I’ve never been one to set new years resolutions. I’m generally aware that most resolutions made on January 1st are never taken seriously, or only taken seriously for the first 2 weeks or so until one inevitably falls back on old habits. I also am not a solopreneur, business owner, or freelancer, so compiling a yearly review of success metrics is rather pointless.
What I have tried to do in recent years is set some goals for the year ahead, and document them on this blog. Last January I created some personal and professional goals for 2021. Given that 2021 is now officially over, this is probably a good time to review them and see how I did, and then set some new goals for 2022.
Personal goals review
I didn’t write my book, but I did start. It was a bit of a failed first attempt, but it allowed me to gather some early feedback, as well as get input from folks I trust on planning my writing process better. Therefore this is still high on my list of personal goals for 2022.
The plugin testing course didn’t happen either, and probably won’t. I’ve moved away from full-time plugin development and there are folks way cleverer than me doing great things around plugin development and testing, so I’ll leave that up to them.
I wasn’t able to do much with the Open Sorcery Podcast this year, but I do want to put more time into it this year. I’ve already started chatting to my first potential guest, who I’m very excited to interview. I think what I need to do is make a point of publicizing episodes better.
WP Notify has sadly had to take a back seat to everything else going on in 2021 and I need to pick things up in 2022.
I wrote 20 blog posts for 2021, which is 5 more than I had for 2020, so I guess this counts as more blogging.
Professional goals review
I didn’t make a dent in any of my professional goals for 2021, except one, which was that I wrote a lot more in 2021 than I’ve ever done before! When I wrote these goals, I wasn’t expecting my career path to change the way it did in 2021, and so the goals were very focused on my (then) future as a developer.
2022 Personal Goals
My main personal goal for 2022 will be to finish Coding Words. The book got off to a bit of a bumpy start, mostly because I tried to start it in the last quarter of 2021, which was probably never a good idea. I also need to make a point of writing every day, something which I did not do. This is a common trend, I get an idea, start it, but then never follow through. So in 2022, I want to have 1-2 big things I focus on for the year. This book is one of them.
My secondary goal for 2022 is to achieve a combination of smaller health and fitness milestones. In the last quarter of 2021, I stumbled across a solid combination of a push/pull/legs weight lifting plan, regular cardio (running), and strictly controlling my morning and mid-day meals that allowed me to increase strength and fitness and lose 5.8kg by the end of the year. I’m slimmer, fitter, and healthier probably than I’ve been my entire life, and I want to continue along this path in 2022 (and beyond). To that end, my fitness goals for 2022 are that by the end of the year I want to:
- be able to complete a 5km run in under 30 minutes.
- have completed a timed 10km race
- be able to complete 10 full pull ups with good form
- lose another 5kg
I also want to try and get back into jiu-jitsu, but that is dependant on the severity of the pandemic, which may or may not decrease in 2022.
As I previously mentioned, I want to get back into podcasting with my Open Sourcery podcast, as well as continue working on the WP Notify project when I can.
For 2022 I also want to try to increase my personal blogging efforts and beat my 2021 post count by five. At the same time, I want to try and expand into some online videos and possibly even do some live streaming.
Finally, in 2022, I want to read more books and spend less time trawling Twitter and YouTube. My wife brought me two new Discworld novels as an early Christmas gift, and I was reminded how much I enjoy reading. To kick off this year I’ve already read Good Omens and Moving Pictures. I’ve also completed a list of all the Discworld novels I don’t already own, and I plan to buy one new book each month for 2022 and read them, to work towards having a complete collection. At the same time, I want to sign up for our local library and explore the books available there. I’m hoping to find some new authors I’ve not heard of, which leads me down different and interesting paths.
2022 Professional Goals
In March 2021 I switched from being a full stack developer and joined Delicious Brains as a technical writer. The majority of 2021 was spent finding my feet as a full-time writer. I’ve also spent a lot of considering my strengths and weaknesses. Therefore my goals for 2022 are very much aligned with improving those weaknesses.
First and foremost, I want to improve my writing skills.
When I first started in my new role I reached to writing folks in my network asking for book recommendations to help improve my writing. There are a couple of books I’ve been recommended and so as soon as I’m back in the flow of things, I plan to purchase and start reading them.
Over and above general writing ability, I want to improve on creating marketing copy. This is an area that is multifaceted, from doing better keyword research to writing copy that sells. I’ve never had official copywriting training, and so in 2022, I plan to remedy this, by signing up for Copy School. The company behind this online training comes highly recommended to me by Brad, so I’m keen to get started.
The other areas I want to focus on are learning to better review written content (both mine and that of my co-workers) and generally taking more time to thoroughly research whatever I’m working on.
Finally, I want to start using my work-sponsored open source contribution time to work on the official PHP documentation. I’ve long wanted to contribute to the official PHP project, and as Delicious Brains allows me a set amount of hours towards open source contributions, I plan to dedicate much of that time to the PHP docs.
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