I can't believe it is already July. Have you achieve what you wanted to so far this year? Are you on track with the goals you set?

It is something I am often thinking about. Not specifically achieving the goals but making sure I have forward progression towards them. Like most things in life measurement drives improvement. I usually set big goals to start the year but this year my goal was balance. I wanted to make sure to remain balanced across my focus areas; family, work, photography, studying Japanese and learning guitar.

I wrote a post last year called Staying Balanced. I had a good conversation with my friend John about it. We are all busy and sometimes one of these needs to take a much bigger priority. His advice was staying balanced is really difficult and probably shouldn't actually be the goal. The more important point is returning to balance if things needed to shift for the short term. This is really good advice and something I have taken to heart lately.

Let's say a project at work is coming up so you ended up focusing more on that than say your guitar practice. It's really easy to get discouraged with your progress next time you pick up the guitar. It's easy to start putting off your practice, unintentionally de-prioritizing, dreading the uphill battle to catch up and again over indexing on work as that is going well given all of the focus on it recently.

This is why I think it's good to have regular check points with yourself and assess how you are doing against your focus areas. This is no different than a goal you would set at work. You set a goal and then set regular check points to see how you are progressing against that goal. If things are off track then it's a good opportunity to assess if you have the right goals and if you are spending your time in the right places.

Today's Configuration: Leica M9-P with a Summilux 50mm f/1.4

I caught up with my friend Jeremy a few weeks back in Shibuya. Jeremy is a LA based celebrity and fashion photographer. His Instagram is a lot of fun and worth following.

Meet Jeremy. You may remember we met a few years ago at Tokyo Photo.

Jeremy shoots a lot of cameras but I always see him with his Sony RX1. I am really impressed with the shots he can get from that camera including the great one he took of me below.

Speaking of cameras I recently upgraded my phone to the Nexus 6P. I'm also really impressed with the images it takes. Check out this post on my Instagram. It was really dark in there but really impressed with the detail that it captured. I have taken other photos in the exact same spot with previous phones but the photos are not nearly as clear.

A few rappers practicing some free style in front of the Starbucks at Shibuya Crossing.

I'm continuing to slow slug away at learning guitar. I really wish I learned when I was a kid and had hours and hours to practice vs. the 30 minutes I can give it a few times a week. This week I'm learning The Guns and Roses version of Knocking on Heaven's Door. My guitar teacher is teaching me how to play but there is a great tutorial here if you are a player and want to try this.

I really like this. It combines a lot of skills such as hammer on, pull off, bending of strings and isn't too complicated to learn. There is a lot of bending so my fingers are very tender right now. It hurts to type. Perhaps a sign that I need to practice more and build up a better base of calluses on my fingers. I think I'm going to stick with this song for a while until I master it. I'm starting to feel a good sense of achievement with this.

I loved watching this guy play. He was just jamming away like he was there all by himself. I hope to have that comfort level and skill one day. I'm still not very good at guitar but it's something I really enjoy. Hopefully skills will follow.

Guitar player in front of Shibuya Station

I can never read the graffiti in Japan. While it is English letters it makes no sense to me for the most part.

I love Tokyo? I love Tokyo!

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Thanks for stopping by today.

Be well.