Ask HN: 2020 goals and resolutions? | Hacker News Reader

Ask HN: 2020 goals and resolutions?

135 pointslookingforsome145 comments

Mine are to: • read at least a book off of my reading list per month. • AWS certs • Write a blog post per month • Save $X for a house per month

What are your goals/resolutions for 2020? or what have you learned in this past decade?

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I am in my 50s and want to start working on Raspberry Pi and Arduino fun projects. But this time do it with the mindset I had when I started out. Take the sample code and modify it without thinking too much about consequences. In many ways experience is good but I feel I have become too “professional” and worry too much about things that aren’t really important in small projects. In short, become a reckless programmer.

Also: don’t learn tech for tech’s sake but do what needs to be done to fulfill a certain task. Projects are:

- a better trail camera trigger that ignores grass and leaves

- a dog door that opens for my dog but only for her

The dog door one is of interest to me. I've noodled over that one a bit at times.

How do you propose to identify when your dog is in proximity? I've got a Labrador and two cats, so the size differential was such that I was thinking I could probably get away with an ultrasonic distance sensor.

Other possibilities would be a pressure mat (dog is 37kg) or RFID although I never found a suitable RFID solution that had sufficient range.

I also plan on using a car door lock actuator[1] instead of a more conventional solenoid as it can be left in either open or closed position "at rest" without needing a voltage constantly applied.

[1] https://www.jaycar.com.au/slave-door-lock-actuator/p/LR8813

I hope to do something with PIR Sensors and then image recognition. This would also be useful for my trail camera idea. Maybe I am totally off but I hope with two or more sensors with small field of view that all have to trigger I can reduce false detects. Once they have triggers then fire off image recognition to see the dog. No idea if that will work :(

Hmm. I thought about this for a minute, it's a good question.

First of all I realized that audio processing is at a really awesome point right now: you could train a system to capture your dog's voiceprint when it barks! I suspect that would be sufficiently unique to only match your own dog in your neighborhood. But this could be attacked by recording the barks and playing them back, means your dog is making noise every time it wants to be let in, and also depends on the dog learning new tricks ;)

Then I wondered about GPS tracking, then realized that would be stupid since this doesn't require absolute positioning.

So then I thought about Bluetooth LE. I think this is reasonably short-range(?).

Then I thought about those tiny 2.4GHz 2Mbps radio modules you can get on eBay, and fiddling with one of those to set the output power weak enough so it only works when really close. But that might be so close to "not transmitting at all" it might be very flaky.

But the above 3 ideas all require battery replacement in a collar.

Image recognition does sound like the way to go. One thought that does come to mind though - capturing a wide view of the environment and requiring both "dog within small perimeter around dog door" AND "empty environment with no additional objects in it", for additional security (especially if the dog door is positioned such that it's not too hard to reach up through the hole to the doorhandle). Some tweaking would probably be needed to make the system resilient to birds and objects moved around the environment.

I have a cat door that reads the cat's microchip before letting her in. The brand is SureFlap. You could probably find out about the antennas they are using through FCC filings: https://fccid.io/XO9

I am working to improve self-discipline in almost all forms: diet, exercise, reading, attention span, and even relaxation. I suffer a large amount of anxiety from this. I don't do the things I need to and I do too much of the things I shouldn't. I need a better balance or I will forever be disappointed with what could have been.

I used to think like this. You have it backwards. You're causing yourself anxiety by setting unrealistic goals and expectations for yourself. Take some time and chill out. Stop caring so much about what you do or don't do. Soon enough you'll start just doing the things you want to do when the pressure is gone.

Seriously. GP should take the time to read The Subtle Art of Not Giving a Fuck. It got me out of that mindset a couple years ago.

I suggest to start with self-acceptance and reflection - you cannot just force everything via pure self-discipline.

You might want to check out - mindfulness - meditation

Those can help tackling anxiety in general and also being more conscious about the choices you make (like spending time on stuff you'd "regret" afterwards)

As somebody that has always dealt with generalized anxiety, starting a daily yoga practice was life changing. The breath work is the most important aspect to me. I’m very fortunate to live where I can go in person to inspiring classes with great teachers.

For 2019, I had set myself several objectives but the one I have respected the most is to read 1 book/month (book or audiobook).

For 2020, I will:

- Read 1.5 books a month.

- Launch my startup while being employed (I am currently working on the product).

- Enjoy life and the people around me.

- Less time on social network.

- Travel to at least 3 new countries.

- Develop my photography (and videography) skill.

- Try to write more than I read on HN.

- Propose to the most wonderful woman.

- Save money, as always.

that's pretty good, what product are you working on btw?

I don't like to reveal my projects until I finish the MVP. It will be a product launched first in Europe which will compete with the American equivalent. I say no more, but I see far!

I hope to share it soon on Show HN.

> Propose to the most wonderful woman.

Best of luck, and congrats in advance.

Thanks a lot !

Goals for 2020:

Sharpening the Saw:

- C# I haven’t kept up with the latest ASP.Net Core/Entity Framework Core over the past two years.

