I’m back in London, though I still think I’m on holiday. While that’s not a bad thing in and of itself, it doesn’t quite feel like 2018 has fully started yet. I have an annual exercise in goal-setting after the year-end reviews, to help me figure out what I should be focusing on in the year ahead.
Software Development
A1. Grow rapidly as a software engineer.
In 2017 I’d say progress was certainly made here. I see this as measurable by considering the change in range, scope and depth of issues and questions I receive and am able to answer/fix/address. Nonetheless, setting a benchmark is pretty difficult. In previous years I’ve written this as “be a strong engineer”, but for me at least I know that’s going to end in failure. I won’t be surprised if I end up complaining at the end of the year that I didn’t grow rapidly enough; while understandable, I think that’s something I’m less likely to berate myself for.
When I was in Singapore, I met up with a close friend, and for both of us it turned out that 2017 was a year largely centered around the pursuit of technical and career development – to the point that we struggled to think of other things to remember the year by. While growing technically is definitely something I want to do (it is target A1, after all), it shouldn’t be at the expense of all else.
A2. Present a paper on computational logic.
We had two papers in 2017 based on the work done as part of my Masters’ thesis. Things are getting a little trickier here now, as writing more will require some original extension of the work that was already done (as opposed to merely tightening up existing work). Nonetheless, I
A3. Get at least two patents in the pipeline.
I enjoy the creative parts of my job – while some of it is indeed cobbling together glue code to ensure that other pieces of code interface correctly, there are many more interesting bits involving designing and building new systems, whether as part of normal work or otherwise. These more… creative projects can be filed as patents, and setting this targets serves as encouragement to look beyond the day-to-day on my team and think more carefully about what can be improved.
Skill Development and Experiences
B1. Write 52 full-length blog-posts on this blog.
I failed this last year; in the end I wrote just 37. I have a few ideas for how I can do things differently this year to give myself a greater probability of success at this one, such as having a series of book or paper reviews, which should also get me to read more widely.
Of course a once-per-week cadence is the target here, though I’ll consider this successful regardless of the actual temporal distribution of the posts. I define full-length as requiring at least an hour of thinking and writing. I won’t assign a word limit (in case I write a poem, or some kind of “Explain Like I’m 5”) though for standard non-fiction prose I’d say it tends to be somewhere between 700 and 1500.
B2. Visit 12 distinct countries this year.
The point of this is that I’d like to spend a bit more time travelling while I still can*. Trips as part of work do certainly count. In terms of edge cases, I’ll allow Scotland, Wales and NI to each count as one (I probably wouldn’t allow it if I’d been before); trips for work count, but airside transits do not. If I ever do a mileage run (i.e. fly purely to preserve airline elite status), that doesn’t count either. There is no requirement for novelty (so Singapore does count, as would a likely trip to the US at some point).
*for health / work / other commitment reasons, not because of Brexit! Since the UK isn’t a part of Schengen I don’t think I really benefit that much from residing in the UK for this, other than proximity and less fettered imports.
B3. Walk 3,650,000 steps this year.
This is 10,000 per day and I wouldn’t have managed it last year (I hardly ever broke 10,000 – let alone an average of 10,000). Walking to work helps, but by itself that’s not enough.
This target can be accomplished by walking in circles around my room, though I hope it also encourages me to get out more and try out more different routes.
B4. Be able to sing a B4 consistently, and complete three studio recordings.
This looks like two targets, but I’m pairing them up because they are both related to singing and the alternative of giving music its own section seems a bit excessive.
B4 is a pretty high note (think the high notes in verse 2 of Journey’s Don’t Stop Believin’ – “find” in “living just to find emotion” and “night” in “hiding, somewhere in the night” are both B4s). I’m somewhat more confident of my A4s and Bb4s. I’m able to hit B4s sometimes, but I really wouldn’t go above Bb4 if I had to perform (in fact, I’d prefer to stick with A4s, even).
Obviously, there is no requirement for the B4s to be as bright or sustained as the ones in the Journey song. I’m looking more for reliability here.
The studio recording target is because I have been practicing to maintain my vocal range and to some extent accuracy, but I don’t remember when the last time I actually tried to learn a song was.
Financial Responsibility
C1. Maintain a savings rate of 50 percent or higher. This is computed by
I’ve been thinking about maxing out my pension contributions, but I’m not so keen to do that because of the Lifetime Allowance and also the lack of flexibility in that the money is tied up till I’m 55. This could make sense if I wanted to pursue an early-retirement path, but I’m not currently thinking about that.
This is a pretty ‘vanilla’ target and existed last year. It’s certainly not easy, though I wouldn’t say it’s that unreasonable either. I’m quite a fair bit above this mark in 2017. However, one thing I’m tracking for 2018 is that super-hard saving and investing can also be irresponsible; see this post on Monevator…
C2. Live at at least the UK Minimum Income Standard in 2018.
Without considering rent, for a single person that clocks in at £207.13 per week (so about £10,800 per year). That’s still a substantial bump from my expenditure last year.
It’s very easy for me to be very strict with spending, but sometimes this becomes counterproductive. I’ve spent hours agonising over a £20 decision; even if I made the right choice (which is likely to have value less than £20; assuming that paying more yields a better product/service), that’s still way below minimum (or my) wage. I’m rather well taken care of, and sometimes my monthly budgets can be eye-wateringly tight as a result.
Relationships
D1. Maintain clear and regular communications.
In 2017 I did reasonably well here, so there’s not much to say here other than to keep on keeping on. In practice this goal could probably be split into several sub-goals corresponding to people or groups of people, though that information is a little less public.
