New Year, New Rules

Well, we did it: we made it to 2019! 🎉 🥂

And with the big change of the calendars comes that yearly opportunity to set goals and challenges whilst just generally realigning personal direction. I'm not one to believe that the New Year is necessarily the best time, nor certainly the only time, when you should take a pause to evaluate priorities, but it does have a nice feel to it.

More importantly, after just over six months living relatively consistent lives, I think we're finally sure enough of our surroundings to begin forcing them into a more rounded shape. Drumming is one clear area we've managed to create consistency, but there's plenty of room to ensure that what we want to do and what we're doing aligns as closely as possible.

Personally, that means reevaluating my goals. Yes, I absolutely want the experiences to keep on flowing, which is good because we already have a whisky evening booked, two gigs sorted, a climbing experience to work out and the previously discussed Zoo membership to make full use of. But it also means finding ways to refocus on hobbies and make our London life more, well, self-centred.

The Year That Was

Two years ago I gave myself a Big Challenge to write one article a week, minimum, for an entire year. Last year I shied away from making any big, bold, public claims; with an impending move across the country and loss of a job, long term commitments needed to be chosen wisely. Which isn't to say the New 52 Challenge was frivolous – it likely played a significant role in my career change over the course of 2018 – but that type of thing would have become a distraction.

That said, I did write down a list of goals that I still wanted to accomplish over the past year, so that became a good place to start thinking about ideas for 2019. I'll preface this by saying my 2018 To Do list didn't exactly have a great strike rate, but nevertheless, here it is:

1. Find a new job ✔️
2. Read 12 books ✔️
3. Finish all outstanding MiMs ❌ (hah!)
4. Migrate CMS ❌ (though I have at least had a good play with Directus and Grav)
5. Create better review system ❌
6. Add social streams to theAdhocracy ❌
7. Start making better use of Twitter ✔️
8. Upload 4 videos ⭕ (1/4 definitively, but also a few more – not what I'd intended but not awful)
9. Sort out hard drives ⭕ (I'm in a much better place but still only about 50% done)
10. Find a better organisational tool set ✔️

I think it's most interesting, when looking back, that photography factored so little in my plans, despite it being a pretty central hobby. That's more of a shame because I did manage to hit some good milestones in terms of rate of turnaround, uploading and even (finally) printing out/framing some of my shots for the new flat, and it would be nice to have been able to get some more ✔️ in there, but oh well.

Onwards and upwards!

When looking at what the next 12 months could hold, and what it needs to be, there are two main standouts. The first is to find more time for personal projects and creativity; the second is to begin planning for 2020. That might seem a little odd – to make the goal of one year to focus on the next right from day one – but 2020 is going to be a big one. It's a new decade, so for fellow children of 1990 that means a new leading number on the age dropdown. Turning 30 really doesn't bother me, but it does offer a good opportunity and excuse, so it's fair to say that it would be wise to begin planning ASAP.

Starting a new decade also has an even greater feeling of a changing of the guard, so as 2019 becomes the last year of the... teenies (what do we call this decade?)... it seems like a good excuse to focus inwards and generally get things in order.

With that all said, I'm not planning any big overarching projects or challenges for 2019, but I do want my to do list to be public, hence this article. So without any further ponderings, these are my big goals for 2019:

Photography

1. Finalise all photos taken in 2018 by the end of March
2. Upload at least 52 photographs to portfolio channels (500px/Instagram)
3. Print out and hang more photos
4. Get my Quiraing shot framed
5. Go on at least two specifically photography related day trips with friends/solo

General Life

1. Finally finish sorting out my hard drives
2. Create a process for organising video files
3. Finish digitising my magazine backlog
4. Plan the big 3-0 trip
5. Visit the zoo at least 6 times

theAdhocracy

1. Create a personal logotype and logomark
2. Migrate CMS!!!
3. Create a better review system
4. Add social streams/focus on homesteading
5. Publish at least 12 articles

So those are my goals. Some are "borrowed" from 2018 in the hopes that they may actually happen, some hark back to years long past, whilst others are brand new. The overarching themes are to drill down into photography and flesh out what theAdhocracy should be, which is a digital playground and home base, somewhere that's just mine. I want to move away from trying to branch out or diversify hobbies and, instead, spend 12 months really getting to grips with what I know I already enjoy.

Obviously I still have other goals, some loftier (it would be great to learn React, for instance) and some less serious (I really wanted to add both "Play archery tag at least once" and "Minimum one full, extended LOTR marathon" to the lists), but those will remain nice-to-haves rather than focused goals.

Hopefully in twelve months time I'll be able to write-up a success story, but even if the hit rate is as low as 2018 (or lower) I think simply putting these plans out there and having somewhere to refer back to will be a useful tool. So here's to an exciting, progressive, focused, and fun-filled 2019! 🍻