- Python: I first learned Python last year, but just enough for simple scripts and AWS lambda. I want to learn “Advanced Python” and at least do a hobby project with Django or Flask.

- TypeScript - I’ve worked with Javascript for years, but just started working with Node this year. I played with TS about 5 years ago but not since.

- ElasticSearch work projects.

Health:

- get off the soda and sweets and eat more fruits and vegetables.

- lose 10 pounds

- rebuild cardio and core strength

- add more workout days. I can work out at home on my gym equipment while watching educational videos to “Sharpen the Saw”

Relationships:

- More quality time with my wife. I spent a lot of time this year focused on work and getting a lot of practical experience with AWS and getting into shape (health reasons).

- Visit and call my parents more.

- Spend more time with friends.

Finances:

- spend less on junk food and eating out.

all excellent goals scarface, may you meet these resolutions this upcoming year!

I have a few goals in mind:

1. Get more flexible. I'd like to be able to touch my toes. Stretch goal (pun slightly intended): palms to the ground

2. Finish 3 (BotW, Doom, and Celeste) of my Switch games. I've done a good job of playing a few hours of some great games, but I'd really like to see some of them through.

3. Deep dive into Clojure. For someone that uses it daily at work, I really feel like I ought to know it better.

4. Complete the Rust book and explore some ideas using WASM and WASI.

5. Another triathlon. I did one (slowly) 3 years ago. It'd be fun to train again and try to better my time.

On touching your toes > hamstrings, work on them liberally but try not to make them too sore.

What do you mean by work on them?

Any action taken to mobilize or stretch the muscles of the hamstring.

Or were you asking for methods specifically?

I'm not really sure lol, I took "work on them" as meaning either work them out or stretch regularly. Didn't think you meant both.

I'm a big fan of committing publicly. I posted a number of goals on twitter, so I can hold myself accountable and see how I did at the end of the year: https://twitter.com/simonsarris/status/1205178408344457217

I'll post only a few here so I don't pollute the space too much.

4. build dry stone arch bridge with remaining granite to the 2nd field over the big stream

7. Turn the entire front lawn into a crazy field of poppies, probably a mix of shirley, california, and icelandic. The california poppies experient grew really well this year but we'll see how they do year over year.

8. Have a baby

9. Design some cottages. It may be many years before we're able to build one, though [note: one year ago we designed and built and moved into our house]

13. Make a few more "for fun" websites

14. Make a small LLC? And sell some art stuff? I'm not sure what yet, maybe pottery or wood things, just for fun.

16. On the 3rd field, start to build a temple to Artemis or Apollo, or the sun. It will almost certainly have to be timber, not stone. Also build a small temple or shrine to Christ. Probably won't be done in 2020.

18. Start a book of fables, try to self-publish it before the end of 2021? I have only some notes for this so far, I really don't know how long it will take.

Substantially reduce alcohol consumption. Quit Smoking. Bring 20-40% of my income from initiatives not related to my current work. Build profitable side project. Join Toastmasters.

Alcohol is a killer. I'm thinking more and more that without cutting it out after you realize you've "been there done that", a person will never reach their potential.

* Consume less. Do something good for the planet.

* Rekindle my career now that I’m done having kids. Start a new research project, submit ~5 good papers.

* Help my husband with his career transition.

* Figure out how to have more impact in my consulting gig.

* Learn how to match flavors in food and how to pair food and wine.

I have a few various things I'm trying to achieve in 2020.

- Reduce meat consumption significantly. I do enjoy meat and cooking dishes like slow roasted meats but I started eating beyond meat/fake meats in 2019 and loved them. In a couple of dishes I literally couldnt tell the difference. I think when things get to the point where they taste as good/better than the product they're intended to replace, why not embrace them? I still like meat and am not seeking to become fully vegetarian but will definitely cut down to just 1-2 times a week, high quality butcher/organic meat and reduce my impact on the planet in some small way.

- Go completely cashless. I was just about there in achieving this in a couple of months in 2019. It's not a hugely difficult challenge but I think it's a fun one to try and it's very doable these days. Starting Jan 1st I'm going to see how far I can make it without holding real money.

- Take more 3-4 day weekends and travel more. I live in a city with great public transport and don't own a car so it can be tough to travel without thinking you have to take 2+ weeks off from work, but renting a car for a weekend is trivially cheap if you plan ahead a little bit (<$100 including gas).

- The usuals of trying to get fit, lose a few pounds, more regular gym. Need to find some way of making the gym fun as I really don't have any interest in it even though I know it's good for me.

- Make more music. I'm really getting in to Ableton and Maschine and whilst I'm really 'level 1' at the moment I enjoy it loads and want to dedicate 2-3 nights a week to just making tunes, it's very relaxing and it's great to be doing something that's more actively producing something rather than passively consuming yet more netflix, HBO etc.

Thanks for sharing. You have goals similar to mine, including travel and music production.

> Go completely cashless

Just curious, could you explain your motivation behind it? In my case, I was actually thinking about doing the opposite, because I rarely use cash and feel like I spend more than I should due to not seeing the actual money leaving the wallet.

