My life in 2020 continued to be boring. With notable career changes (SDE3 promotion at Amazon; move to Google) the year was mostly uneventful. It was not an easy ride emotionally though externally for the most part I lived the life of a fisherman from the “Business and the Fisherman” parable.

I’ve been making new year resolutions and publishing them online since 2010 and learning the hard way what you might have guessed: I failed miserably so many times I should have already given up on them :) but no, this is yet another one. Oh… and wait… this is the first time I succeeded in my new year’s resolution.

If you are skeptical of the new year resolutions I accept your point of view as resolutions don’t generally work (90% of people fail) and I admire you if you manage to succeed in your aspirations despite not having a plan. Someone said that you have to be inspired or desperate in life. If you are neither at the moment, creating a plan and following through might be the best option until your enlightenment.

2020 Recap

TL;DR: promoted to SDE3 at Amazon; moved to Google; ran, skied, climbed much more than planned; still on a gradual trajectory of healthy and early retirement; didn’t read or learn as much as I wanted; traveled locally.

My last year’s resolution was to complete 12 of all 24 of the items on the list I had. Succeeded in 14 of them and if I add up percentages completion goes all the way to 94%. Here is the list:

1. [Edit 29Jan2020] Spend more quality time with kids in 2020 than in 2019 as measured by wife’s opinion
   100%
   1. Although I usually don’t put private and family goals in my plan I had to include this one for my fellow Austrian friend ;). This one is subjective, but accordingly to my wife I can count this one as completed. Coronavirus made me stay at home so a side effect of WFH I’m spending much more time with my kids. Luckily they usually stay away from participating in my work meetings.
2. Travel a distant country (candidate New Zealand, other places count) Changed thsi to be a long 2+ weeks roadtrip.
   100%
   1. We had an amazing 2 week camping road-trip to the north of British Columbia crossing into Yukon and coming back via Alberta. We managed to see the Northern Lights, wild bizons, 17 bears in one day, glacies, waterfalls and other things of beauty. We even went hunting for dinosaur fossils. More details in my wife’s blog post over here.
3. Write 24 blog posts, of which at least 12 are of a technical content
   50%
   1. I wrote 13 blog posts. Only 5 out of these posts are of technical content. Counting this item as half completed.
4. Listen to/read 24 books
   75%
   1. Read 16 books:
      • Why We Sleep
      • Algorithms for Interviews
      • Competitive Programming Guide
      • Freakonomics
      • Atomic Habits (once again)
      • Switch- How to change things when change is hard
      • The Phoenix Project
      • Feeling Good-The New Mood Therapy
      • Limitless-Upgrade your brain
      • Software Engineering At Google
      • The Alchemist: A Fable About Following Your Dream
      • Measure What Matters: How Google, Bono, and the Gates Foundation Rock the World with OKRs
      • The Psychology of Money: Timeless Lessons on Wealth, Greed, and Happiness
      • Shoe Dog: A Memoir by the Creator of Nike
      • Super Human
      • Clean Architecture
   2. 5 books are still in progress and I’m likely to abandon reading some of them:
      • Finite and Infinite Games
      • Deep Learning with Python
      • Effective C++
      • The Go Programming Language
      • ***
5. Run 52 times and take part in a race (candidate VanSunRun on 19April)
   211%
   1. I ran 110 times out of those planned 52. Does it mean 211% completion then?
   2. New PRs: Half 1:58:07, 10K 50:50, 1K 3:47
   3. Total run distance: 792K
6. Ski 12 days (night skiing after work counts)
   142%
   1. Went skiing 17 times. Could tell that I improved my skills a bit.
7. Improve swimming by going 10 times to swimming pool (consider a course)
   0%
   1. This one is a complete failure. I postponed signing up for classes and then COVID hit and then I didn’t bother. Not counting lake swimming here as that is not what I meant when creating this plan.
8. Learn to walk on hands
   25%
   1. Although I failed to learn walking on hands and even handstands I made good progress towards it.
   2. Can do controlled headstands (see the picture above).
9. Work out 104 hours
   66%
   1. I’ve done 69 hours or workouts. These workouts are mostly weight lifting and calisthenics including occasional stretching sessions. This does not include running or rock climbing.
