My 2018 Retrospective

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Key accomplishments

Revenue

Rapid Breakup Recovery

Goals check-in

Be present, full of love and surround myself with others that are full of love Score: 7/10. I think I did okay here. Meditated daily.

Become financially independent Score: 2/10. Although I worked hard towards this goal (I thought), I didn't move the needle much. Need to fundamentally rethink my approach in 2019.

Be a strong man, in great physical shape and able to defend myself and my family Score: 5/10. I didn't do much exercise in 2018.

I do not postpone happiness & making an impact Score: 9/10.

Travel the world and continually expand my frame of reference Score: 8/10.

Explore my mind, my unconscious and integrate my shadow and become at peace with myself Score: 7/10.

Read daily to expand my frame of reference and support my other goals Score: 6/10.

Write daily to clarify my thoughts and to connect with other minds Score: 7/10.

What went well

Goal setting

For the first time in my life I set yearly goals and I was fairly consistent in looking at them regularly (almost daily). There are many I didn't reach (or didn't do particularly well on), but overall I'm very happy with my progress. The goal-setting approach I used worked fairly well. I started by going through Jordan Peterson's Understand Myself (opens in a new tab) program and arrived at 8 goals. I then came up with some routines and procedures to support the achievement of those goals. My morning routine is the cornerstone of my day. I wake up as early as possible (initially I was consistently waking up at 4:30) and I meditate for 20 minutes. Then I go through a checklist which I consider my morning routine. It involves me reviewing my goals, doing some affirmations, journaling and an Anki card review session.

Anki review

After reading Michael Nielsen's (opens in a new tab) and Gwern's blogpost (opens in a new tab) on spaced repetition systems and Anki, I decided to try to incorporate it into my routine. Every morning as part of my daily routine I do an Anki review session where I review the cards that are due for that day (typically 1-10). Recently I've been using it for helping me remember coding concepts I'm getting introduced to. It's hard to report on the results in an unbiased way, but I feel it's very effective at refreshing concepts at the point where I'm just about to forget them. After several repetitions I usually end up remembering the card long-term.

Tracking Myself

As a consequence of setting goals and tracking my progress I've gotten into the habit of tracking more aspects of my life. I've been successfully tracking my time spent working using Toggl, my daily mood with an app called Daylio, my sleep with Sleep for Android and weekly and monthly retrospectives in Trello and on this blog.

Hustling before work

I didn't track my wake up times, but many, many days I would wake up at 4:30, do a morning routine (including meditation) and I would be able to work from 5:00 to 7:00 before I would go to work. Waking up this early is great because you have zero distractions, you spend your best energy on your own projects (and not your job) and you do it when you're fresh (as opposed to doing it after work). The downside is that you're absolutely f*cked when you get back home from work and you really need to be in bed by 20:00 to get enough sleep. Waking up early is however the most effective strategy I've come across to hustling around my day job. That, and negotiating a 80% work contract.

What did not go well?

Goal-achievement

Although I had my goals written down, and I would visualise them and review them daily, there are still some I didn't reach (e.g. $1000/month side income or going to BJJ training 3x a week). Why? I'm not entirely sure. But I think it has to do with not knowing I was off course and therefore not adjusting course. It seems that just writing a goal down and reading it daily works for certain goals (e.g. travel a lot, do fun stuff in your spare time) but not so well when there needs to be a clear, step-by-step plan to get you to the goal (e.g. $1000/month side income goal).

Coding was super slow

As part of the 24-hour startup challenge (opens in a new tab) I attempted coding together an app in NodeJS. I assumed I could learn it on the fly. I assumed wrong. Even though I managed to code together an Android app in 2018, this doesn't mean I can jump into any new technology easily. That may be an obvious statement to an experienced developer, for me it was a very valuable wake up call. In 2019 I want to be fast at shipping working software. I've already started taking a Udemy web development course after seeing @stephsmithio (opens in a new tab) recommend it.

Achieving Financial Independence

Most of the work I did in the early mornings before starting my day job was done, ostensibly, with the goal in mind of achieving financial independence. I did not achieve this goal, so something about my approach needs revisiting.

Accountability Partner

I tried setting up a weekly call with an accountability partner on two occasions. The first partner and I lasted a couple of months and I found it very motivating and productive. At some point, however, he dropped out. The second accountability partner, a young lady running her own business, only lasted 2 sessions with me. I'm not sure why these relationships failed, but since I think it's such a valuable ritual, I am looking for a new accountability partner in 2019.

Personal Network

I've heard it ad nauseam "your network is incredibly important for business", yet I never invested in it or focused on growing it. Through college and my career so far I've come in contact with plenty of people, but these contacts never translated into a resource I felt I could leverage. I became painfully aware of my "lack" of network when I tried to find some consulting clients late 2018. I was working with a business coach to help me find my first clients and one of the first things he asked me was: "Who in your network can you call to find leads?" The truth was I could only come up with a handful of people I could call. If personal network is one of the factors that's important in achieving success in business, then I would have to score myself very low on this dimension. This makes me want to turn this around in 2019.

Exercise

I did not do much exercise in 2018. I tried starting with Brazilian Jiu Jitsu again, but as I was living far outside of the city it was difficult to go to evening classes and still get back in time to sleep so I could wake up at 4:30. The silver lining on last year is that towards the end I started using the 5x5 workout app which helps you with a 3x per week compound lifting routine. The app is really a breeze to use and has helped me get into a steady routine of squats, deadlifts etc. 3x a week.

What should I do differently?

Revise goal setting/achieving system

In order to set goals I stand a chance of achieving and to make sure I adjust course when I'm off track I need to take a careful look at my goal setting / achieving system and revise it for 2019. Two questions that I'm asking myself are:

  1. How might I set goals in a way that I stand a chance of achieving them?
  2. How might I become aware I'm off-track for a certain goal and how might I effectively correct course?

Get better and faster at developing products

I want to be quick a coding together prototypes.

Try again to find an accountability partner

Working with an accountability partner was valuable. I should continue my search in 2019.

Exercise & Brazilian jiu-jitsu

Do compound lifts 3x a week and do jiu jitsu at least 3x a week (as soon as I can afford it). I have some mental blocks I run into when I try to go to BJJ consistently. In 2019 I want to overcome those.

Start building and strengthening my personal network

Learn how to build and strengthen my personal network and make this a primary focus for 2019.

Revisit my strategy for achieving financial independence

Aside from reviewing my general goal setting / achievement system I want to review my strategy for becoming financially independent. Some questions that I'm asking myself are:

  1. Do I need to focus more?
  2. Do I need to pick my projects better?
  3. Do I just need to continue and persevere?
  4. Should I put more importance on completing projects?