I'm a cash guy. It certainly easier to be more conscious of how much you're spending. I withdraw $200 from the bank roughly every 2 weeks so when I'm going to the bank sooner then I'm obviously aware I'm spending more. Since I've moved my bank is also further away which helps because as my cash on hand lessens I become more critical of the things I'm spending my money on because it'll mean I'll need to make a trip soon and many times it's just not convenient.

> I think when things get to the point where they taste as good/better than the product they're intended to replace, why not embrace them?

The simplest answer may be that the precautionary principle suggests that eating tried and true foods, rather than newer synthetics, is probably better for your health. Many nutrients are most bio-available in the dense animal products we have eaten for a very long time.

Why not eat pastured meat instead? If you eat pastured cow, you are supporting the ecosystem of cow (for its partial life) but also possums, raccoons, ducks, field mice, butterflies, snakes, birds, bees, and thousands of other insects that populate the fields of pasture. If you eat beef every day, you still eat less than 1 cow for the year. Pasture animals are regenerative and allow for other animals to co-exist without the horrifying bits that go into making row crops (The pesticides causing colony collapse disorder? It's not the cow's fault.) Herbicide and insecticide usage is also way higher.

So I don't think it's quite so ethical clear cut, but if you try to do a calculus, I think pastured mammals is some of the best, maybe followed by vegetarian-ish diets, maybe(?) followed by factory meat at the lowest rung.

Has anyone ever A/B tested meat / vegetarian diets here?

In 2019, I built Alchemist Camp into a decent side-business (see https://questinglog.com/2019-year-in-review/).

In 2020, my goals are:

- Double gross subscription sales

- Keep lifetime retention above 60%

- Launch product #2 by the first of March

- Finally travel to the US for an Elixir conference

Back when I was first learning Phoenix, I watched a couple of your videos! The one I can remember is about using edeliver to deploy, which I'm using right now for my little project, Podalong.

Just wanted to thank you for them, it's a solid resource for anyone interested in Elixir/Phoenix. I hope you reach and exceed your goals!

Thanks and that's great to hear the videos were useful!

My primary goal is to make more environmentally conscious decisions whenever possible. I'm thinking along these lines:

- buy minimal necessary amount of stuff in general

- choose local, seasonal and less-packaged stuff when buying groceries

- choose independent and environmentally conscious producers over large multinationals

- drink tap water and loose leaf tea instead of drinks packaged in plastic bottles

- consume minimal amount of meat/milk/cheese/fish/eggs

- walk and run

- take buses and trains instead of a personal car, cab or plane

wholesome goals!

very impressive and motivating (Y)

* Start (and finish) another hobby game dev / app dev

* Finish cutting my ties with Google services

* Finalize my solar offgrid system with a tiny bit of home automation

* Focus more (professionally) instead of spreading myself thing over so many areas and interests (so hard to do...)

* Read/study the Bhagavad Gita

Is there a mapping system close to being as reliable as Google Maps?

Open Street Map is getting there: https://openstreetmap.org

yep! and OsmAnd for android. I just miss the traffic info

I like to use dimensional analysis when setting goals, so in that spirit:

Health:

- Get better at cooking meals from basic ingredients. This year I cut back eating out for financial reasons. I now incorporate intermittent fasting, smoothies, lots of veggies, some meat. Cold potatoes are a staple for satiety. I would like to continue exploring different vegetables variety with a single new recipe based on a given veggie/root at least each week.

- Do a sunrise hike at a state park

- Incorporate yoga as pre routine to workout regiment in the early morning. Incorporate body weight workout into running routine.

- Sleep in once a week

- Stop work at 4pm

Joy/Relationships:

- Play and finish existing games I own: Witcher 3, BoTW.

- Plan for and invest in the romance of my relationship. Get better at dating wife

- Take dog out to walks at parks more

- Introduce and invest in game night with family

- Invite family over and cook for them

Home/Finances:

- Work towards purchasing a home this year

- Make one room in the home as beautiful as possible.

Work/Skills:

- Build a game with webgl, wasm, rust

- Finish rust book, rustwasm

- Attend Meetups, make a presentation at one

- Stay consistent with focused time. I got really good at eliminating all distractions this year, would like that to continue into next year.

- stay consistent with one pull request a day.

- play piano at public gig, be able to play through first movement at least in Mozart’s sonata

My goals: 1. Do one Himalayan trek 2. Visit one country abroad. 3. Run 12 Half marathons, one every month. 4. Run 1 HM with timing of less than 2hrs 30mins (current best 2:45) 5. Read 25 books 6. Double my focused work from 4hrs/day to 10hrs/day 7. Keep building, irrespective of failure and keep improving and learning from it.

