Christian Heilmann

Posts Tagged ‘resolutions’

Look back at 2009 and resolutions for 2010

Friday, January 1st, 2010

Well it is the beginning of 2010 so time to talk about some resolutions.

  • As I am planning to get a lighter laptop to lug around my main resolution will go down from 1400×900 to 1280×800 – unless Apple will change that for the new 13”.
  • My place is a mess – the reason is that I am never here. So my resolution for this year is:

** De-clutter my flat

** Throw away (or bring to the charity shop or give to @pekingspring to sell at the Amnesty International boot sales) stuff I don’t need – and that is a lot. I have unpacked moving crates from my flat back in Germany (1999).

** Use my flat more (I lived here for 4 years and yet have to use the oven!)

** Work more from home

  • Check my financial situation and what is working for me – I have money and I have a few insurances and private pension plans but I got no clue what they are any more. Also, I have quite a few shares and I am totally oblivious to what they are worth and what I can do with them.
  • Write another book
  • Organize (or help organize) another small conference
  • Concentrate more on the topics of security and performance.
  • Do something awesome for my parents as they need to get out of the house and have trouble traveling.
  • Pick my battles instead of trying to change things that should have changed years ago but are hindered by complacency.
  • I will go to Iceland this year – I have always wanted to and in 10 years in England I never managed to.
  • I will also try to get to New Zealand and South Africa this year.

Interestingly enough 2009 was a very cool year for me and if I had had any resolutions last year these were the ones I was able to fulfill:

  • I spoke a lot at conferences and released a lot of articles, blog posts, code and tutorials.
  • I’ve reached out to audiences I hadn’t tapped beforehand (domainer conference, design agencies and museum brownbags…)
  • I’ve tech-edited a book and a few chapters and I was judge at some competiions – I like doing that a lot.
  • I’ve lost a lot of weight by going to the gym a lot – there’s even the outline of a 4-pack visible (yes I know there is something wrong with this).
  • I’ve been to Japan – something I always wanted to do (shame I was sick when I was there). I’ve also been to Australia which is something I always wanted to.

I think this is about it – I am back to bed now.

So what will I try to do in 2009?

Monday, December 29th, 2008

(Normally I tend not to write any personal posts here, but hey, why not?)
It is the end of the year and time for new year’s resolutions. Luckily I had a great year and did most of the things I planned to do (the classics like losing weight, cleaning up the flat, changing my work and so on) worked out swimmingly. I gave a lot of talks, trained a lot of people, re-invented my job and organized my own event. All in all I am very happy about all that.

So then, for the coming year I’ve just written an article for Digital Web that will be released in the new year that covers a lot of my thoughts on what I want to do. Generally I am seeing harsh times ahead – people are spooked out by the financial recession and the short time fixes (yes, layoffs). This means to me that I am planning to do a few things differently to give myself space to work with colleagues and contacts to get through this.

My laundry list for the year:

  • be more moderate – I can get very cross about things that in the big picture are not of that much importance (this has improved constantly over the last few years though)
  • concentrate my work on markets and environments I hadn’t covered much this year – specifically universities as environments and South East Asia as markets (I am already scheduled for 3 university hack days in the US and India and plan to find more Hong Kong/China/Signapore/Australia/Taiwan/Korea assignments)
  • finish my work for the Opera Web Standard Curriculum (sorry Chris, I have delayed a lot)
  • write (or at least start) another book – this time for O’Reilly
  • look closer at my finances (I am terrible at that)
  • turn my flat into more of a home than a place to change suitcases
  • take Scripting Enabled more on the road. Somehow the “go forth and do it” doesn’t work that well…
  • clean out icant.co.uk ;)

Let’s see how I will succeed.