2021 Goals and a 2020 Retrospective

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Well, my 2020 goals didn't all get done, but then when I came up with them I wasn't anticipating a global health emergency to derail... Everything... So with the start of the New Year I figured I should revisit last year's goals and set new goals for this year.

Kicking 2020 off the cliff, welcoming 2021.
Image by Ockert Le Roux from Pixabay


2020 goals

  1. Finish rewriting apps at work.
  2. Try doing actual usability testing on at least 2 apps in order to determine if it's worth our while for future development.
  3. Complete UX/design training curriculum at work.
  4. Read at least one professional development type book per month.
  5. Finish 2 major e-textiles/wearable electronics projects by the end of the year.
  6. Finish up the nativity figurines I made in pottery class before Christmas.
  7. Finish 3 mixed media 3D printed/acrylic paintings by the end of the year.
Things I'm already doing but want to keep doing include:
  1. Kick ass at work. (No false modesty here)
  2. Practice Spanish at least 6 days a week.
  3. Mentor CS students and women trying to break into tech/software development.

Results

1: I'll be honest and say this was a long-shot. It did also get partially derailed by the pandemic, which necessitated several large revisions to existing apps, but even so I don't think we would've been able to finish all of the rewrites. So this is still on-going. 

2: Did this! And it is SO VERY WORTH IT. As soon as we did the very first test we knew it was absolutely worth it. My boss was so enthusiastic he wanted to do it for all our apps... Unfortunately many of them are so specialized and used by so few people it isn't really feasible, but we ARE going to do usability testing from now on whenever we can.

3: Whoops, this one completely fell off the radar. So I will put it back on the list for this year.

4-7: Completely derailed by the pandemic. The reading was going along pretty well until March, and I had started taking painting classes, but then... Oh well. Some of these will go back on the list, but I'm trying to be realistic: this pandemic isn't over and everything is just harder and takes more mental energy, so I'm trying not to be over ambitious.

As far as the "keep doing" list, I've fallen down on the Spanish, but the other two have continued. I do need to get back to working on my Spanish, so that one is definitely going on the list for this year.

I also have one brand new goal: learn more about machine learning and deep learning and hopefully build my first generative adversarial network (GAN) to create art. I've been listening to a lot of machine learning podcasts just to find out what all is being done, and there are a lot of practical applications for work (improving UX and drawing inferences from the treasure trove of data we have, to start). So although this started as purely a "fun" interest, tying in with my other explorations that combine tech with traditional art forms (3D printing + 2D painting, electronics + textile arts/ceramics/all sorts of things, etc), I've come to realize there are loads of practical applications for what I'm doing now, as well. 

I had started a machine learning course on Coursera, but then found out NMSU is offering a machine learning class this spring, so I switched focus to just learning more about the real-world applications and use-cases of machine learning ahead of taking that class. Which doesn't start until the 25th. SIGH.

Anyhow, without further ado:

Photo of a list of blank 2021 goals
Image by USA-Reiseblogger from Pixabay


2021 Goals

  1. Finish rewriting apps at work. Maybe, possibly. If a ton of new stuff doesn't come up this year.
  2. Complete and get an A in Applied Machine Learning. Gotta keep that 4.0!
  3. Complete UX/design training curriculum for work.
  4. Rewrite the academic project management app I created for my masters as a Rails/Vue project.
  5. Read one professional development-type book at least every two months.
  6. Finish up the nativity figurines I made in pottery class before Christmas.
  7. Finish one mixed media 3D printed/acrylic painting.
  8. Finish one mixed media ceramic/e-textile project (ceramics already done, need to get em' finished up the rest of the way!).
  9. Get back to practicing Spanish at least 6 days a week.
  10. At minimum, write 2 more git blog posts and a post about non-technical skills needed for software development.
Self-care goals:
  1. Finish up 3 non-technical books in my enormous backlog of partially-read books. More would be better, but trying to keep it real...
  2. Go on at least one walk outside per day while working from home.
  3. Knit on the enormous blanket I started at least every other day.
  4. Spend 15 minutes 5 days a week working on organizing my home office. The transition to home was so abrupt, I didn't really get things set up well. Since I'm gonna be there months longer, might as well start making that space nicer.
  5. Resume decluttering/KonMari'ing my house. Had a good start on it a few years back but didn't quite finish. 20 minutes per day would get a lot done.
So there they are. We'll see how this goes! It's hard to plan with everything about this year still being so unknown, but hopefully I can make some personal and professional progress. If anybody wants to share their goals and maybe check in occasionally so we can hold each other accountable, comment or email or whatevs. 

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