on it (and maybe that’s why I’m not a “successful novelist” lol). I prefer the leisure hustle way of doing things.

2. Make at least $10k from my novels

Ha, I just said I didn’t really care about money from novels and yet here we are with #2. Let’s be honest, $10k is nice, but it’s not life-changing by any stretch. It’s cool, it’s useful, I’ll go on a vacation, get some nice dinners, buy my kids some clothes.

That amount won’t happen automatically.

Especially not from my novels. Especially from the type of novels I like and want to write. Especially if I publish them myself.

$10k feels like a reasonable expectation but not a given.

This would be a good marketing exercise for me, and as a marketer (yes, that happened within the last 13 years), it seems like a good thing to tackle.

3. Help my kids be independent

My children are currently 9 and 7 and their birthdays are within the next few months. In 13 years, they may be in college or working and living with us or coming home in the summer. I don’t have a hard-and-fast rule for when I’d like them out of the house, but I want them to make strides towards being independent, such as with a roommate or living with each other on their own (or getting married???)

It comes fast and I want them to know I’ll be there for them, but it’s also partly up to me to teach them good financial habits, how the world works, and that it’s okay to ask for help.

4. Rent an apartment in New York City with 2 bathrooms

My old house had 2.5 baths and now we just have one. In a very short time, my girls will be …gulp… teenagers. Another bathroom would be awesome.

5. Keep…working? Pick up new skills?

Originally this was “lead a bigger team” but I don’t know if I’m interested in a lot of direct reports. There’s a point of diminishing returns and I hate meetings. “Working for myself” is probably not the answer either. Gaining new skills is the best bet here — it’s very easy to get settled into “what works” and not develop other capabilities, especially as technology changes.

6. Play in a tennis tournament

Yeah, the U.S. Open just ended, but that’s not what I’m talking about. I’m talking about playing in a local tennis rec league tournament and getting beat in the first round. And not anytime soon, but sometime in the next 13 years? Seems do-able.

7. Travel Europe (multiple trips, probably)

New York is closer to Europe with a lot of flights so we should take advantage when we can. I’ve never been to Paris, it’s been 20 years since I’ve been to London, my wife was an exchange student in Germany, and everyone says Portugal is great. We’ll have to check those out.

8. Have a good side income

Good side income means working on a project without income for a while. Unless I wanted to consult. But I’m not great at all the context-switching.

Maybe 1 or 2 clients, but I like to choose the projects I work on carefully. It’s easy to say yes, and then my main work suffers.

I’m working on a niche site right now that could have advertising, I’ve done a few small projects, and it’s something I always have an eye on.

9. Be a good husband to my wife

I’ve been married to the same person for 18 years, and God willing, will be married to the same woman for the next 13 years plus. It’s still a “goal” because relationships can’t be taken for granted, and I have to remind myself of that often—relationships take ongoing work.

10. Prepping myself and my parents for old age

In the past few years, my parents moved to be closer to my grandmothers who are in their late 80s and early 90s. Friends of mine are making hard decisions for their parents. Right now, I don’t know the health concerns that my parents will have or how long they will live (or how long I’ll live for that matter) but it’s something I think about and am aware of.

11. Make new friends / keep old friends

When I first moved (back) to Nashville, I felt a lot of pressure to make friends. I don’t know feel that same pressure now. Not sure why. Maybe I’m more mature as a person, maybe I know things take time, maybe social media keeps us connected.

I also know that just because I don’t live in the same town any longer the people I was close with still exist, and our relationship will be different.

I will (probably? hopefully?) have good friendships in New York, but I shouldn’t expect them to look the same as they have before.

12. Still writing this — keep going.

I’ve quit a bunch of times. I’ve changed the focus of my writing. I’ve started websites and quit them, I’ve published blogs regularly and then stopped.

The other day I popped into a webinar someone was giving and I remembered when they asked *me* for advice six or seven years ago.

It takes a lot of discernment in knowing when to stop and when to keep going, but doing a newsletter once a week is something that takes some effort from my end, but not an overwhelming amount.

It’s do-able and helpful for my thinking no matter how small or large the audience is.

I’ll write other places, and this could factor into my side income goal, but the main goal is to keep going (at least for the next 13 years?).

—

How about you? Any long-term aspirations? Do you set goals like this? Feel free to share below👇

---

More Things

• The Specific Catharsis of “That Guy” by

  Anne Helen Petersen
  (tiktok rabbit hole coming your way).

• The Price of Pop Fandom. At Pitchfork.

• Write for your best readers, not your worst readers. by

  Lincoln Michel
  At Counter Craft.

• Say “Yes, and…” to your writing before you say “no.” At Medium.

• 3 Semi-Important Decisions You Need To Make About Your Note-Taking System. At Medium.

Last Thing

“Come now, you who say, “Today or tomorrow we will go into such and such a town and spend a year there and trade and make a profit”— yet you do not know what tomorrow will bring. What is your life? For you are a mist that appears for a little time and then vanishes. Instead you ought to say, “If the Lord wills, we will live and do this or that.” — James 4:13-17

Keep going,

-Josh Spilker

1. I usually put an ‘X’ on the calendar to mark the stop of hoodie weather…I marked it too early this year, but fall finally hit NYC yesterday