- stop messing up at Uni

- stop distancing everyone due to my anger issues

- do everything I can to make the people I love happy

- learn haskell

- patch things up with my family

- go backpacking with my brother

In this past decade, I went from being a naive 7 year old who had a vague idea of programming to a developer who is investing his time in his startup, i love doing it so im gonna keep doing it and as for resolutions, i guess i might try to get in good shape ( probably on the list of 1 in 3 people ), try out for Y Combinator Startup School Summer, keep building the services I'm building except get some more traction. :) that's probably it. simple. oh and also, get away from MacOS. I'm starting to like Windows again after that 1909 update, i just realized after years of using MacOS that Windows had simply more flexibility than MacOS while at the same time not being unsupportive of game development as Linux ( Ik i can do game development on linux with extra effort but i don't wanna do that :) ).

I'd highly suggest focussing time to build a routine to keep yourself active while you are still young. Either get used to working out / going to the gym, or even better find a hobby that keeps you active.

I'm in my early 30s and pretty much avoided any sort of fitness when I was younger. I cycled to get from A to B and walked a fair bit but that was it. Now my body is starting to complain from a decade of sitting at a desk.

As well as avoiding pain, I find exercise helps to reduce stress, which means you can work more effectively, so I wouldn't even consider it lost time (vs working).

As far as past learnings go I did a year in review but it's the first one I've done so it encompassed a little more than 2019:

https://jborichevskiy.com/posts/year-in-review-2019/

As far as the next year goes, the important ones are:

* write - at least one in-depth blog post per month

* read - ideally an hour a day

* dive into org-mode and replace my most annoying tools with it

* start hosting regular dinners - just giving curious/motivated a people a space to talk, brainstorm, and discuss the world

* more hikes, dancing, painting, and sunsets

2020 Goals:

- Start freelancing. I'd like to both write independently and do development work.

- Get back into running (XC in high school, but I'm out of practice). Run at least a 5k (preferably longer, like a half marathon) and run at least 500 miles in the year.

- Visit three more National Parks.

- Start blogging (informally or formally, whichever) about personal finance

- Travel more. I took two international trips in 2019, but they were both to places I'd already been. I'd like to go to the Baltic states in 2020 (plans maybe in process...) and possibly somewhere in South America or Africa?

any personal finance top tips?

- Stop smoking so much weed - Read regularly every night or at least 4-6 times a night - Exercise 4 times a week (I already do, just gotta keep it up) - Remain positive - Leave Silicon Valley

Hah I feel you on the smoking, with vape pens it's almost too easy to take a quick hit here and there. Cutting back weed is probably number 1 on my resolutions for next year.

what are the main reasons for you wishing to cut back?

I'd like to cut back due to the negative impact it's had on my sleep and general motivation. I've found that daily smoking really reduces the quality of my sleep, which means 8 hours of sleep with THC in my system is closer to 5-6 hours. As far as motivation goes, the dopamine release from THC really reduces my drive and makes me more content/complacent than I would like to be. As a note, my total intake is really low (less than 1 gram every three months), but I still feel like I shouldn't feel obligated to smoke on a daily/weekly basis.

In 2020 I'd like to complete the goal I've set for myself for the last 8 years or so, complete and release a small game by myself as a side/hobby project. This has never been a skill challenge, I'm a professional game developer and I've shipped multiple games, both on small indie teams and large AAA teams in that time period. It's a challenge of motivation and time management. It's important that I do everything myself for personal reasons.

Someone else said that they were all for committing publicly.

In that vein, I guess I should do a retrospective:

Last year I said.

https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=18766071

I am in the middle of a technology pivot - moving away from the on-prem/Microsoft stack to AWS development/Devops/networking and the $cool_kids JavaScript full stack along with Python. Also adding on Docker/Kubernetes and ElasticSearch. Finally, I’ve railed against the need for LeetCode style studying and I haven’t had an interview in almost 20 years that has required it, but I guess I will get back to basics and start working through it.

So how did I do?

+ Reviewed JS and did my first Node API that is being used by four new front end features.

+ Networking outside of AWS was a real weakness. I studied for and passed the AWS Advanced Networking Certification to learn how AWS fits into the larger networking world and hybrid environments.

+ Decided not to focus on Kubernetes/Docker and started moving some services over to AWS/Elastic Container Services/Docker.

+ Created processes to start moving the company over to AWS CodeBuild + OctopusDeploy.

- Didn’t get a chance to do any ElasticSearch projects. Hopefully in 2020.

- I really hate front end development and the latest frameworks. My trying to do a React project was a complete failure. I think I’ll do a small Angular project just for a bullet point on my resume.

- Not doing leetCode or algorithms in 2020. Maybe in 2021 if necessary.

- Didn’t get any better with Python.

if I may ask what didnt you like about react? Id never used it or js a few months ago and I found it nice to learn.

It doesn’t fit my mental model. MVC type frameworks do. The first front end framework I used was Angular. I immediately “got it”.

But, unlike the back end, making a good, consistent, usable website especially as part of a team is much harder than backend work.

On the backend, a RESTful API has simple well known semantics. It also either processes the request correctly or it doesn’t. There is no nuance. The same is true for ETL type jobs.

