2021

I'm still in the throes of reviewing 2021 and planning 2022. When I started to think about this year, my first reaction was that nothing at all happened… and as I started to go through my photos and journals I discovered that nothing was further from the truth.

My theme for 2021 was "Heads Up," a reminder to take my head out of my little world and look at the future, my family, and my surroundings. I think that reflecting on this helped me in the year, although I want to find a better way to put the theme in front of me in the new year. (Probably on the weekly review template in Obsidian.)

Creating

This year I wrote 50 blog posts, less than last year. I got stuck trying to express my ideas for the Creativity System for a bit too long, I wanted it to be perfect and as a result it took forever. I definitely wrote a ton across the board. I have too many journals, newsletters, and channels to express myself in, so it's hard to tell how much output I'm creating.

According to a random github stats tool I found:

• 📬 Commits/Issues/PRs: 860
• 🏝️ Repos contributed to: 9
• ⭐ New stars: 52
• 🔥 Hottest: evantravers/hammerspoon-config (+24)

This seems to be about the same amount of commits as last year. I guess that has stabilized? Weird.

When I set up cloudflare to get HTTPS, I did get some loose analytics… and I am blown away by how many people visit the site.

I have no idea how accurate this is, but it is very humbling. Thank you so much! There's a lot of you writing me and talking about Simple Markdown Zettelkasten, which is very cool.

Reading

This year I read 15 books, up two from last year. I still definitely lost a lot of time that could have been book time to video games and other distractions, something I'm planning on taking steps to prevent in 2022.

When I look back at my years, books I read have an outsized importance and impact on my life. Radical Candor and Gentle and Lowly have filled my conversation and writing for the year… I could only benefit from reading more.

Health

I feel like I've built some good habits on the working out front… and while it wasn't an area of focus for the year, I think I stayed on top of it.

My statistics on Strava are nearly identical to last year. I don't feel like I have grown much in an area good or bad. I did run a lot farther this year than I ever had, on one day I ran a couple km short of a half marathon, and I competed in a very hilly 8k.

I also got to participate in an difficult event that I had participated in over five years ago, and my overall conditioning and strength was vastly different than where I was back then.

Work

Work has been a blessing. Still working from home… great team, useful projects, lots of support. Pretty proud of the work my team is doing. It's easy to get excited about helping people achieve their goals for their lives.

This year I've been tracking my time pretty much 100% of the year.

I'm happy to see that Deep Work time (dark blue) has gone up in percentage since the last report. Before you knock me on Play, that includes time with my kids, dotfiles, and blogging. Just rest time in the day.

After reading 12 Week Year this year, I've had a better engine for celebrating, reflecting, and accomplishing work this year. I think a lot of the progress in my home and work has been due to the principles in this book. (More cause to do more reading!)

Spiritual Life

This is an area where I am deeply dissatisfied with my current progress. God graciously revealed a lot of areas that I needed to grow in at the beginning of 2021, and I have made progress in them. However, I find myself phoning-in my quiet time, and I don't find things of a spiritual nature flowing off my tongue and rolling around my mind… just fear, consumerism, my selfish plans.

Judging my heart by the output of my hands… I need dwell on and read more uplifting, godly words.

Planning on changing that in 2022.

Relationships

Last year I reflected that while my personal relationships were great, I wasn't prioritizing and honoring my wife. So we changed that this past year. We found a good babysitter, and went on a date nearly every two weeks with only a few exceptions. I also have started taking my daughter on daddy-daughter dates once a month, which has been really fun.

I'm still pretty happy to be off social media, although I am dabbling in twitter again because that's where the UX folk hang.

One interesting aspect of investing in smaller communities (emails, discords, slacks, etc.) is that I've set up a bunch more video calls with folks. Rather than going back and forth on twitter, just called them up. Some really neat conversations and friendships have emerged from that… many of which among the greatest encouragements of the year. If you and I have talked this year, thank you! Let's visit again.

2022

Much of my gameplan for this year is cutting out some of my unhealthy rest habits (I'm calling it "lonescreening:" any time I'm introverting into a screen while stressed) and focusing on the meaningful activities that build memories and family.

I also want to make this the year that I bring my diet into a self-controlled and intentional state. I did this in 2020, and saw the benefits, now I just need to rekindle that.

I'm still in the middle of working through Plan Your Year with my wife, but I'm pretty sure that my theme for 2022 will be "Follow Hard." I need the reminder that on a daily basis I am to follow Christ… just a little further, a little step. Not achieve perfection, but to make progress. I added the hard to remind me that it should be an exertion, an effort.

Pretty familiar story, eh? Read more, rest more, love on my family more, eat responsibly, and follow the Lord. Pretty much the same as every year.