Checking in for May for my "Designing a Well-Lived Life" blogging. This is about making small changes during the year to make larger changes.

Before I get started there is a pretty common theme here. Once Penguicon 2019 was over I have felt rather drained from making any progress on any of these. Many different things happened over this month. From my uncle's passing to helping friends through some difficult times, to personal setbacks; this has been a year that I've termed the year of breaking and mending. As a result a lot of my focus on these areas have gone completely out the window.

But I'm still committed to posting about these and post I shall. Here's the results from this month.

• Administrative focus: Not great. I could barely get any focus this month at all. My lists ballooned under the strain of things not getting done. I've been slowly trying to get them back into shape but it's been a bit of a struggle making time. I've found myself procrastinating more this month than in previous months. Even my podcast has taken a back seat during this time, but will elaborate that more in other sections.

• Writing more: Stalled. I haven't had the will to really edit my book, or even write simple blog posts.

• Design more: I started reading Think Like a Game Designer some more, but I got sidetracked and haven't had the will to pick things back up again.

• Programming more: If it isn't related to work then I haven't done anything related to programming. Again, feeling stalled and stuck.

• Getting out of debt: I've been working on cutting back as much as we can, but it seems that every little thing needs attention; from having to ship my phone to get it repaired, to taking my car in to have the brakes looked at. But I knew this was going to happen so I've prepared as best I can for the moment.

• Physical Health: No progress.

• Mindfulness: Some moments of mindfulness here and there, but my meditation has gone out the window in the interim. Have been working on finding small windows to be mindful.

• Deeper work: I haven't been able to concentrate on the small things so the larger things have taken it in the teeth.

I understand sometimes things will be a struggle, but it's frustrating to see the progress that I made go completely out the window. I'm trying to be gentle with myself through all of this and realize that I won't be perfect all of the time, and sometimes I'll need to rebuild my habits. Letting go of the feeling that I've had a setback is key to all of this. Instead I'm thinking of this as a checkpoint on the journey, and it's up to me to keep making progress.