10. Gain another 7kg of pure muscles (70kg, BMI of 22, fat 11-15%)
    28%
    1. Max measured weight was 65.8, but more realistically I weight 65. This once again proved that it is difficult for me to gain weight.
    2. Although I am confident these +2KG are musles as I can effectively see musles I have never seen on my body :)
11. Drive a racing car
    100%
    1. I drove race adapted 8 cylinder mustang on a racing track in Mission. link
12. Go indoor climbing 10+ times, learn to do 5.10+ YDS and V4+ Hueco (USA)
    500%
    1. This is similar to running in a way that I overachieved this goal. Unfortunately I don’t even know how many times I went rock climbing but rough approximation brings me to ~50 times. In fact right now I’m a member to two different climbing gym networks with access to 6 locations.
    2. Completed 5.11 and one V5.
13. Some adrenaline rush thingy (skydive, bungee, paraglide, etc)
    0%
    1. This is one of those things I didn’t get to. I didn’t really want to bungee jump again or skydive as I’ve done those in the past and couldn’t find anything that would suit. Probably another jump would have done :(
14. Learn a programming language (tiny project counts ~3 blog posts)
    0%
    1. Probably need to count this as a failure. At my current job I’ve already written code in Python, Go, C++ – all are languages I’m not comfortable with, but I don’t think I can say I’ve “learned” any of them.
15. (re)-introduce myself to Machine Learning (basics + TensorFlow)
    0%
    1. I am not doing anything related to ML and therefore it is hard to push myself to learn anything in this area. Failure.
16. Sleep 8-9 hours, but learn to get up with damn alarm instantly (15 sec). This one might be the most challenging as this is a horrible habit of mine (hitting “snooze” for 2 hours)
    60%
    1. Definitely succeeded in getting enough sleep but still failing miserably in waking right after the alarm.
17. Limit read-only social media activities to 2 hours a week (scrolling Facebook/Twitter/Instagram/LinkedIn, excl. posting and messaging people) as to produce instead of consuming
    80%
    1. Although I almost never open Facebook or Twitter, my instagram is still a lot of timewaste. In any case I probably should count this a success as I managed to controll how much time I spend here. For instance, those apps are blocked during my working hours and outside of working ours time is limited by digital wellbeing by Google.
18. Meaningful work related change
    200%
    1. Got promoted at Amazon to SDE3
    2. Started working for Google
19. Solve 100 leet code problems
    67%
    1. Solved 67% of problems. Here is a link to my profile.
20. Visit a tech conference and/or some tech meetup(s) (2+ counts)
    50%
    1. Attended one internal virtual Google conference.
21. Quit regular money wasters (going out for lunch, 5$ coffee, etc, max 1 a week or 52 in a year)
    100%
    1. Due to COVID I’m not going out for lunches or coffees. I do not smoke or drink alcohol. On average I probably had 1.0-1.5 coffee outside per week. I think my new regular money wasters are useless things bought at Amazon.
22. Reduce coffee (max 1 per day); best if I could go cold turkey
    100%
    1. March started drinking coffee every day at home again (damn due to COVID-19). In August maybe had 1-2 coffees. 1 in September. Few in October. Some in November. To generalize I would say I definitely reduced my coffee consumption, though I didn’t manage to go cold turkey.
23. Increase focus at work (track screen time and distractions)
    100%
    1. I’ve done few things to achieve this: 1) limited my social apps on phone; 2) separated physically work laptop and access from private laptop and access; 3) organized my home office. More here.
24. Invest 20% more money in 2020 than in 2019
    100%
    1. Portion of my RSU started vested in Jan putting me ahead for that month; Feb just regular contributions; March invested lump sum of 10% of my base salary into what was a crazy bear market (call me crazy) maybe recession and it turned out to be great timing. Didn’t invest in April other then regular retirement contributions. As of September maxed out my RRSP and added some money to my investments. Plus I got my next portion of Amazon shares which I didn’t sell. Not selling my GOOG stock.

2021 Plan

TL;DR: more quality time with family; more sport; more health; more of professional focus and learning; some travel; less reading; more passive money.

So what’s on the cards for the year 2021? I already have a good life so it is reasonable to maintain the things I learned to do, slowly improve the things I would like to. The complete list is below:

