I enjoy looking back at the past year and collecting any interesting insights. Let’s start with some basics milestones.
The basics
- Officially became 3 decades old. 👴
- 172.2 lbs, roughly the same as the past few years.
- Went to Europe for the first time! Spent 2 weeks in France.
- 114,340KM on my 2016 Toyota RAV4.
Major Accomplishments
- Moved into a new role as a sales engineer. Learned so much about sales, leadership, business and generally how the industry works.
- Moved back into dev with a fresh outlook
- Set out to learn about A.I. and successfully got a project working directly with A.I. tools like ElevenLabs, Synthesia and Heygen
- Salary increase/decrease: +4.3%
- Wife and I took my 1-year-old son on a trip to France. We got through all the stressful planning, FUD, plane ride, and had a great time.
- Celebrated my son’s first birthday at a hall, which took a great deal of planning, coordination and energy
- Created a slideshow that was exactly what I envisioned and had an entire hall of people fixated on it. This might be my most proud accomplishment this year. I often have ideas, or imaginations of something I would like to create. A video, a song, etc., but this is the first time that I successfully brought exactly my vision to life. I found wedding photos of my parents and my wife’s parents, and grandparents and created an animated wheel that showed them all. Some of the audience even teared up, either from the slideshow or the speech I gave after.
- I allowed myself to cry, hard. Sobbing and tears — as I wrote the speech describing my sons journey into this world, and all of the challenges we faced. I always felt like I had to be the rock that kept calm during tough times, so I never processed my emotions, until I wrote it all down (funnily enough on a Youtube comment). It was an incredibly cathartic experience.
Medium Stats
- Number of Medium articles published this year: 10
- Total number of Medium articles published overall: 99
- Total earnings for 2023: ~$75 💰
- Followers: 316
- My personal best article of the year: Vector Databases for Absolute Beginners. I had fill several knowledge gaps and research for hours before being able to write this article, and I feel proud of it :)
Career
- Continued working as a Sales Engineer for 7 - 8 months
- Worked as a technical project manager for the first time, for a few months
- Came back to software engineering work, focused on AI projects, which has been a long-time dream of mine
Entrepreneurship and Hustling
- Started BankBot, a personal finance chatbot. Didn’t launch but learned about market validation.
- Tried opening an Etsy store with AI generated T-shirts. No sales, but I have plans to scale up efforts a bit using a VA.
- I sold a few subscriptions to a private “Netflix” service that I host.
- Used AI to write Medium.com articles (not this one, I promise!). Scaled up using a VA.
- Continued selling unused household items on Kijiji and Facebook.
- Tried setting up Linkvertise links that pay you per click. Mostly a waste of time.
- Used AI to provide “psychic” advice to people in need. I ended up feeling bad about the one inquiry I got and decided to give them free advice.
- Used AI to provide essay writing services. I got one paying client, and they were happy.
- Created graphics and a high-level strategy for an NFT drop (didn’t release it though). I’m tired of web3.
Other Ventures
- Released a podcast episode that totally opened my eyes to how fashion can be used as a tool for protecting your self-esteem.
- Created YouTube videos about AI, didn’t get many views but it was fun to make.
Life Hacks and Systems
- Using ChatGPT and LLMs to improve all parts of my life. ChatGPT, Claude, Bard and Bing Chat have become my daily journal, parenting advisor, therapist, coding assistant, and more.
- Started using a physical daily habit tracker
- Discovered Muji pens — my goodness are these good. Mine has been uncapped for 2 months and still hasn’t gone dry 😮
- Aggressively organizing my items into small, labeled boxes
- Discovered Niimbot, which is a magical device that prints labels easily
- Got a weekly pill organizer to help stay consistent with vitamins and probiotics
New Apps
Windows
- Start11
- Fences 5
- Vimcal
- Spark Email
- RescueTime Assistant (new version)
Media
Best Movies Watched
- My Neighbor Totoro
- Leo (the movie about the reptile, not the Vijay one)
- Kannathil Muthamittal
- Inside Out
Best TV Watched or Discovered
- Curb Your Enthusiasm — Finished 10 seasons of this!
- Raising Hope
- Extreme Cheapskates
- Children Ruin Everything
- The Big Door Prize
- Upload
Best Games played
- The Quarry — amazing story-based game. My wife’s #1 favorite game of all time.
- Finished Doom Eternal
Books read
- GPT-3 By Sandra Kublik and Shubham Saboo
- Page-A-Day Calendar, by Sah’ D Simone
Best Music Discovered
- Path of the Wind — A magical track from the movie My Neighbor Totoro
- Windows 96 — a nostalgic instrumental artist
- Phonk – a new genre
- Machinedrum
Goals for 2024
This is a big year for me, with many new responsibilities and rewards coming my way.
Health
- Get into a regular momentum of exercise, not just stretching. Figure out when and how to create habit stacks or a routine for this. Even just 10 minutes a day.
- Be able to do at least 30 pushups in a row. (Currently at 15).
- Stop eating biscuits and wafers forever
Career and Productivity
- Complete a Josh W Comeau course
- Complete The Now Habit book
- Make another attempt at entrepreneurship, either by continuing with BankBot or something new
- Spend at least $1000 on my ideas. Nothing happens unless you spend time or money, and since my time is extremely limited, this is the only way.
Creation
- Publish 5 articles full-length Medium articles
- Publish 5 YouTube Videos
- Experiment with other social media platforms
Parenting
- Welcome my new baby into this world.
- Read Fathering Your Toddler
- Get into a parenting routine with daycare, pickups, nap times, eating times and sleep
- Try to create “baby calendar” — an idea I have where you click one button and get all the baby milestones in your calendar
Finances
- Buy as few non-consumable items as possible this year. No furniture (except some barstools), no gadgets, no appliances, etc.
- Buy a new SUV
- Move into my new home. Setup an office room where I don’t have to blur the background. 😆
Fun
- Take a flight somewhere
- Take a road trip somewhere
Conclusion
And that’s a wrap! Usually I add goals like “be a good husband, father, etc.”, but I’ve come to realize that goals aren’t the same as principles or requirements. It’s a requirement for me to be a good father, and I don’t need public accountability to make sure I feed, clothe and play with my kids.
But getting off my lazy ass and doing some pushups — I can certainly use some accountability here :)