Sports:

- start mountainbiking again (carry over from last year, got inspired after riding Slick Rock on a vacation)

- climb a 7b grade bouldering route (attained 7a as a goal for 2019)

- be able to do 20 consecutive pullups

- be able to do 40 consecutive pushups

- run a half marathon (attained 18k as a goal for 2019)

Career:

- go to more meetups and networkings events

- start blogging

- keep in touch with old co-workers

- prepare to start working as freelancer/consultant

Other:

- meet up with friends more

- fix my RSI issues

- change my diet to be more plant-based

- pick up some creative non-computer hobby

is your bouldering grade goal indoors or outdoors?

Hi, I'm not that great with goals, but let me write down a few:

- stay at the same workplace for 1 year, OR - start startup #2, OR - be accepted for the London School of Economics, or a comparable degree, OR - start a VC analyst job

- work on my reading list, finish the books I have at home. 2 books / month

- work out! I've put in less effort than I could have, and I'm in the golden years of my life (26). I'd like to be hot, at least for a short while.

- finish my BA, which I've been postponing for too many years

- I'm pretty happy with my mental health so far, but I don't want to slip back

- kiss a panda

- fuck around with investing

- travel to two countries I haven't been before

- create 12 very high quality youtube videos on development economics

I had a baby this year and my life is mostly out of control. My 202 goals are: * Get back into the game. Babe is already sleeping 6 hours so I have no excuses. * Start being more organized. Put down what should be done and when. * Lose the baby weight. Looking at the mirror gives me anxiety.

Everything you typed is how I feel. 2020 will be great.

Continue reducing my anxiety to improve physical and mental health.

In 2019, I peaked. I did an international move with my family (wife, 3yr old) while working on a major project which was ultimately setting us all up to fail

Since that move, I've begun running 5km 2-3 times a week, and improving how I focus my time. I am a workaholic, but now redirecting that time to work on (or for) myself, rather than for the company I work for (I love my job, but I was spending an inordinate amount of time for it)

Next steps are to continue reducing my caffeine intake. I don't know if it'll help but caffeine can increase anxiety. I'm working on going down from two double-shot espressos and a tea in the evening to one cup a day. I'm much better off here than others but again -- it's about reducing that anxiety!

A work in progress, never overnight :)

Not to publish another game.

May I ask you to elaborate? I'm curious what's the story here.

The story is always the same. I get an idea for game or app, work on it for month or so full time, plow through hardest last 20%, publish it. Even if it's free it have few installs and that's it, in the worst case scenario I now have to moderate it, do updates. So I said enough!, no more of my own games in 2020. I'm bad game developer, I will never make a hit. I don't want players I want customers. Paying customers. I need $3700 per year and despite 10x increase in income from my games ($180 in 2019 vs $17 in 2018) I'm still in red and people don't want my games. I will do games as a freelancer but not my own games. I may do quick demos for myself but I will not publish them because going from barely working demo to publishable game is the hardest and most time consuming part with no reward for me.

in for story

See comment above

Extremely here for this answer.

See comment above

I'm going more monastic.

Eat more boring, cheaper food. Spend less, or rather enjoy the free things more, like fresh air and kids.

Career wise, I make enough now to not need to make more.

So I want to stop marketing myself so much, especially writing, blogs, social media - used to freelance where excessive posting was part of the job scope. I want to pick up programming languages that are genuinely useful and interesting, and not necessarily the ones that are easier to get jobs in.

Now that I no longer get paid hourly, I want to pick up a hobby. Philosophy is tempting. Maybe read all the big books like The Origin of Species, Das Kapital, Wealth of Nations. Probably learn swimming or a martial art.

This seems impossible, but the resolution is not a fixed SMART goal, but rather a direction and process.

Learn to consistently enter and remain in the 1st jhāna: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Dhy%C4%81na_in_Buddhism#The_ru...

- learn a new technology, can be something random, it doesn't need to be anything professional or usable in the short-term timeframe

- hit the gym 100 times in 2020

- eat healthy, but do not freak out about a pizza or two

- do a regular checkup

- go to the dentist

- travel 2x to a new country

- read at least a book in german of moderate difficulty

- progress in the german language, I can already somewhat speak/read but there is so much vocabulary to learn

- learn how to cook a new dish or bake something new

- play games, do silly stuff and don't be too extreme about my professional life

- give a lot of attention to my SO, doing the things she likes such as going to the movies or just walking around, same for my dog

- try to play a bit of guitar and learn a cool song

- try a new physical activity(or revive an old one, such as swimming)

In 2020 I would like to read more, study Japanese, and start consulting.

Also I’ll toss in learn how to swim.

Really want to push my bass playing into "primary instrument" territory this year. Will probably just spend a lot of time learning Gary Willis/Tribal Tech songs, and other great jazz fusion players.

In 2019, I

- Grew the startup from 3 to 15 engineers

- Learned a ton about systems and people

- Failed on my resolution to read more books than before

In 2020 I hope to

- Write one blog post per week (or more realistically per month)

- Mentor 3 to 5 people or startups

- Become even better at cooking

- Continue growing the team and hire more amazing new people

Cheers

looking for a mentor, what are your areas of expertise?

