Review Of 2022 Goals
Posted
Well, I guess I should work out what I achieved and didn’t achieve in 2022.
BIG LIFE-CHANGING STUFF
Be paid like a senior engineer. Well, this was in the pipeline and was finally confirmed before I even starting turning this from draft comments to an actual post. Though at the time of writing, I still hadn’t actually been paid at the new rate. Maybe there will be a company-wide pay rise or a software engineering one too.
Result: Achieved – though I knew it was happening before 2022 started, it just wasn’t confirmed. 100% success.
Seriously look into buying a flat. So, I’m fed up of house-sharing and will this year be able to afford my own place. I’m a bit lost as to what I can afford, whether I should go for the help-to-buy scheme or whether I should just get an old-school flat, what area of London, etc. To achieve this goal, I actually need to have looked at flats with the intention of buying – and if I don’t buy, have a plan for 2023.
Result: Well I looked online a bit and worked out what I’m willing to pay for. 30% success.
Live on my own. This is basically a follow-up to the previous goal – to be living on my own by the end of the year, even if that means renting my own place whilst saving more.
Result: Nope. 0% success.
LIVE MY LIFE
12 different cultural activities. The idea behind this is roughly once a month, to do something different culturally. It doesn’t have to be every month, but it does have to balance out at 12. Multiple art exhibitions will only count as one activity. A play and a musical I feel are two different activities. Other ideas include comedy nights, drag brunch, ballet, maybe a music festival counts? Hell, maybe even sport comes under this? I wonder what Nadine thinks?
Any other suggestions let me know – I need to think of 12!
Result: Walking tour, play, musicals, dance performance, art gallery, ballet, live techno, cricket – I think I count 8, though maybe you don’t count cricket. Does crazy golf count? 75% success.
12 different great restaurants. Again a similar intention, try to go to one of the restaurants that are on my must-do list (or someone else’s) roughly once a month. January started with Gunpowder, and I’ve done another at The Bull Steak Expert – so two ticked off already. Roast dinners do not count…at least not for this.
Result: Gunpowder, The Bull Steak Expert, Slowburn, Chez Bruce, The Gladstone Arms, Fallow, Crocker’s Folly, Oxo, Grill At The Dorchester (albeit was a roast), In Horto, The Ivy Brasserie, Dishoom. Fuck me I think I did it. Plus some great restaurants on holiday. 100% success.
Roast to-do list under 50. At the time of writing there are 74 places on my to-do list. I want it under 50, permanently, so that in theory everywhere can be visited in one year. It was 130 at once point which was just silly. You might think this is easy, but I constantly get recommendations of places to add…and it is difficult to say no every time!
Result: I got it under 50! Decided though that I need more flexibility, so going over 50 is fine. 100% success.
GET OUT OF THIS DAMN COUNTRY
Get on a plane. Get on a plane that takes off and goes somewhere not Britain. I think I’m at the point where my tight Yorkshireman wanting my interest free loan back from British Airways is overtaking my mask avoidance desires, so maybe I will finally get on a plane somewhere. I very much want to use my British Airways vouchers before they go bankrupt.
Result: Hell yeah! 100% success.
3 new countries. I used to aim for 4 pre-pandemic. 3 feels achievable this year. Also buying a flat is more important so I’m not going to stress it if I judge myself unable to afford another holiday, but I’m pretty sure I can. Whether I actually want to go abroad now I’ve re-discovered the beauty of England is another matter…
Result: USA, Sweden and North Macedonia. 100% success.
Visit one friend somewhere. I have too many friends living in other areas of the UK, let alone other countries. So this is a goal to get on a train or plane, and go visit at least one of them. Reading doesn’t count.
Result: Hmmm. Nope. Did make it to Reading though. 0% success.
HAVE A HEALTHIER LIFE
Get to 85kg. Well, I’ve failed this already as this goal is impossible unless I give up drinking for a whole year. Started the year at 102kg. I know this is totally unachievable so you might say why set it as a goal, but it is a weight that I need to reach to be healthy.
Result: A ha ha ha ha ha ha. Started the year at 102kg. Finished the year at 102kg. 0% success.
3 month detox (ish). It’s a bit difficult this year, I drank on my birthday weekend – both days, and I’m intending on going on holiday in the latter half of March. Yeah, I ain’t going to be not drinking when that is the only time when you don’t have to wear a mask on a flight. So for every day I drink during the first 3 months, this means a weekend of not drinking during the rest of the year.
