2020 Personal Goals

Like most people I set new years resolutions that are pretty much  unrealistic, over optimistic or just ridiculous. This year is no  different except I decided to start them first and wait until I am 2  weeks in before publishing them, in the hope I am setting the ones I  feel are most likely to be achieved.

Reading

I  read a fair amount of books, my natural cadence is about 35–40 books  per year. I tend not to track them all although I do keep an index card  system for most of them, I capture notes as I go and use it as a  bookmark. It’s a system Andy Callow and I started together a few years ago and I still find it works really  well for me. I tend to type the good ones up in to my commonplace book  on evernote so I can access it at all times.

I  struggle with (wanting to read) reading fiction so I am going to read  at least 2 books that are fiction this year. I also worry about echo  chambers when reading the same things everyone is currently reading  within the industry.

Goal: Read 50 books, 2 fiction, 10 that are at least a decade old.

Cycling

I  love bikes. Cycling has taken a knock in the last few years due to a  number of personal reasons. Things are better and cycling will be an  major part of the year, although I am currently suffering with a mortans  nuroma which is extremely painful and been going on for at least a  month. If resolved soon I feel this goal is within reach, if not it will  be very difficult to achieve.

My daughter loves coming out on the mountain bike with me so I feel we should set a goal there too.

Goal: Cycle 2,000 miles (400 with daughter).

Back to Bytes

My  career started when I was 6 years old and wrote my first computer  program. Computers were magic and I wanted to be a magician. Over the  years I learned to make computers do things to help people and I still  love doing that today. I also miss the raw authentic tapping away at a  clicky keyboard making software and hardware combine to do things many  people weren’t doing.

So  my back to bytes goals are about raw computing, machine level code,  assembly language, radio, antennas and all those kind of things. The  hobby side of computing.

Goal: Send a raspberry pi to the edge of the earth’s atmosphere, recover the vessel containing HD footage and share online.

Goal: Buy a clicky keyboard with cherry red switches, make computers sound cool agian. ✅

Writing

I  have a real problem with Medium. Often it’s just another social tool,  focussing on claps and click bate content rather than authentic content.  There are a number of exceptions by people I have worked with who’s  stuff I love reading, and some genuine and consistently great writers  but the platform doesn’t feel like a digital home to me (the publishing  experience is pretty simple and cool though).

Goal: Start a personal blog and publish on it instead of closed platforms that pretend to be open. Republish all my previous content from offline copies of my blog and other platforms I have posted on.✅

Aviation

I  have been learning and training to be a pilot for just over a year now.  I am really close to my skills test and becoming a PPL holder (what is  with this weather?). It has been one of the hardest and most rewarding  goals I have ever set. I have a lot of ambition about what to do with it  but to start with I have a few goals that I would like to achieve in  the near future.

Goal: Pass skills test. Fly to France/Netherlands with my family for a weekend.