Like 2019, my resolution for 2020 is not to have a resolution. Though this is not much, I still expect to fail like this year. Or didn't I?

Important things are health, family, and a nice, friendly society in general.

- keep improving my flexibility: after 25 years of sitting in front of computer my back is a mess. I've started stretching during 2019 but progress is slooooow

- get back to doing more independent development after one year of working for an agency

- rewrite my SAAS. Right now it feels like it hit plateau and I need to change few major things to get it to next level and hopefully get it to the stage to sustain me full time

- build new building for wine production: it took me 4 years to get all paperwork done, now I hope construction is going to be faster

Yoga would be great for your first point. Dynamic vinyasa is a good workout for the mind and body, and it can be complemented with yin yoga to focus on flexibility even more.

Yeah, yoga is something I am going to do, not sure which kind yet or if I want to attend classes or just do it solo.

I cant recommend Omstars enough for solo work. They have tons of material to help develop fundamentals, though Id encourage you to use the videos to build a habit and then seek out a teacher.

What kind of stretching do you do. Is it just yoga in general or are there specific routines you started. After finally feeling the first tangible effects of extended bad posture, I'm looking to get ahead of this.

I didn't follow any system, just tried stretching exercises I remember from my days of doing karate as a kid and another exercises I was taught on physiotherapy.

You know basic stuff, trying to touch my toes while standing. Some hand stretching. I guess it was totally ineffective, but number of nights with migraines are down a lot.

I want to start exploring yoga during 2020

Careful with the toe touch, can aggravate certain back issues. Try diagnose with what you suffer and target the weaknesses.

Generally cobra stretch type manoeuvres are a good starting point. Don't neglect some strengthening of the upper/mid back, even if it's just some resistance bands etc.

I improved my flexibility whithin 6 months by visiting a physiotherapist. I visited her once per month. She checked my angles and muscle strenght then gave me a custom routine of exercices and streches each time.

I guess the main resolution would be finishing projects that I started long time ago and never finished. Figure out which are the most important and then dedicate hours free from work.

Planning to get more into shaders, lighting and rendering so that would be a good thing to focus on studying. Maybe I will finally get enough skill to find a good job in that field.

And, well, important things like investments, mental health, more gym. I am happy with some progress I made in 2019, just gotta step up next year

Lesson from past decade: use new technologies for profit within your applied / industrial domain instead of searching suitable domains for the profitable use of any new technology.

I learned how to program in the last decade, and it’d be nice to find a full time job in 2020. I’m have a bunch of smaller nice-to-haves but I’m fairly sure they’re not as important ;)

I have a few 30 day experiments I am setting out to do this year:

- No sugar

- Daily journal writing

- Sweat every day (via exercise and/or sauna)

- Contact one friend/acquaintance I haven't spoken to in a while every day

The past decade contained most of my professional software engineering career, so I basically went from a hobbyist to a senior engineer that can use technology to solve business problems.

We have a toddler without any of our families in town, so my goal for 2020 would be to (at least to some extent) get back into more healthy life style including eating well and more regular exercise. That leaves pretty much no time outside of the 9-5 hours at my day job.

I wanted to keep 2020 goals succinct because last year I struggled to meet most of them.

- Finish the distant learning program which I'm currently undertaking

- Get into the best shape possible and drop body fat percentage by 3-4% (already lost 22lbs/10kgs this year, so this seems achievable)

- Move to a different country and get a better job working with Flutter or Native App Development

- Focus on my mental health

- Figure out my future with my girlfriend

- Learn to invest wisely

With respect to body fat percentage, I would caution being conservative with your goals. I don't know your personal situation, but my experience with this area led me to a powerful conclusion in 2019: Fitness has diminishing returns as you get to the more extreme ends.

For me, getting from 20% to 15% body fat was straightforward, and took 3 months. I figured 15% to 10% was achievable in a similar timeframe, but it ended up taking twice as long, even with careful dieting and exercise. I would imagine 10% to 8% or 7% is even more difficult to achieve (and maintain).

Fitness is strange - everyone's bodies are different, so your mileage may vary. Although I do believe the concept of diminishing returns plays out in a general manner. Good luck on your goals!

Yes, it was very similar for me too. Getting from 23% to 18% wasn't difficult at all.

Moving from 18% to 13-14% and maintaining it is going to be difficult but I will proceed with caution and monitor the progress diligently.

Thanks for the advice!

How are you measuring that? 10% is hard! I've only managed <10% by DEXA for like a month, I hover around 14-15% by DEXA now.

1. Learn Go for building my startup.

2. Learn everything I can do build and run a decent software startup.

3. More regular and well-defined Strength training, intermittent fasting and meditation practice.

4. Be less distracted by video games and focus on self and professional development.

5. Higher quality time with my partner and family, more mutual and outdoor activities, less screen time.

6. Write/start a blog to share my ideas on focus and productivity. (A hobby of mine)

Assuming you already know another programming language, learning a new one to build a software startup might not be the optimal option, as you'll be competing with others with more experience than you. Instead, build it on what you currently use (unless that is PHP, in which case, I back your decision 150%!)