Result: Well we went to USA on 14th March, so I didn’t quite make it to the second half of March. Good effort though. 80% success.
3 month chocolate detox. I realised when I had a month off eating chocolate in 2021 but carried on drinking, that chocolate was making me feel worse than alcohol. So I’m planning a 3-month chocolate detox. Well, I’ve started one albeit I’m less than a week into it.
Result: This is harder than giving up booze. I did however manage a couple of fairly long stretches without, and damn I feel better when I do it. 50% success.
Only drink at home once a month. I really like beer and really like wine, but there isn’t much point to me drinking on my own on a Friday or Saturday evening…like happens every weekend from April to December. Drinking gets in the way of achievement, let alone a healthy lifestyle. So the plan here is to only drink at home once a month. Unless with guests. Drinking in a pub by myself or restaurant is totally fine.
Result: Well, no. I did however cut back on drinking at home – mostly going from drinking 3-4 beers and 1/2 a bottle of wine in previous years, when I drank at home, to just 3-4 beers. Really pointless drinking at home on my own. 25% success.
TECH LIFE
Try more code stuff. I did this State Of JS survey (JS === JavaScript) and found that I knew so little of the newer concepts – I’m not really using the newest tech at work (yet) so scope for trying things out is less, plus I don’t spend much time coding at home. So this is to try to encourage myself to try some of the newer or lesser-known concepts out – perhaps once a month.
Result: No, not really. I do now have a much longer list of concepts/features/frameworks to look at though. 10% success.
Finish Re-writing DJ Mix Of The Week. I started re-writing one of my lesser-known blogs in Frontity, which is a React-based headless architecture – alas I have lots of difficulties in getting all the WordPress functionality to work as I’d expect. Big challenge!
Result: I finished writing the code! More or less. But fucked up the WordPress migration to the subdomain, so I’ll have another crack this month. 65% success.
Re-design My Portfolio. It’s a mess. I said I’d do it last year and possibly the year before, but as I didn’t need a new job, it never became important enough. But still, I should have a much better presence on the internet if I’m a software engineer.
Result: I did it! Blazing fast and using NextJS (so I did learn something) – Google rates it too. Still needs a bit more padding out with projects and my work, but I have an actual decent ish portfolio now. 100% success.
Upgrade tech. I desperately need a new laptop and a new phone. But I have a deal with myself that I can only buy major items when I lose 1kg of weight. The next target is 96kg. Feels a long way away. I also need computer speakers, monitor, and keyboard.
Result: I bought a new laptop, then bought a new phone, then smashed the screen and then bought another new phone. 40% success.
OTHER LIFE STUFF
Less than £100 of food waste. I kept a spreadsheet last year of how much food I wasted – more than ideal but not actually that much. But how to measure success? So this year I’m setting a limit of £100.
Result: I kept a count and made £105 of food waste, approximately. Pretty damn close to target. 80% success.
Go to the office once. I’m not sure that I can actually work in such a disruptive environment any more, let alone cope with the bastard commute, but I feel that maybe I should go once this year. Not too difficult to achieve. Maybe just for an afternoon or something. Dip my toe in.
Result: Yep. Twice, in fact, though neither time I sat down to do actual coding work. 100% success.
Read a book. Doesn’t sound too difficult but I have a large pile of books and haven’t read a book since I last went on holiday in 2019. Maybe this year will be different.
Result: I read 3 books. Didn’t rate any of them, but I read them. 100% success.
Finish decluttering. I’m struggling to find things to get rid of now, but there definitely is stuff that can go. I have about 200 items listed on Ebay, and still about 50 Mixmags to list.
Result: Everything I can sell is listed on Ebay now, and slowly things are selling, slowly I have less stuff. Except for the new stuff I buy. 100% success.
Have no savings at some point. Normally I have a savings goal and a charity goal, but as I want to buy an over-priced shoebox somewhere, the goal will be to have zero savings at some point. I will still give to charity as and when, but I’m not going to be proactive about it. Soz.
Result: Ended up nearly doubling my savings. Oops. Was supposed to buy a flat #obs. 0% success.
Overall:
Overall I ended up with a 61.6% success rate on my goals which is pretty damn decent.
Especially considering in 2021 I managed 41.6%, and 2020 I managed 48.7%.
Time to write up my goals for 2023. And I will lose weight and buy a flat. Honest…