Another year has drawn to a close, which means it’s once again time to review how poorly I’ve done over the prior year!

2018 Review

This year ended up being considerably more insane than I thought it would, particularly given the firing of my Tech in Asia team which led to an accelerated job search, as well as a lot of freelance work eating into much of my free time. So there are my excuses up front.

Also, new this year, I’ll be giving myself a letter grade for each goal. Achieving the goal in a complete and entirely satisfactory way is an A, scaling down to an F, which indicates utter failure.

Read a book of some variety every weekday.

Not even close. I did manage to read a few good ones (I finally read Dune, and my cousin Anna’s excellent book Compass Rose), but I don’t think my total books read even hit double digits. I think I may need to accept that my regular job entails too much reading to make reading something I want to do with my free time. F.

Add one professional qualification.

Last year I earned a Coursera certificate in graphic design and completed two School of Motion bootcamps. Neither of these is a particularly compelling professional credential, but I did learn a lot. C.

Eliminate loans and rebuild emergency fund.

Done! This was due mostly to the fact that I was allowed to sell some of my shares in Tech in Asia in 2018. Some of that money went to home office upgrades, but the rest went to taxes, paying off loads, and creating an emergency fund. Other than our mortgage, we’re now loan free, and are able to save a bit of money most months, including adding a bit to the emergency fund and separate savings funds for travel and for our next car. A.

Get a winter Washington summit.

Done in the middle of a very strange January weather situation that saw the bottom of the mountain covered in snow and ice while the top summit cone was relatively barren. Having gotten that, though, I think I’m done with Washington for the most part – it’s not the prettiest mountain and there are much cooler summits to visit in winter, I think. A.

Cover 1,000 miles running and/or hiking.

According to Strava, I’ve covered 434.4 miles this year. Granted, I’m writing this on December 30, but it’s unlikely I’m going to run 566 miles tomorrow. Strava is probably missing the data from a few runs and definitely from a few hikes, but there’s still no way I got anywhere close to 1,000. F.

Either (a) climb 5.10 or (b) run a marathon.

I didn’t do either of these things. I got kinda close on both, sort of? But no. F.

Reduce time wasted on social media.

I really don’t use any site but reddit at this point, but my usage of that has climbed into serious time-wasting over the past couple months, and I need to take another look at it. D.

Make meditation a regular part of my day.

Didn’t even come close. F.

Complete one passion project.

I didn’t really complete any big project like I had intended, but I did do a number of fun small experimental motion graphics projects and putting together reels was arguably also kind of a “passion” project, so I’ll give myself partial credit on this. C-.

If I assign numbers to these grades (with Fs running from 0-59 depending on how close I got), I end up with an average of 56%, which is still an F. I don’t feel too bad about it, though — given the job change struggle and all the extra work I took on this year, I was expecting this review to be far worse than it was. Here’s hoping next year I can break above a failing grade overall!

2019 Goals

I’m going to lay out my 2019 goals a bit more differently, based primarily on some articles I wrote for Dataquest’s blog on effective goal setting and sharing.

Remain valued at Dataquest.

I want to be sure I’m having a measurably positive impact on the company’s growth. The details of this are probably better kept within the company, however.

Get up and exercise early.

Why: It increasingly seems like the only reliable way I can fit a daily workout into my schedule. Running in the AM also allows me to take a shower before work and not have to take another shower later.

How: Wake up each day at 7:30 AM and run at least two miles. If that’s not possible on a given day, either run at least 2 miles at some other point in the day, or get up slightly earlier and run 4 miles the following morning.

Get a new winter summit.

Why: Done Washington, sick of it.

How: Get Rick or someone else to tag along on some other interesting 4,000er .

Cover 750 miles running/hiking.

Why: Why not?

How: Daily morning runs, plus occasional longer runs or hikes on weekends, should get me there relatively easily IF I stick with the morning runs.

Create some mograph pieces I’m proud of.

Why: I want to have awesome new stuff to add to my reel at the end of 2019.

How: Ensure that each month I’ve got at least one motion graphics project to work on, either professional or personal.

Get at least 75% of the way through Dataquest’s Data Analyst path.

Why: It’s something I need to do for work, but it’s also just a worthwhile skill to learn, and one I’ve half-assedly tried to pick up a few times before. Python skills and some stats knowledge would be useful in lots of different ways.

How: I’ve set aside a 2 hour block of time each Friday afternoon to work on this; if that time doesn’t work in a given week, then I’ll move it elsewhere in the week or split it up.

Complete at least two motion-design-related courses.

Why: Want to keep growing my skills and stretching my muscles.

How: Complete the JR Canest course I’ve already bought, and then another course: Ukramedia course on expressions, perhaps?

Add survival/homestead skills

This one needs more fleshing out, but I want to add to and/or improve on a variety of skills that I already have for outdoor things, homesteading, etc.