2020 goals as of 12/27:

-Get accepted to or start gradschool. -Get a gf again. -Be able to do at least 5 pull-ups with correct form.

There's a correct form for pull-ups??

There is. If you watch someone without an enforced form do them, their body will tend to flail all over the place, especially as they struggle. Not only is that going to be less effective at generating the desired results over time, it can be physically dangerous.

Technical goals: Double down on existing investments, with a focus on real-time analytics and user experiences.

Desired results: • Cloud Certifications (provider TBD) • Competent in Spring and React • Major side projects stable, documented: • Grafka v1.0 • QIT v2.0

Systems • 1 hour every morning, 5 days / week • 4 hour scheduled block 1 day / month

The only resolution I ever did was to never make New Year resolutions. I did that back in 1976 and it’s worked so far!

In 2020 I would like to reach beta with my blockchain game project release a full feature demo, and establish a studio around the game. If the whole thing works out, I would love to be able to say that my company was established in 2020.

Also: I would like to release something good enough that you guys will upvote me into existence.

Ive been a hobbyist programmer for years, but have never done a larger project. I want to get to the next level, and learn about building larger apps, and I figure I will do this by contributing to an open source app I use. And so my goal is to ship a feature or improvement to this project in 2020!

Try getting approval to reduce my weekly hours at work (currently thinking by just 10% so aiming for 36 vs 40) due to working for flexible company and wanting to spend more time on house projects (my wife likes them and we just moved to a house at end of half mile dirt road)

Get an apartment big enough to squeeze in an 8 shaft loom in an extra room.

Read at least as many books as this year (50+).

Try dating again, I've been running on my own for a while. I'm in a good place with my life where I'd like someone to share it all with.

Go mostly vegetarian (aiming for 80%).

2020 resolutions: ween myself off chrome and improve my online privacy + learn basic vehicle maintenance

In 2019 I

* became a father

* gained a lot of Python/Devops/AWS skills, another AWS cert, and a Linux cert

* finished one OSS project (Terraparty.com)

In 2020 I'd like to

* Gain a Pro-level AWS cert

* Learn ML and React Native (like Not Hotdog)

* Try to build a solution, or a dozen solutions, that finally appeal to real markets

* Finish learning to crochet!

* Play less video games, though we live in an Indie golden age imo

how do AWS certs help you?

- Delve more into Python, with emphasis on ML part.

- Pick up some JS, enough to build steady UIs

- Read 20 books during the year.

- Take at least 15 days trip preferably out of country, or in the remote parts locally. Planning to do this at least twice in the year ;)

- Spend more time with the family, take kids out more.

3 Daily Intentions:

1) Avoidance - do what I have been avoiding OR want to avoid doing

2) Connecting - connect with a person on a meaningful level

3) Water/Giving - Give encouragement, time, or mentorship to another

2 Daily Feelings I want to cultivate in my life:

1) Gratitude - being grateful

2) Value - Did I add value in my work?

I will spend less time browsing reddit and hacker news to spend more time focused on my interests.

Last year I deleted my Reddit account. Now I just browse r/all. facepalm But at least I don’t spend hours commenting. We won’t discuss Hacker News habits.

- Give everything in trying to get a master degree while working full time (30yo). Consider only at the end of the year if it is good to continue or better to stop.

- Join some pilates/yoga group/course to do together with powerlifting

- Keep improving emotionally

- Be far more assertive

- Have far more fun in life

-Get better at Ruby and Ruby on Rails. -Make parts of my private work repositories public, open source. -Continue to build and grow and have fun programming (that means being reckless and breaking stuff). -Have fun with my kid and spouse.

Why Ruby on Rails? Perhaps I'm hanging out in the wrong places, but the hotness seems to be with JS/Node or Python/Django/Flask.

Escape from my golden handcuffs

That's an interesting problem. Maybe keep launching side projects until you can recoup what you can live on?

Support my wife in building an agency to connect charitable donors with educational recipients, switch from enterprise architecture to project management, teach my 3 year old some maths and letters

Bring two of my projects to a certain revenue goals. Try to prepare for having a kid in a couple years. Help spouse and I get healthier. Finish the new rally car (1982 Scirocco).

Oh and I'd like to get to #10 in Screeps. I'm currently #20.

Learn French.

Set up a blog w/ something more sophisticated than WP. (Probably wagtail)

Improve my webdev skills on Python/CSS/Regex/Docker/Azure.

Run more. Drink less. Sleep more consistently.

Bonne chance!

This may sound weird, but my goal is to smile at people more. For some reason, I am not completely comfortable doing this, and it is a nice, friendly thing to do.

Two things: get my personal website off the ground (zrkrlc.com) and this tool I'm working on for learning skills with spaced repetition.

