Starting Now

I’m going to write a blog article a day and it begins with this one.

Writing an article a day not possible for me so I’m reeling it back a bit.

Whenever I want to start something, there a bunch more things I want to start at the same time and then it snowballs. I’m really bad at focusing or taking small steps.

I think that should be what I start doing. Focusing on ONE thing and making incremental progress.

I just spent the entire day at my half finished house trying to scrape old paint, that’s superglued, off my stairs.

I’m making very slow progress. But that’s probably how it is for most things in life. It’ll get done eventually if I show up everyday. In this case I might (I really want to) hire someone to do it since I don’t want to get better at fixing stairs. But, I’m broke so I probably have to do it myself. I’m scraping the bottom of the barrel on this renovation project.

Just to keep myself grounded, here are all the things that I want to start and make a habit of. I’ve also included the reason why.

1. Working out every day: Being physically active keeps me in a better mood and I want to have abs in the next year. 💪
2. Writing blog articles and improving this site: I’ve wanted to start a blog for myself to look back on the progress I’m making. But I couldn’t figure out what to write about until now. ✍️
3. Creating videos: I have major FOMO and want to have a YouTube channel too. It’s not the best reason but it is a reason. 📹
4. Real Estate Agenting: I got my real estate license a few years back and have helped friends and family buy/sell but I want to get serious about. I want to learn how to sell. Houses is a great product to sell. Everyone needs to live in one. 🏡
5. Build software tools: I’m a bit addicted to learning about software engineering. It’s important to build things with that knowledge because if I don’t use it I’ll forget it. Building things will justify the time I spend learning details about programming language and frameworks. 👩‍💻

I’ve tried my best to narrow it down to 5. I’m going to try really hard to stick to it and make progress in all the above areas.

I actually also want to keep improving my Chinese so that I’m able to read online novels and pass as a native Chinese speaker (my current skill level is probably equal to a 2nd grader). I’ve always liked art but I never made time to get better at it. These are all nice to haves. It’d be nice to have more time to draw and paint.

Unfortunately I probably won’t find time for Chinese or drawing in the foreseeable future.

It’s not an understatement to say that I’m extremely inconsistent. But I just have to pick up where I left off even if I drop the ball. I know my writing isn’t great but I want to get better so I’ll make an effort to write everyday even if it’s an article for this website.

I’m still trying to pin down what content would be the most useful to people but I’m going to start with blog posts on real estate in the Boston area near public transportation (driving around here is painful) and tech topics that I’m learning (sharing is caring and explaining it will make it stick in my brain better).

Hopefully I’ll have more articles up by the time you’re reading and if you have question about real estate or tech shoot me a DM on twitter @linnalihe.

Here is a before and after – a picture of the walls before plaster and a picture after the plaster.

And here’s my stairs. The bane of my existence at the moment.

TBH, the purchase of this house (my first house) only happened because I had too much audacity and not enough patience. The only important thing I made sure of when I purchased this house was that the foundation was solid. Everything else is on shaky grounds and baseless assumptions. I can’t say that I would do anything differently but it might be better to do more research before diving in the deep end.

I’m hoping it will work out anyways but I’m for sure going to plan better next time.

P.S My website looks half-baked just like my house at the time of this writing. Come back and check often! See ya later. You can directly message me @linnalihe on Twitter or Instagram or text me if you have my number 😀