Since I declared my return to the Interwebs nearly a month ago, I’ve found my todo list may have been a bit ambitious for someone whose mind was still readjusting from a 3.5 month sabbatical. Don’t get me wrong, I’ve done a bunch of stuff: updated my resume and interviewed with a bunch of companies in both LA and SF; reconnected with many friends and former colleagues in Hollywood and Silicon Valley; web2.0-ized my friend Happy Joel’s online presence (seriously, go check him out — he’s fricken’ hilarious!); helped my buddy Tom with some of his attempts to break into Hollywood; went on an awesome river float near Sacramento and a party at the Playboy Mansion *in the same (really costly/painful) weekend*; started research (i.e. ordered a bunch of books and read 1.5 of them) for one of the screenplays I’ve been wanting to write; and cultivated a mustache that invariably shocks everyone who already knew me and must really creep-out anyone who has recently met me (pictures forthcoming…maybe). What I haven’t done is pretty much all the stuff I ended my last post saying I would do: digging out from a backlog of email/FB messages; uploading what’s now 1 year of travel photos to Flickr (yes, Mom that includes Croatia too ); and writing those blog posts about what I was up to when I was MIA (I really do have some great tips on Buenos Aires…if I can remember them anymore). I’ve also added new backlogs, like so many open browser tabs that my MacBook is chugging away like a fat kid and its battery life is down to 2 hrs from 4 (it’s getting to the point that I’m seriously considering trying Sam‘s PushPopURL – but, I’d see that as an admission of defeat ).

But, it’s all good in the ‘hood. Over the last month, I’ve come a long way in figuring out what I’d like to try next careerwise. Going through the whole interview process, even with companies that turned out not to be the best fit, was an exercise I found very helpful in defining my criteria for an exciting and compelling next job. So, the bad news is my todo list has gotten seriously longer. But, the good news is I’m more psyched than ever to tackle it .

And now, I’m back. Clearing my mind was only the first step, of course. Now comes the fun part of figuring out what I want to do next. I’ve updated my resume (html, pdf), and have started exploring various opportunities. I have pretty diverse interests, so I find it hard to conjure up the ideal job description in the abstract. But, the most important things to me are finding a project about which I can be passionate and people with whom I’m excited to work. After spending nearly 4 years at a large corporation, I think I’d like to check out the start-up world a bit (the smaller, the better). But, I’m keeping a very open mind at this point. So if you come across anything cool you think might be a good fit for me, please drop me line (jonathan[at]jonathanhstrauss[dot] com). In addition, I have a couple interesting ideas of my own I’m exploring. So who knows, I might end up looking for employees instead of a job.

I’m also planning to take this time to catch up on my various backlogs that have accumulated over these past few months, including responding to emails, uploading photos to Flickr, and blogging about some of my trips. So, look forward to hearing more from me soon

For those (few) who may care, the new addresses are:

• Blog: http://jonathanhstrauss.com/blog
• Feed: http://jonathanhstrauss.com/blog/?feed=rss2

Adios 360. Word is bond.

I am trying to be productive by sorting through all the miscellaneous crap (like expenses, taxes, bills, etc) that you manage to justify ignoring when you are super-busy. I should have taken a before picture of the coffee table in my room that was piled high with the paper detritus of a modern life unattended.

As part of the process, I finally bought a bunch of things I had been meaning to get from Amazon. And as lip-service to the notion that I’m going to improve my record of bi-polar behavior in dealing with personal matters, I threw in a copy of David Allen‘s Getting Things Done. I hope I have better luck with it than Russ has had. For those of you not in the know, David Allen is like the Malcolm Gladwell of personal organization — they have both become famous putting common sense into book form. That alone has been enough to keep me from joining the GTD cult thus far; then there’s the small matter of the GTD cult itself, which I was exposed to in its full glory at BarCampLA.

But despite my self-righteousness, I can admit that I have an issue dealing with the mundane but mandatory administrative tasks of our age. Plus, as one of David Allen’s minions astutely paraphrased, getting things done just feels better than procrastinating. The scary thing is that I can’t really remember a time when I didn’t feel like there was something else I was supposed to be doing (I always *HATED* homework, and rarely did it).  And if that isn’t enough, Ian recommends this book and he is astonishingly productive. So, we’ll see how it goes.

As part of my productivity spree, I am also catching up on the charitable donations I’ve been meaning to make. The Yahoo! Employee Foundation will match any employee donations up to $1,000 per year if they are made through the GivingStation (internal link). So, I have spent a few minutes navigating through the clunky GivingStation UI adding my charities. And even though I already knew to which charities I wanted to donate, I spent some time surfing around Charity Navigator, which does financial analysis of non-profits’ public filings (check out the CEO pay numbers!).

The charities I am giving to are:

• The Fellowship of Christian Athletes, Washington DC Chapter (Charity Navigator Profile) – My fraternity brother Dave is the minister and he rocks! 
• The Silver Lining Ranch (Charity Navigator Profile) – These are some really cool people in Aspen, of all places, who are giving long-term care to kids with cancer. They hosted a dinner for the Yahoo! Board of Directors offsite, and the stories we heard were really awesome.
• Oxfam (Charity Navigator Profile) – This is one of the biggest and best known organizations solving the hard problems of sustainable development. Even though they spend a little bit much on recruitment and fundraising (17% of their budget), $0.76 of every dollar gets to the people that matter.

And finally, there’s a little newspaper clipping that I have been carrying around for months. It’s from a NY Times review of a book called The Big Why by Michael Winter. The review was lukewarm, but it excerpted the title passage from the book, which I vowed to blog:

How do we know if we are really being ourselves? That’s definitely one to ponder.