2019 was a reset year. Although I intentionally avoided high-involvement tasks like public speaking or long-term side projects, I did complete a number of personal interest projects.

My personal projects were made “public by default”. I was amazed to see them bring fulfilment on both a personal level and to outside observers. Seemingly trivial projects, such as my article on the history of CGI scripting were able to garner positive attention from hundreds of thousands of developers. I am thankful to all the people who shared feedback and helped me along the way. Looking forward, I hope to use my renewed energy to pursue larger, longer-term projects that help a wider audience.

A note about my yearly review articles: The 2019 Year in Review summarizes my experiences in 2019 and sets plans for 2020. It is a commitment device that I use to set my aims for the year ahead as well as gauge the progress of goals I have set.

Noteworthy Events in 2019

• Attended All Things Open in North Carolina
• Ran the Fox Valley Half Marathon
• Nominated for the Fourth Revolution Awards
• Finished 11 of 15 personal interest projects
• Attended a weekend long Nerves Framework workshop in Chicago
• Recorded a pilot episode of a Fox.Build podcast and appeared on the Downtown Saint Charles Partnership Podcast
• Created a float for the 2019 Saint Charles Holiday Parade
• Publicly spoke to a group of students from NIU’s Collegiate Entrepreneurs Organization on behalf of Fox.Build
• 2,516 commit activity in Github
• Enjoyed a nice week-long vacation in the Dominican Republic

Books

I read less than previous years. This was consistent with my intent to relax more in 2019. Below is a non-exhaustive list of books I’ve read in 2019:

• The Subtle Art of Not Giving a F*ck: An interesting set of principles for adjusting your life outlook.
• Over 1,200 blog articles via my Instapaper account. This one was my top pick. Other favorites can be found here.
• Hypercard Script Language Guide: The Hypertalk Language: I found this book in the “free pile” at the Vintage Computing Festival. It was amazing to see what has changed (and what hasn’t) with regards to UI programming in the last thirty years.
• PalmPilot: The Ultimate Guide: Not the most useful thing I read in 2019, but it was fun to compare and contrast the PDA landscape of the 90’s to the modern mobile computing ecosystem.

How Did My Plan Work Out?

I came close to meeting my initial goal of sharing 15 project completions, finishing 11 total.

The biggest lesson I learned from this experiment was that the world is more interested in listening than I had initially realized. Many of my projects were so trivial in nature that I would often question the usefulness of sharing my progress publicly. I felt that many of my accomplishments were too small or too specific to my own interests. Public responses to my projects varied on a project-by-project basis, but ultimately all of them received a positive response when they were shared. More importantly, every project received at least one note from a stranger telling me that they found the work useful to their needs or interests. To put this into perspective, my most popular post on Lobste.rs this year was a dog collar that converts barks to emails! While not a world-changing endeavor, it did generate a positive response and help others explore technologies they were interested in. I also was exposed to new ideas that I would not have been exposed to had I not shared the work publicly. For instance, did you know that the ESP32 has wakeword detection? I did not know that and probably never would have learned that if I hadn’t taken the time to share my work publicly.

The world is listening if you are willing to share your work. Even niche interests can have large followings. Writing things down and sharing them generates value for others in unexpected ways. You don’t know how your work will help people until you share it. Conversely, the Wisdom Of The Crowd has exposed me to the things I “didn’t know I didn’t know”.

In 2020, I hope to share my work more frequently and candidly. I also hope to squelch that inner voice that says my pursuits are not worth sharing.

Another big takeaway for 2019 is the power of taking responsibility. Although many of us are educated from a young age to value responsibility, there are subtle nuances between fault, responsibility and the perception of fairness that are often overlooked. Two of my favorite reads this year (The Subtle Art and Principles) talk about the importance of responsibility over ones circumstances and the difference between responsibility and fault. Both are thoroughly explained in either of the works listed. If you are struggling with longstanding personal or professional issues, I highly recommend giving either of those articles a read- they changed my outlook on 2019 profoundly.

Looking Ahead

My intent for the year ahead can be categorized into three themes:

1. Sustain
2. Focus
3. Connect

Sustain

I am grateful to have good health, a rewarding career mission and a positive work / life balance. I will strive to appreciate the positive things in my life and not have a “growth at any cost” mindset. Below are some areas that fall under the umbrella of sustainment:

Make time for hobbies and intellectual exploration. 2019 was the year I acknowledged my endless interest for all things related to computer science history. It brings me great enjoyment to learn about the history of computers and to restore historic devices. The same can be said of drawing, fishing, and gardening. It is all too easy to fall in the trap of working and helping others while neglecting to make time for personal interest pursuits. In 2020, I will set aside time to explore the activities that bring me enjoyment for their own sake.

Stay healthy and continue long-distance running. Running is an especially fun hobby for me and has provided me substantial physical and mental health benefits. I will sustain this habbit by running the Frozen Gnome 50k and the Fox Valley Marathon, and possibly others if my schedule allows.

Make time for intentional professional development. I am solely responsible for my career outcomes. I intend to grow professionally by:

• Enrolling in at least one professional skills training course.
• Continue my yearly tradition of taking a “Think Week”.
• Start a local Mastermind Group at Fox.Build.

Focus

Focus can be more valuable than intelligence when distractions are plentiful. I will work on a smaller number of projects this year and make focus and intentionality a part of my daily life.

Review plans more regularly and frequently. Although I stuck with my 2019 plan for the whole year, I did a poor job of regularly checking in on myself to gauge my progress. As a result, some of my goals received more attention than others and my effort was not consistent throughout the year.

Find ways to fill “marginal time” in a way that is more fruitful than checking email or reading news articles. I gave up Twitter in 2019. Now that I am back on the platform, I can see how detrimental algorithmic feeds and endless scroll can be to a person’s attention. In 2020, I will put systems in place so that my “marginal time” is not spent on fruitless tasks like scrolling through a Twitter feed or reading pointless news articles.

Take on a smaller number of projects. My projects in 2019 were intentionally bite-sized. I’d like to reduce the number of projects I take on in favor of taking on larger projects that require a higher level of involvement and collaboration with others. This means that I will only work on one big side project this year, as opposed to the whimsical juggling act of 2019. I will interface with outside collaborators as much as possible.

Connect

Connect with others on everything I do. 2019 taught me the importance of providing and receiving knowledge from others. I intend to make all the plans in this document public by default. In keeping with this intention, I will teach a new set of courses to Fox.Build members, engage in public speaking and attend at least one professional conference in 2020 (details below). When working on personal projects, I will invite others to collaborate, a practice which resulted in great outcomes in 2019.

2020 Goal List