Made in 2018

Things I made in 2018:

• The Game of Life Youth Activity
• The Aspirational Hip-hop playlist
• The Mastering VLOOKUP course (with a big thanks to Andrew Childress for his help)
• 24 blog posts
• 38 spreadsheet tips (again, thanks to Andrew Childress for helping put these together)
• Commit Colors

(some of these things are pretty trivial but you already know I don’t care much about that)

I also want to reflect a bit on my goals for the past year, which I had described in a Facebook post:

In 2018, I’m aiming for substance. Reading more books and fewer online articles. More deep conversations and less small-talk. Working on a few big projects instead of many small ones. Ignoring the news cycle. Doing more writing.

I read 32 books in 2018, a huge improvement over the two I read in 2017. I mostly owe this success to getting a system in place for checking out audiobooks from the library using Overdrive (and eventually Libby). I did a lot of listening while doing chores and biking to work.

I wrote 26 blog posts in 2018, a small improvement over the 21 I wrote last year.

I also did a lot better at ignoring the news cycle. I unsubscribed from all news-related podcasts and if you’ve been tweeting or retweeting about current events, I probably unfollowed you. My only exception was developing a mild obsession with tracking the space industry. I started watching rocket launches and the SpaceXNow app tells me when they are about to happen.

I’d say 2018 was a step in the right direction for me. Here’s to keeping it going in 2019.