2020 Look Back & Review

I don’t think anyone could’ve predicted what would happen over 2020. I wrote in the 2019 recap that “I didn’t want to set any lofty goals.”

Best choice ever!

Instead of doing the standard recap, goal setting, and resolution for 2021, I am adopting Yearly Themes. I first discovered Yearly Themes from the Cortex podcast. They made a ton of sense, but I didn’t adopt the practice right away. CGP Grey, one of Cortex’s hosts, made a great video on Yearly Themes.

The idea is each season, quarter, or year you set a theme that describes what you want to change over that period. The part I like is that the theme isn’t for the whole year. It’s for as long as you’d like or as long as it fits you. It’s a loose and open-ended concept. My theme happens to start with the new year, but it’ll change as we move into the year.

I’ll keep updating my theme and updating the blog here on the theme I’ve chosen.

Recap ⏰

2020 took a swing for a lot of change, caused by COVID. I started preparing for craziness by buying extra dog food, canned goods, and other things a few weeks before the stay at home orders went into place. I was lucky I choose to stock up because everyone rushed to stores and caused shortages of all sorts of goods, especially toilet paper.

Other than the “no lofty goals,” I did say I would reboot my podcast. It didn’t happen. Instead, I took on more freelance work and focused on the 9-to-5 job with Digiboost.

Side project work got put on the back burner. IronMic is still pending a 2.0 release but has some final touches before it can go out.

2021 🥳

My theme for this season is productivity.

What I have found is I don’t use my time productively. I often doom scroll on Twitter, binge watch Netflix, or get caught up organizing my downloads folder.

During this theme season, my goal is to get more done when I am working and then do more of what I enjoy. I have been playing a lot of Fortnite with friends at night. One goal is to start doing streams while playing, chat with others, and connect with more people to play and get better at Fortnite. I don’t want to go pro, but it would be fun to play at a more competitive level with friends.

I did start some other small projects, bought the domains, and fielded the ideas in public. I have them as ideas and plan on working on them slowly. I don’t think 2021 will be there the year they become something, but always a possibility.

The personal brand is a top focus, with more writing, tweeting, and being involved in communities. My mistake before is that people would come to projects, but now I want to add value, sharing things I learn, and help out where I can.

Outside the work, I am devoting more time to reading and learning. I finished Atomic Habits and The Rack We Built. I am looking at reading other topics and learn more. The next book I plan on reading is Ready Player Two.

I have a big move planned in late spring to early summer; we are building a new house. It’ll mean I have office space and live further away from the city. We are still in the burbs, but its in a smaller town outside of the urban center.

The move will bring in a lot of change, and may bring in a new theme. I will share what changes happen and give updates as they happen.

Looking forward to 2021. Happy New Year!