Ask HN: What’s your plan in 2019?

Get the home project completed, so it goes out of head and checklist. 1. I am building am application using firebase, AppEngine & Cloud functions using node.js, Java previously used to be personal desktop reporting application using mysql(stock analysis), now trying to learn GCP and implement it there. Since my GCP free days are going to be over soon less that 60 days and reading too many articles make me wanna think. Can I do a google certification with what I know or even attempt. That's point 2.

2. Do Google or AWS certification. Well everybody I know of in office or friends are doing AWS certification, I never heard of any body doing Google certification is it hard or less job opportunities. I am professionally a mainframe Db2 DBA certified and being a DBA liked the concept of RTDB firebase started learning it and love it that how I got lured in gcp. Anybody here on any experience on GCP certification and what are thing I should learn to Even attempt ?

3. Get back to running marathon & exercising. This was scratched to get point 1 completed in 2018. I should try walking in 2019.

4. Have to get the thought process aligned. I would say I am a bad designer or architect. I plan something write it down and write all the steps and do it and after some time redo that entire thing in some other better way sometimes entire thing is changed and gives better results. Frustrating thing is double the time to do one thing. So have to focus on practical things rather than too much details or fancy things.

5. Meet friends often, this was also scratched to get point 1 completed. Whenever we meet we drink that takes away 3days(hang over day + pending things from previous day + sometimes destroys ideas & motivation). One thing happy about is keeping myself occupied and less drinking (only two times this year. Thats equal to sober). Next year hang out with friends and keep off alcohol.

Last few weeks my schedule has been sleeping 3 hours after my 9-5, then staying up until 3am, and sleeping the other 5 hours then.

Breaking up the days like that makes it easier for me to reset at night which means I go to the 24-hr coworking space more often than usual (4 or 5 times a week lately). This year I'm focusing more on smaller, niche, SaaS type projects to build a business, rather than some big startup idea that has no real plan for monetization.

The book Why We Sleep mentions some experiments comparing the difference between 8 and 7 hours per night. I haven't looked into the actual studies, but the book suggests that 8 hours of sleep opportunity is the ideal for most people.

> 2. Start exercising more.

Here's what worked for me:

1. Accept that 1 > 0. If I could only make it to the gym for 10 minutes on the bike, great! 10 minutes of working out is better than zero minutes! It's not about doing your _ideal_ workout, it's about _doing any sort of workout_.

2. Optimize for time & comfort. I don't mean that your workouts should be easy, they should challenge you. However, I realized that I was wasting lots of time planning/reading/worrying about devising the "perfect" workout routine. This was eating up spare time. So, I went with the simplest routine that seemed like it would be good for me: alternating between endurance & HIIT workouts. I got an interval training app for my phone & apple watch, and used it on interval days, just used the apple watch's workout app for endurance days. Simple and totally doable. Now that I can't go to a gym, I'm alternating between doing 30 min runs and HIIT runs or just HIIT burpees in the garage.

3. Pay for expertise. This goes to my point above, but I paid for a personal trainer to show me how to do a kettlebell workout. We just met a few times, it didn't cost much, and it was useful. When I think about the time and stress I saved myself by just learning from the trainer, the expenditure ($30/30 min I think?) was completely worth it. Wound up not sticking with kettlebells (keep meaning to pick them back up...should just pay a trainer again), but that's OK.

Good luck. Doing regular exercise does wonder for mental health, too. Just accept that the effects are cumulative :).

Thanks! I try to do whatever little I can. By I hope I can do something bigger and more scalable than that.

Hope you finish school and fulfill your dreams. :) In the HN bubble, it's easy to forget most students don't have access to even basic good quality education.