It’s that time of year again: to reflect on what I did or didn’t do in the prior year and attempt to chart a plan for the current one.
What were my goals for 2011? According to this blog post, I had four:
- Launch my own company. This one happened. Placeling is up and running – and if you own an iPhone and haven’t downloaded it yet, your first new year’s resolution should be to do so.
- Meet a lot of interesting people. This one also happened, although not quite as I expected. By launching my own company, I’ve met a tonne of interesting people; now I need to figure out how to continue this in the new year
- Do less, better. Yup, again, this happened. I focused on a few things in 2011 and it worked
- Run a 3:10 marathon. Close, but no cigar. Ran a 3:15 in May. Tried again in October but ran a 3:18 instead. I need to retool how I run if I’m going to ever do this
And I had a secret fifth goal: start a family. And this one worked: my son was born in November.
So, what’s up for 2012?
Well, there are some unspoken resolutions: I’ve got to be a good dad, a great husband and a good CEO at my company. But those are tablestakes; you don’t really get any points for doing them as they’re expected.
Here – in no particular order – is what I’m going to try in 2012:
- Manage stress better: find a way to do yoga once a week plus one of running/biking/swimming/boxing. Cook more and make the meals healthier. I hit a low point in November where I was gritting my teeth; need to learn to be better at managing stress
- Be more creative: I’m going to finally use all the Arduino-related stuff I bought a few years ago: Wen and I are going to make a robot. I’m going to cook a new meal every week. I’m going to code for at least 30 days straight to really learn Rails. I need to blog more
- Not buy a book: I love books, but I’ve got a stack of unread books I’ve accumulated over the past few years. I’m going to read them all before I buy a new one. Heuristics and Biases: this is your year (NOTE: I’m talking to Wendy as I write this and she already predicts I fail; the gauntlet has been dropped)
- Get hyper-organize: I signed up for a year of Evernote plus I’m using Mint. We’ll see how this goes, but I’m going to try and get everything into the cloud and see if it changes how I think/behave
There you go. The 2012 list. Check in a year from now to see how it goes.