Twenty-sixteen, reviewed
At the beginning of the year, I wrote down some goals for 2016. The year has come and gone, so it's not a bad idea to have a bit of a look at how things went.
Review
1. Post something here every Friday
I did pretty well at this for a while, up until late August. But as the year wore on it felt more and more that I was writing just for the sake of checking off a repeating to-do item, rather than writing a goal in and of itself.
Not only did I feel that in the quality of what I was writing, I think this started injecting stress into my life. That, of course, is bad.
I also found that trying to get some words up on screen every week took time away from working on some of the projects (writing or otherwise) that I really wanted to work on.
I'm going to continue with a less-frequent schedule, putting up a minimum of one article a month. I'm also going to try posting to Break Before Make more often—it's been sorely neglected.
2. Post to a journal at least once every day
I discussed this six months ago. Maybe I'll try a written journal, just because I like working on my penmanship, but honestly, it felt like something taken on because someone said it was a good idea, rather than because I found that it worked for me.
3. Make real progress towards my Mac app
Right.
I founded a company five years ago with the intention of releasing this.
While I've made no real inroads in the actual coding, I have made a pretty important decision regarding the focus of the app. I think this pivot will help more people, so I've fleshed out a bit of a roadmap for it.
I'm making 2017 the year it finally sees the light of day.
4. Contribute to open-source projects
Not much here. I did help update a library for Swift 3 but that wasn't really much of a contribution, I don't think—it was mainly more of a “fix what the Xcode migration assistant broke” kind of fix.
I also open-sourced my first iOS app, but haven't really done much with that, either. It's still more-or-less in burning-dumpster-fire state, which is to say, it really looks like a first iOS app.
5. Get in better shape
I did pretty well at running at least a couple of times a week between end of March and mid-October. Once the snow—or worse, freezing rain—started coming down, however, that trend kind of tapered off.
I miss it, so I've registered at a gym with an indoor track and a pool.
Onwards and upwards
Any day is a good day to make changes, because we live in a state of flux. So, despite missing marks and/or changing course over the last year, I'm still going to set some goals for the next year:
Goal: Health
As I said, I'm registering at a gym down the street from where I live, where I can do both strength and cardiovascular training. I'm not getting any younger, and holy crap am I feeling it.
Typically, when I start getting more physically active, everything else falls into place: sleeping longer, eating better, making better decisions.
Citius, Altius, Fortius.
Goal: Wealth
My iOS apps, despite their neglected state, are about helping people make smarter decisions about their money. My Mac app has the same goal, albeit a bit more involved.
By the way: as they haven't been updated in a while, I've made the iOS apps free. Give them a try.
Goal: Self-mastery
In a good chunk of my writing, I tend to explore themes related to getting better. Generally, if I'm writing about it, it's because it's something that I struggle with, or that I'm trying to improve.
Rather than forcing that with weekly posts, I intend on posting longer-form, better-cited articles, at least once a month.
Here's to the next 365 days. I truly hope they're full of love, laughter, and health for you.