I’ve never done such analysis before, but this year I found that planning actually works (at least for me). So this time, I want to share my achievements in 2020 and plans for 2021.
Achievements of 2020
- This blog was created this year. Sometimes I’m too lazy to add new articles, but despite that, every time a new post added, I have a feeling that I’ve found something new in that topic. It doesn’t matter if it is a book review, short programming article, or digression about life – always new insights and thoughts are popping up in my head during writing. I highly recommend blog posting for people, how sometimes moving too fast in their life to analyze previous events and use that knowledge in the future.
- I started running and reached 100 runs and 800km in 2020. You could read more about that here. This is a really big achievement for me because it is something, which requires a big commitment in a long term.
- I’ve read 7 books. Well, not too much be honest, but each of them was certainly amazing. Especially I want to highlight Factfulness: Ten Reasons We’re Wrong About the World—and Why Things Are Better Than You Think by Hans Rosling. Highly recommend it to everyone! (my full profile on good reads here)
- 3/5 courses in Leading People and Teams Specialization was finished. I found it very important to develop not only “hard” skills as a developer and a technical geek, but also “soft” skills. In the end, we don’t live in Matrix where we communicate with computers only. Cooperation between team members is crucial for the success of any project (not only software one).
- Since September I’m a proud Samoyed’s owner. That’s not my personal achievement, but rather a big event in my life. A dog changed my life in many aspects and brought a looooooot of positive emotions. Also, thanks to Maya (my dog’s name), I have a more organized day now, which helps me to be more productive.
Plans for 2021
Here I create a list of all goals I want to achieve in next year, not every one of them will be SMART, because I’m not so good at planning for the whole year ahead, nevertheless as time will go and goal will be achieved – list item will be marked as checked.
- Finish the Leading People and Teams Specialization
- Recieve Microsoft Certified: Azure Solutions Architect Expert certificate
- Run at least 100 runs with a minimum of 500km distance and take part in a race
- Read at least 10 books
- Solve 30 HackerRank problems
- Learn 1 additional programming language
- Post at least 12 new posts in the blog
- Contribute to at least one open-source project on Github
- Receive a Professional Scrum Developer certificate
- Get English certificate (IELTS minimum 6.0 or similar)
- Visit at least 2 new countries.
- Hike to Gerlach peak
- Sleep at least 1 night in a tent
- Donate at least 1.5 liter of blood (3 times)
- Complete First Aid Course
- Meaningful work-related change
- Visit a technical conference or meetup (min 2)
- Start investing money
- Sleep 8+ hours
- Do some crazy adrenaline rush thing (paraglide, glider)
- Do some gym (at least 1 per week or 52 in a year)
- Do skying (3 times+)
- Add at least 2 new board games to the home collection
Some of these points are more important, some of them less important. Known fact, that a lot of the New Year’s resolutions fail (actually success rate is only about 8%) and as Doris Day sang – “You can’t have everything”. So achieving >= 50% of goals might be a reasonable approach.
Final thoughts
2020 was very special in many aspects. COVID-19 turned the life of almost every person on the planet upside down and I wasn’t an exception – social distance, restrictions in travel and movement, canceling 95% of the planned events, work from home, etc. All these things probably have changed our vision of the world for decades and now is impossible to predict all consequences of the pandemic. But the only thing every one of us could do – make this world a bit better, every day, peace by peace! Let’s keep our fingers crossed and hope that in 2021 all our plans will be fulfilled!
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