I do my yearly retrospective early because I use it to figure out my plan for the next year. Last year around this time, I thought 2024 would follow the theme of “Heavy Lifting” because I wanted to do more strength training and also take on large projects. But when the year actually started, I had settled on three processes for the year—they were supposed to accomplish bigger goals, and judged on that, I failed on all three. But, the processes resulted in me making progress on each one.

I had thought that I could write two 50-page books this year. Instead, I am almost done with one 130+ page book. I ended up here because my plan was more successful than I thought it would be. In April, I had those 50 pages mostly done and I posted them online for feedback. When I did, it was discovered by Gergely Orosz (The Pragmatic Engineer) who asked me to write an article for his newsletter. It took me four months and a two major drafts (and several rounds of edits) to write an acceptable article. Almost none of this text was in my original 50 pages, so I ended up with about 40 pages more text, some of which was in the article, but more than half was not. Right after that, I was approached to give a webinar to a group of CTOs on technical debt and that led to a whole new section on how Engineering Leadership should think about tech debt.

So, I am here in November with a first draft of my book on tech debt close to done, but in front of me I have several rounds of editing and all of the non-writing work it takes to get a book published. I hope to be done by Q1 next year, and then I’ll be focussed on selling it. My goal is to sell 1,000 copies in 2025.

My fitness goal for 2024 was to lose body fat. I worked out all year, but didn’t really make a dent. I kept trying things (strength training, intermittent fasting, more walking, more cardio, etc), but nothing helped. I kept to a plan all year — I work out 5 or more days a week, eat pretty well, and live a healthy lifestyle, but I might not be ever able to lose this last bit of body fat without radical change. In 2025, I am going to go back to a more cardio-heavy regimen. I was worried about running and my long-term knee health, but I have access to a rowing machine and elliptical, and can do more cardio-based strength workouts with low impact.

My business goal was to launch a web application that I am working on with a partner. We did an MVP (which was the goal), but didn’t get traction with the app as is. However, we did a little pivot in August, which I’m working on it now. I hope to be able to get to another MVP by the end of the year.

The thing that worked well in 2024 was having separate work, personal growth, and fitness goals, but only one in each. I can easily segregate the time between those three areas, but within each of them, trying to do too much would have killed focus, and I might not have made any progress.