I, like many others, had high hopes for 2020. While I was able to reach some of my goals, I mostly fell flat (for obvious reasons!). I want to start 2021 on a much stronger foot, and part of that is clarifying and protecting my goals for this year. In 2021, I want to:
-
🇩🇪 Be able to hold a conversation for 5 minutes in German
I've been to Switzerland a handful of times, built an app to translate the names of objects you take pictures of into German, and will hopefully visit Germany this year for Oktoberfest (if I can do so safely), but so far, I've just been learning a lot of vocabulary, but not much in the way of actual dialogue.
-
🧑🏫 Continue to mentor and help early engineers on their paths
Last year I started hosting Hacker Hours in Jersey City, NJ. I met a lot of people that wanted to learn and develop their engineering skils - some already in the industry, but most trying to find their first engineering job from either a different career or just out of university. When the pandemic hit, we moved our meetings online, and in 2021 I'd love to continue supporting and fostering in any way I can.
-
📚 Read 24+ books this year
Last year, I tried to read 24 books (2 each month) and only got to ~16 or so at the end of the year. That goal was more ambitious than the previous year's, which was a book a month for 2019, but since I didn't meet my goal for 2020, I'll carry it over for this year.
-
👀 Increase my reading speed from ~175 WPM to 300+ WPM
I have ambitious reading goals this year (see above) and I feel that developing speed reading skills is an ability that will compound in highly rewarding ways as I continue to read more each and every day. I was surprised that my reading speed was this slow when I tested it, but the rationale is slow readers tend to subvocalize when they read and that's definitely a subconscious habit that I fall into. My goal this year is to get to an above average speed (300+ WPM) and a stretch goal would be even further (700+ WPM)!
-
👐 Increase average typing speed from 83 WPM to 100+ WPM
I never really "learned" how to touch type as I grew up, instead evolving my own scattered typing methodology. I'm embarassed to admit I have to reset my hand and fingers regularly, forcing me to look at the keyboard and distracting me from my train of thought. This year I want to become a faster, more consistent typist so I can reduce the friction turning thought to pixel.
-
🗣 Share value consistently
One of my biggest goals this year is to share my work more frequently. As I continue to grow and work at Fanduel, I increasingly find that writing and sharing my knowledge is one of the best and fastest way to empower others by allowing us to improve our understanding of the systems we build and maintain. I'd like to take those learnings and apply them here.
-
💪 Reduce my body fat percentage from 15% down to 10%
No harm in wanting to get cut! I've dabbled in stints of keto & low-carb diets as well as cardio/race-focused and weightlifting exrcise regimens in the past, but I've never truly looked at the core science of getting healthy. This year I plan to gain a more fundamental understanding of the body's nutritional and mechanical systems and apply them to get lean.
-
✈️ Launch and successfully monetize Gohort
Gohort has been a labor of love for a long time, but only recently have I (and a few others now!) been putting work into it more consistently. One of my major focuses this year is launching it for the first time and then monetizing it in ways that don't exclude people from using it but also provide a fair value exchange.
-
🤖 🤝 😎 Learn and start contributing to intersectional work in HCI and robotics
Part of the reason I started blogging was so I can document and share my learnings and thoughts about mechatronics and HCI, and some of my earliest posts did just that. I've let it fall off since starting at Fanduel, but in 2021 I pledge to read, write, work and share in that space more consistently.