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Happy New Year HN! What are your plans for the new year?

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Re: Happy New Year HN! What are your plans for the new year?

#201
post #185

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I recommend the set of Eric Carle books. Our toddler enjoys all of them immensely. When reading, do not multitask and try to make sure you discuss all details (how many stars, where is the moon, let's count the frogs, etc.)

Thanks. We do have one of the books (brown bear) and it's one of his fav. Again I have to confess it's my fault not enjoying the process :/ I'll just drag on and keep up the smile face till he is a little older and we can expand the reading materials.

There are several Brown Bear books :)

Perhaps you yourself would enjoy "My Very First Book of Shapes" better, where the baby needs to match real life objects with abstract shapes (e.g., wagon/rectangle, sun/circle). Should be able to do it in a few months give or take.

Re: Happy New Year HN! What are your plans for the new year?

#202
Happy New Year! Hope you have a great 2022!

My themes for 2022 are as follows:

I want to spend more time with family. We recently moved back to the area where my wife and I grew up and we're really looking forward to seeing folks we love more.

Write more and be more effective at writing. Last year I made it to March or April journaling every day this year I want to try and make it a bit farther.

Be a larger part of my church and community. What form that takes I'm not sure as I'm still trying to figure out how I'm going to measure that.

Re: Happy New Year HN! What are your plans for the new year?

#204
Happy New Year everyone! I've two plans, to finalize a will so my kids are taken care of if anything bad happens, and to try pay off the bulk of what's owed to the bank on my recently (2021) bought house.

Working in tech at the moment is great, but who knows where the future is headed, so targeting debts is my big thing. And that's all down to our stage in life now

Re: Happy New Year HN! What are your plans for the new year?

#205

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I don't know that there is anything special about Prime over other reputable bootcamps. It might be easier to get a job in the agency world (since I know Prime has a lot of tie-ins to the industry) - which is fairly infamous for paying below market wages for entry level positions. I've personally never noticed a difference in candidate quality based on whether they did Prime or any other bootcamp.

Thank you for the insight. Any recommendations on how to gauge company reputations on the local level without having many industry connections? Are orgs like UXPA-MN worth a damn?

I don't know much about organizations like UXPA-MN.

I don't know if I have any good advice beyond the obvious things like Glassdoor. I worked a couple agency jobs early on in my career and while it was a good couple years for career experience, it was also my hardest working (as in hours) and least paying years I ever had. Once I switched to product development I found much higher quality jobs in both pay and work/life balance. That can be kind of tough to find in TC compared to other cities, though.

Re: Happy New Year HN! What are your plans for the new year?

#206

1. Improve my development skills. As a security engineer, it's sometimes easy to fall into a rut where I don't write code often enough. I need to find projects on my own that are interesting enough to push me. 2. Keep training combat sports, especially with my son. It's been a great bonding experience, and those can be hard to find with teenagers. It's been great for me too. Need to train intelligently and ensure I c…

> I fear my house will be filled with unread books before long.

Umberto Eco[1] would call that a success :)

[1] http://gregorianstorage.blogspot.com/2007/05/how-to-justify-...

Re: Happy New Year HN! What are your plans for the new year?

#207
The pandemic kind of pushed my consumption into overdrive, so the goal next year is to put a severe damper on that. For food I'm going to try to eat half as much as I've been doing, unless it's primarily fruits and veggies (like a salad with some fruit on the side). Would reduce the number of calories I eat, decrease how much I spend, how much time I need to spend cooking or picking food up, etc.

Should also give me more time as I will try to avoid media that triggers my buying impulses, like a big one for me is board games, so no time spent buying new games, little time spent watching media about new games (games I already own is fine), etc, which should give me some time back, and maybe I can play all these new games I'm playing more than once or twice before letting them sit on a shelf untouched while I buy the next one.

I'm also going to try to do some form of exercise every day, as I need to get that back on track again.

Other than that, I'm going to try to get myself into a financial position where I can take at least six months off work to shed some old burnout technical debt and to try to knock out one or two projects I've been making very slow progress on the past few years.

Not sure if having a kid is in the cards for us this year again. Both of us are trying to juggle too many things as it is. Also, knowing how the world is headed I'm not entirely sure it's a good thing to do anymore (for the environment or for the kid), but my biological drive is quite strong and being a father is something I always wanted to experience. I'm already 17 years older than my parents were when they had me, which is just wild to think about, as I was already in high school comparatively.

Re: Happy New Year HN! What are your plans for the new year?

#208

1. Eat decently (drink more water, no sodas, no deep fried potatoes of any kinds, and no sweets. I already don't drink alcohol or eat gluten) 2. Hire a regular online personal trainer that fits my schedule. Upwork is surprisingly a good source for this. 3. Launch a new software product of my own (not client products) 4. Strive for Buddha-like attention and patience with my kids All are really "live a happier life" go…

Gluten isn't really a problem for most people, only those who are specifically intolerant of it. Or has that thinking changed?

Re: Happy New Year HN! What are your plans for the new year?

#209
post #122

I recently read Atomic Habits by James Clear, and also listened to some process philosophy from Steven West's Philosophize This. One takeaway that I had was on the danger of setting goals. I am trying to build a mindset of 'becoming' or to embrace the journey of the goal rather than really trying to achieve a specific milestone. - I want to reduce/eliminate my alcohol consumption to become a person that doesn't rely…

> I want to reduce/eliminate my alcohol consumption... same here. each year it just takes more and more out of me physically/mentally, this year really seemed to emphasize that. looking for 6 months here and then will re-evaluate. in the past breaking a sweat when the urge/opportunity arises has been pretty effective.

I used to drink socially. But every time it turned into a binge episode. And as it turns out, stopping drinking before the first one is the solution that works for me.

Sadly this did cause some social life problems. I had to mostly replace the people I hang out with.

Re: Happy New Year HN! What are your plans for the new year?

#210
Declutter my house and life.

I don't think I am a "hoarder" but I am sort of a slob. I like the feeling when my house is organized but it seems to take a tremendous amount of time and effort for me keep it that way, and I think I have too much stuff (especially clothes) so it's hard to keep it all under control.

I think this will take some deliberate work to change habits (e.g. start small with something like "never go to bed with dirty dishes in the sink") and move from there. Others advocate a wholesale, all-at-once getting rid of things that you don't have a place for (de-cluttering) but I'm not sure that establishes the changes needed to prevent it happening again.

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