A new year means new goals (remember, I don’t make “New Years resolutions”). As we look forward to my 2018 New Years intentions, I am also going to review my 2017 intentions. I focused on four areas for 2017; Home Automation projects, Reading Challenge, Fitness and Health and Professional Skills Development. In the spirit of full disclosure and accountability, I was about 50% successful. Therefore, I guess as the first goal for the new year I plan to be more successful accomplishing the goals I set.
Biggs Labs – Smart Home
I completed nothing for my home automation project! I was hoping to have installed the dimmer switches and the Siri integration and none of that happened. If I can get my wife on board to help encourage me to work on it this year I think I should get this done in 2018. A potential roadblock is a broken SD card and lack of access to an SD card reader. I really want to get Siri working with our home automation. As I said last time, I just need to sit down and really focus on this task.
2018 Goodreads Reading Challenge
I already went into more detail about my reading challenge results from last year; suffice it to say I was 14/15 despite what Goodreads said. The reading challenge goals for this year will be a legitimate 15 books, starting with reading Ready Player One again (in anticipation for the movie). I also have quite the list of Star Wars books to read (which begins with Thrawn), the Extracted trilogy and, of course, more Dresden Files.
As I complete books I will often post a book review. All my book reviews will be posts here but I will also post them on Goodreads and Amazon
Fitness and Health
I was marginally successful with my wellness goals last year. The biggest accomplishment was actually running in my first 5K; last year I said if I miss all my other goals, completing a 5K would not be one of them. Mission accomplished! I will be running the Flying Pig 5K again this year and my goal this time will be to finish it faster.
As I have done every year since 2013, I completed the Walk to Mordor Nerd Fitness challenge. This year I’m sure to complete it again but I do need to start working my way through the second half of the challenge. If my math is correct I would need to start reaching an average daily step goal of 16,000 step. It is quite a lofty step goal considering I only average about 11-12k now.
Professional Skills Development
If it wasn’t my home automation projects where I dropped the ball in 2017 then it was in this category. I will admit that with all the changes that happened last year, job wise, I didn’t have many opportunities to focus on new skills. Last year I chose Swift and Angular 2 as potential new skills to pursue. This year my focus will more closely match what is needed for my career at my new job. The fact that time for innovation is supposed to be part of our weekly work routine will be wonderful help!
My 2018 goals do not seem as ambitious as they were in 2017 but perhaps its better that way. Maybe I wasn’t successful because I tried to accomplish too much. This year I am going to keep my goals a bit more reasonable. Also, I think I’ve said enough about the New Year, time to return to your regularly scheduled programming.
/MTFBWY
I could accomplish so much more if I only had minions!
My 2017 Reading Challenge was, again, 15 books within a calendar year. While Goodreads says I finished all my books, I actually only completed 14. I thought I had completed all 15 books because that is what Goodreads told me. It turns out that a book I started but did not finish still counted as having read it. Granted it was a book I was reading again so perhaps that is why Goodreads counted it. So, without further ado here is …
surprising books. I returned to the Star Wars universe again with Shatterpoint and the book was really good, I loved learning more about Mace Windu and Depa Billaba. If you’re a Star Wars fan, and you do not feel jaded by the prequels, I would really recommend this book (check out my review if you’re interested).