Feeling stuck in neutral is not fun for anyone, especially me. For the last week or so it feels like I’ve been waiting for a lot of things. I’m waiting on the cover art for Cottonwood. I’m waiting for a rush of ideas to come to me for my next book. I’m waiting for golf season to really get going. I’m waiting for the wind to calm down (I think it finally has, at least for now). And, I’m waiting for pCloud to finish backing up my music.

Yeah, I know.

That decision came out of nowhere. I had been thinking about subscribing to iTunes Match for a year but I’ve been underwhelmed by Home Sharing of late (it doesn’t always show all of my music) and there are scores of complaints about Match failing to sync entire libraries. I liked the idea of jumping the Apple ecosystem, only when it comes to music. I’m thinking ahead to when I might have my LPs uploaded (to somewhere other than iTunes) and hoping pCloud would handle those files while iTunes would not. We’ll see. I only have $50 on the table for the year so I kind of see it as an experiment.

Today I found myself encouraging my associate in Japan to feel free to experiment a little more. He’s new to the business he’s in and like everyone is trying to accomplish a lot on the fly. For the most part, I hate on the fly, but I know it has its place. I understand the motivation to do everything now; advertise, promote, build, sell. But, each of those tasks are intertwined, especially for a new business. And, quick decisions on each, in its way, can discourage valuable experimentation. After all, once the website is up, you’re done with it, right? It’s all too easy to move on without determining that decisions are being made with as great an emphasis on the quality of the decision as there on the speed of the decision.

Of course, I’m also the guy who feels like he’s in neutral so maybe there’s something else going on here. This is my year of known transition, that transition being the end of my long-time employment. What I’m hoping for this year is an extra dose of intensity but maybe intensity is driven a little more by a valuation of the speed of decision. That is not something that comes naturally to me.

The end of January is right around the corner and I have every confidence that its pace will be matched by the next 11 months. It’s time to get going. Neutral is not my friend. I’m done waiting for stuff. I’m happy to experiment, and willing to fail if there’s some learning in the process. But, being stuck in neutral is getting old and bringing me closer to nowhere. Thanks for reading.