2018 Year In Review

Overall 2018 was a bit of a mixed year for me. There was a blend of good and bad, but all of these things added up to, I think, a pretty good year overall. I wanted to catalog a list of things that happened this year so I can take stock of the good, and the bad. Let’s start, these aren’t in any particular ranking or order.

Started a new blog!

This is it, you’re reading this post on it. I’ve always wanted to have my own space online, but usually relied on things like Medium or Tumblr to be those places. This year I took the time to make this Hugo blog and made my own austere theme, and I really enjoy having this space online to publish my thoughts, as well as knowing that I own the content.

Home Improvements

This year I recognized the value of really making my apartment my own and got some plants, and a Roomba, which really makes a quality of life difference to me of just keeping my place a little extra clean. Also, having something to take care of at home is very enjoyable and plants just really brighten up my space.

I also did some small projects like reorganizing my things, and trying to make the best use of my space, which makes my space feel larger and just like I’m more in control of where and how I live (a weird thing to say, I know).

I also started making cold brew, and recording each of the times I make it and all the variables that I can track to see how each batch comes out.

Worked Through A Bad Breakup

Yup, these things happen to everyone for sure, but when it happens to you, it’s always different. Not much to say here other then I was very sad, and through time and talking with others it’s getting better. I feel much better now than I did 6 months ago. Thank you to my friends and family, and everyone else that’s been there for me to talk to.

Relationships are hard, so are emotions.

Merged Two Teams Together At Work

At work, I felt successful bringing together two different groups of people, dramatically increasing the purview of my team, while empowering folks to really try to own their given area of our code. This was a huge growth opportunity for me since I have never done such a thing before, and has proven to yield continued challenges (in a good way).

2019 will the year that I solve a personal scaling problem to ensure the 12 engineers that I work with have the same level of coaching, while also giving myself free time to focus on being strategic for both our team, and for each engineer’s growth plan.

Yoga 🧘‍♂️

I’ve started doing yoga every week. This came out of the break up thing, but has been something that I’ve stuck with and enjoy. I like spending some time in the morning before work doing some yoga to wake myself up for the day, as well as to just start my morning a bit more slowly than a younger me would.

I used to just wake up, shower, and go directly to work. Now I have the flexibility of starting work a bit later, so I use my time in the morning for myself, to welcome the morning in by doing some basic yoga.

Side Project!

I’ve started working on a side project with my friend Amelia which has been fun to work on even though it is very, very early days with it.

Books

This year seemed to be a very good year for me and reading books. Granted I haven’t finished all of them, but here are the books that I have read, or am in the middle of reading right now:

• Sprint: How to Solve Big Problems and Test New Ideas in Just Five Days
• Setting the Table
• Small Fry
• Basic Color Terms: Their Universality and Evolution
• Inner Engineering: A Yogi’s Guide to Joy
• Wabi-Sabi: For Artists, Designers, Poets & Philosophers
• Orbiting the Giant Hairball: A Corporate Fool’s Guide to Surviving with Grace
• Hatching Twitter

Travel ✈️ ⛴

This year marked me traveling internationally for the first time in my life, and then I did it 2 more times on my own 😀. It was a blast to travel around the world this year, and see things that I would have never done otherwise. The highlight of my trips would have to be going to Japan for work. I would 100% go back again since it was such a joy to visit. I feel incredibly lucky that I am able to travel and see other places.

That’s it! A brief summary of my 2018 (at least the things that come to mind!) I’m ending the year happy, and hopeful for 2019 both professionally as well as personally.

✌️