5 Goals for 2016 - Focus, Progress and Experiment

Like every Tom, Dick and Harry, I set myself new targets and challenges at the start of every year. Do I ever achieve them, behave yourself!

Photo by Matt Hoffman, via Unsplash - https://unsplash.com/photos/8-wQr3cTVgo

Like every Tom, Dick and Harry in the land, I set myself new targets and challenges at the start of every year. Do I ever achieve them, behave yourself!

It’s so frustrating telling you that, but even more so with myself for not achieving. *sigh*

Finding the time to achieve in 2014/15 seemed almost impossible when I look back. Supporting and spending time with my 2 beautiful girls and partner, building a loving home, paying bills, working as an independent self employed designer, marketing, paperwork, trying to socialise with friends, exercising, cycling, gardening, 6 ducks, running 2 cars, selling 1 car, restoring my old 1980's Broom Speedboat and my MK1 Fiesta XR2... bla, bla, bla. (UPDATE: and now drone / quadcopter flying with HD camera)

With that being said, these were my past targets and challenges…

2014 (this was the start of my first full year self employed)

  1. Minimise on business and personal outgoings.

  2. Provide design and development solutions to a minimum of two charities.

  3. Write more. Post at least one blog article per month.

  4. Design, develop and launch completed personal projects for everyone to use and benefit.

  5. Increase involvement within online communities. Targeting Dribbble, GitHut and Conrete5.

For 2015, I never did set any out in stone. But they were to continue with the explosion of work at that current time and continue with the targets and challenges from 2014.

So, how did I do?

Starting was a positive, target one was a success. Too right, this was my main point. Cutting costs meant I could use these “savings” else where. Like marketing for example. Areas I cut or altered and made massive savings on were; server environments, domain names, everyday work and office space, cycling instead of driving when I could, and I also cut a number of online third-party services that I didn’t really need but thought it would be nice to have. You know the ones.

Secondly, provide design and development solutions to at least two charities. Unfortunately this didn’t happen. Everything was in place ready for promotion, but I was just to busy at that particular time. People would say “make the time”, but running my ‘one-man band’ business, having a family and spending time with them and living, plus everything else. I just really couldn’t find the time. Maybe this year?

Write more. Post at least one blog article per month. No comment….

I’m now pushing and going for a post a week, starting today. This will be interesting!

Fourth. To design, develop and launch completed personal projects for everyone to use and benefit. This had been started, but didn’t launch. Reason, I felt it was outdated and not great. 2016… watch this space!

Lastly. Increase involvement within online communities. This was my lowest priority and kind of got forgotten about.

Now for 2016. In no particular order and with all extra hight priority…

  1. Learn Swift (programming language)

  2. Launch new personal project, currently labeled ‘ersttt.it’

  3. Develop a “dashboard” type area which display a number of service overview(s) I provide to clients, right through to their CMS. This means learning multiple third-party API’s.

  4. Invest in more advertising, in more areas, with more time. You know the score.

  5. Blog at least once a week. This may cover; what I’ve learnt that particular week, everyday business news, new projects I’ve launch, personal life news, etc.

And what is even more exciting, every single new target and challenge is already in motion!

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