1)Want to work in a good project in Clojure. 2)Getting married in 2020, want to explore few places with my wife. 3)Hands on ML

* Spend more time with my partner, friends and prevent a work/university overflow * Graduate * Create an MVP and release it for Android

- keep a daily journal, to be able to look back on the elapsed year

- write more blog posts

- learn, learn and learn new technologies

- try to raise correctly my newborn

- read books

1) Research + decide on a GTM strategy for our Open Source Project

2) Develop and launch a progressive ‘employee-first’ ESOP

3) Join a local tech community

A progressive ESOP sounds intriguing!

Be a kinder and more patient person.

My goal for 2019 was to keep learning Common Lisp.

My goal for 2020 will be to build something with it.

New Year’s Resolutions 2020

Family

2019: Dinner with family 4/7 nights a week (success, mostly)

2020: Continue status quo

2019: 10 vacations and/or road-trips and/or weekend get-aways (success)

2020: Increase to 14

2019: Park/Recreation together 20 of 40 non-winter weekends (success)

2020: Continue status quo

2019: No non-emergency office work on weekends (complete failure)

2020: Aim for more realistic 8 or less weekends in office spent on non-emergency work

Health

2019: BMI 30 → 25 (complete failure)

2020: BMI 30 → 25

2020: 25% reduction in triglycerides

2019: Gym 3x week (success)

2020: Gym 3x week -- but with HR reaching cardio zone at least 30 cumulative min each visit

2019: Bike/Walk to Work at least 20% non rainy/snowy days (success)

2020: Bike/Walk to Work at least 40% non rainy/snowy days (success)

2020: Added Goal: Cumulative Bike+Walk+Peloton mileage of 1000mi for the year

2019: Track all meals with data (failure, tracked ~20%)

2020: Track all meals with data

2019: Sleep no later than 3am every day except 5/yr (failure)

2020: Sleep no later than 2am every day except 5/yr, use weight training to force exhaustion

Personal Growth

2019: 12 books for the year (wild success)

2020: 24 books for the year (audio or dead-tree), double-time with exercise hours

2020: Added Goal: 24 long-form articles (audio or dead-tree), double-time with exercise hours

2019: Write 5 blog posts (failure)

2020: Write 12 blog posts

2020: Create Podcast Series with at least 5 episodes

2003-2019: Read Atlas Shrugged (failure)

2020: Read Atlas Shrugged

Training

2019 Three certifications in tech I want (failure -- did only 1 -- on NVIDIA RAPIDS)

2020 Certifications: Fast.ai; Azure Cloud (any 2 certs); Google Cloud (any 2 certs)

2020 One CGE at grad school with credit

2020 One CGE at grad school just auditing

Career and Networking

2019: 3 talks/presentations at conferences (success)

2020: Continue status quo + 1 major main-line talk

2020: 3x/month talks/meetups

2020: 2/year meetups speaker/presenter

2020: Meet 2/month new interesting people

2020: Dinner with former work colleague 1/month

2020: Phone catch-up with former work colleague 2/month

Job

2019: Mentor 3 interns (success)

2020: Mentor 3 interns

2020: Three brand new demos for marketing Achieve 95% test coverage on my code

Family Office

2019: 5 deals (failure)

2020: 52 in-person meets with angel-stage teams

2020: 10 deals (albeit smaller dollar amount) or high-conviction PME, if that is better

Side Hustle

Convert 3 of my graduate school projects into working projects (not business successes, just working projects to ensure I have the tech process locked down.) Outsourcing and managing is OK, delivery is the key here.

Tinkering

2019: Play with Jetson Nano (failure)

2020: One mini-demo with RPI

2020: One mini-demo with Jetson Nano (colab w/ friends OK)

2020: One mini-demo with Google Coral (colab w/ friends OK)

2020: One mini-demo with Azure Kinect DK (colab w/ friends OK)

Arts

2020: Discover 5 new amazing artists i’ll listen to forever

2020: Finally finish watching series I love (The Americans, The Good Wife)

Self Organization

2019: No loose articles (everything in Evernote/Pocket) (FAILURE)

2020: No loose articles (everything in Evernote/Pocket)

2020: No one-off reading -- everything through RSS reader or tracked

you sound like a smart successful individual, do you have a blog/website to follow?

stop tinkering emacs and vim and instead do some actual coding

Leave the Bay Area

We have the opposite goal. Mind sharing why? (I mean, aside from skyrocketing rent and the shifting startup tide)

Figure out how to want to do things again.

leetcode everyday for 2 hrs

increase my current comp by 30% minimum.

save 100k/yr into my index fund

Spend more Time in Nature ;)

* become skilful with C++

Spend less time on HN, Lobste.rs and various subreddits. Focus on improving as developer. Maybe learn Python and learn some red hat skills. I should write more as well.

Launch

In 2020 I want to:

- Develop my cooking skills. I need to stop living off of Central Market meals.

- Get better at hybrid picking (guitar)

- Quit my 9-5 and go full time on my side hustle Solfej (Check it out if you're interested in learning music theory https://www.solfej.io/)

- Save more! I bought way too much dumb stuff from Amazon in 2018

- Lose 1-2% body fat while staying at my current weight

- Practice empathy to the max

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