Nik Kantar

Tuesday, January 3, 2017

Goals for 2016 in Review

Let's talk about some things I set out to accomplish in 2016.

Early last year I decided to set a few goals, and this January cold has me wanting to reflect on them.

These were all "professional" goals, in the sense that they were related to my profession (programming, software engineering, or whatever else you wanna' call it).

First the TL;DR:

  1. refresh less: ✓
  2. learn a new programming language: ✓
  3. contribute meaningfully to open source: ✓
  4. support the EFF: ✓
  5. create a game: ✗

Score: 4/5

1. Refresh Less: ✓

I'm much, much better at this now.

Part of it is likely the shift of my programming time towards the backend (Python), but I think the conscious effort I put forth also helped. I don't have any useful metrics, but my gut feeling is that this has improved my productivity. It's certainly improved how I feel about it, and fighting my impostor syndrome alone is a net win.

2. Learn a New Programming Language: ✓

I learned a language I didn't initially even plan on learning just to make myself a small, useful tool!

3. Contribute Meaningfully to Open Source: ✓

Well, I believe at least one person other than me is using GHT.vim, so I'm gonna' call this one a win.

I also started VimFeed and Projectery, which may be of minor interest to some, at least. (Fun fact: they'd both benefit from contributions, and you can do so here and here.)

4. Support the EFF: ✓

Nothing huge here—just bought some stickers and started preaching.

5. Create a Game: ✗

No go, and that's OK.

I thought (and still think) it would be cool to make something more universally appealing (as opposed to all the programmer-centric things I'm usually making), but it seems that I'm just not interested enough in games to persevere.

Now What?

Four out of five isn't great, but it'll (have to) do.

In a few days I'll write up some goals for 2017 and see how that goes. Perhaps predictably, the next round of goals will be a little…loftier.

Happy New Year!


Tags: goals

Thanks for reading! You can keep up with my writing via the feed or newsletter, or you can get in touch via email or Mastodon.


Older:
SSH Agent on macOS Sierra 10.12.2
Newer:
Goals for 2017