Year At A Glance
💼 January: Left my job at ML6
🦴 February: Full-time self-employed broke my collarbone 1st day.
🐶 March: Started freelancing at JustRussel
💬 April: Launched GenericExcuse for April Fools
🇭🇷 July: First time visiting Croatia
📝 August: Moved FullstackAlmanac.com to Wordpress
📻 November: Helped Launch BlackTeethRadio.com
The Numbers
Last year, I posted some statistics about a few sites I maintained. This year I’m gonna do the same, albeit briefly since they weren’t the main focus this year.
RobinDeNeef.com
My personal site. I didn’t add any content to it this year, and it shows in the numbers. I have a drop of 8% in unique visitors. And 50% is total page views. I am planning a redesign of the site to become more of a digital business card and a hub that links to my other projects.
We did more than 2X our newsletter subscribers however, this year we went from 5 to a whopping 14 subscribers, thank you all for tagging along! 🥰
Fullstack Almanac
Fullstack Almanac is a programming blog that I post some articles on. I moved the blog to WordPress and optimised it for SEO while only adding one new article. This translated into an increase of 125% in the amount of visitors and a 167% increase in the total page views. Something I didn’t expect.
Last year I played with the idea of making a niche site named GCPSecured.com. While I still think it is a good idea, I’d rather focus on FullstackAlmanac for now since it allows me a bit more freedom in the topics that I write for, which is more in line with the way my brain works since I’d like to explore a lot of new things.
Build systems instead of setting goals.
Last year, I set a bunch of goals at the beginning of the year and only 3 months in I changed the direction quite a bit which wasn’t in line anymore with those goals. And after a couple of months, I almost totally forgot those initial goals.
This year I’d like to take a different approach. Instead of focusing on goals I want to focus on systems and find ways to reliably get back to that system if I derail. (For example due to sickness or vacation.)
An example from last year for example was to write 12 blog posts. I’ve written one. Which is in stark contrast with the 225 notes I added to my Obsidian Vault throughout the year. It kinda feels like the underpants gnomes in South Park. They collect underpants and they know their end goal is profit. But since they don’t know what phase 2 is in their business plan, they just keep collecting underpants.
The idea for building systems ties into the idea from a previous newsletter of optimising your own factory. Even though as humans we like to distinguish ourselves from machines by our ability to think and act freely. We do strive for structure and routine in our lives. From workout plans to to-do lists to daily schedules. A certain form of structure allows us to be more efficient and maybe enjoy the other parts of our lives even better. For example, if you set up a meal plan for the week you can buy all your ingredients at the beginning of the week so you don’t have to go to the store every day and by not having to go to the store every day you have more time in the evening to spend with your loved ones or unwind.
Here are a few examples of routines you might be able to map out in your life and optimise.
Have a list of healthy recipes you like and their ingredients. Every week you can select a few and add the ingredients to your shopping list.
Decide on a workout plan and how you want to track progress. How would you go back to the gym if you weren’t able to make it for a couple of days?
What does your workweek look like, is there anything you can try to streamline there?
What process can I take to go from a bunch of notes to distilling them into blog posts?
What are the steps I can take to fulfil my New Year resolutions? How can I keep on track and make sure I make progress every week?
How can I get the most out of the books I read and how do I remember what I read?
I haven’t made my mind up yet if this approach is better than goal setting or if it is just goal setting with minor goals along the way, so I’m curious what the year will bring. One thing I want to optimize for this year is joy and I wonder if having routines will help free up more time for joy or if it will suck the joy right out of it. We’ll know in a year 😅
That’s it for this recap. Now I’m curious, what are your New Year’s resolutions and how do you plan on working on them? My mailbox is always open for a conversation! See you next month!