Updated: 26-Dec-2021

1. Read all 7 Harry Potter books to my 7y old daughter. That’s 199 chapters making it roughly 4 chapters (65p) per week.
   1. DONE
2. Teach my daughter basics of programming. Snake game seems to be a good candidate for a year’s project goal.
   1. We had two sessions with my daugher where we created a simple “food” for the snake and are drawing grid.
3. Teach my 4y old son basics of skiing. Let’s see how many times I can take him out skiing.
   1. Mar: Took him 3 times in total. He alreay learned to ski “pizza”-style. I guess I’m better teacher this time. I’m using ski-wedges (rubber string to keep front of the skies together) and I’m not making the mistake of holding him so that he learns to keep the balance right from the beginning. I should probably classify this as failure, even there was some progress?
4. Travel outside of Canada and have a boring beach vacation. Fingers crossed.
   1. Not happened.
5. Have two camping road-trips (long weekends count, but a week+ would be awesome).
   1. DONE. One weekend long and another almost a week long, though with hotels in between.
6. Set new personal running records (considerations 1K, 1Mile, 5K, 10K and Half-Marathon). Consider running a Marathon (that’s not a healthy distance imo, but people keep asking me if I ran it and I cannot say yes… ogh…).
   1. 79 runs. Set new 5K – 22:43, 10K – 49:49 PR. I will consider this done.
7. Improve VO2Max to 60 ml/(kg·min) from the current 54. This means I will have to specifically and properly train. Just running 100 times won’t cut it. In combination with my other goals of gaining muscle weight this goal becomes even more difficult.
   1. Max achieved 56. (It seem to be unrealistic to achieve 60 or it would take a lot more dedication for me).
8. Try out at least one other sport activity. Considerations are: mountain biking, martial arts, archery, whatever, anything counts as long as I try it out.
   1. DONE. Tried real rock climbing, kickboxing, and pole-thingy, bought a bike and biked super-easy mountain trails.
9. Learn free handstands and snap some cool pics for the next year’s post.
   1. Failed. I made some progress – few low control seconds.
10. Strength train for 100 hours inclining towards climbing specifics (finger strength; pull-ups; core). Set new personal pullup (19+) and pushup (102+) records.
    1. Way over 100 hours. I calculated > 83hours of separate strength training time, plus there would be maybe another 50 or more of those coming from my climbing activies. New pull-ups PR 20. Didn’t do the pushups.
11. Gain 5kg of pure muscles (70kg, BMI of 22, fat 10-13%) and post a shirtless comparing pic.
    1. Max achieved was 68. I’m 10.3% body fat. I will delay posting a comparison pic to the next year.
12. See how far I can get in climbing. Target sending one V8 (7B Font, HEX-5/6) bouldering problem. If this doesn’t say you anything, it is a super-ambitious goal as I can currently do V3s, some V4s. Normally V8 requires years of training and lots of strength. Likely to fail. Shoot for the starts.
    1. DONE (kind-off): rock-climbed 148 times. Sent a couple of HEX-5 (V6-V8, probably these were 7A and not 7B).
13. Continue sleeping full 8.5 hours.
    1. DONE (based on garmin data I kept sleeping 8.5+ hours for entire year with few exceptions).
14. Straighten my teeth to a perfect arch :)
    1. DONE. My teeth are straight now. I’m still wearing last sets of aligners and then will need to wear retainers for some time, but the work is done!
15. Further reduce coffee. Cold turkey is a real option this year.
    1. Had 2 months with 0 coffee intake (Jan, Feb), and many months with few coffees. By the end of the year I’m basically back to daily sonsumption. This means I’m a coffee addict.
16. Build a strong disciplined morning routine, that includes among other things waking within 5 minutes of alarm going off, drinking full glass of water, short meditation and a full breakfast.
    1. No real discipline, though I do have some kind of routine. I stopped having an alarm. Yeap. I do not have any alarms set and this makes me feel great.
17. Write 10 blog posts, of which at least 5 are of a technical content.
    1. 1. That’s a failure.
18. Listen to/read 10 books, of which at least 5 are technical/career ones. (Harry Potter ones don’t count).
    1. Books done: “Time Smart” “Effective C++” “Effective Modern C++” (partially) “Change by Design” “The Manager’s Path” “The Body Keeps the Score” “Fifty Inventions That Shaped The Modern Economy” “Sapiens” “The Art of Thinking Clearly” “The great mental models: Vol 2” “The Ride of a Lifetime” “The Pragmatic Programmer” (relisten) “Finding Flow”
19. Solve 100 leet code problems (min 10 hard; min 50 medium). Got to keep myself in a good shape, right?
    1. Solved 44 problems. Not much. (total lifetime solved 565)
20. Deliberately work on loosing my eastern European accent for at least 10 hours. A course with a real teacher would be great.
    1. Failed.
21. Create a monetizable content and earn 1$. This can be a course on programming, an e-book, a problem solving tutorial, anything really.
    1. Failed.
22. Become fully proficient in one more programming laguage.
    1. DONE: Gained C/C++ readability badge at work. It kind of means Google now trusts me to write C++ code :) I also finally fill more-or-less comfortable in this language.
23. Learn Linux. I use Linux every day at work, but I’m limited to basic things and have never deliberately tried to understand this operating system or become proficient in it.
    1. Failed. Linux is now my main non-work operating system. Though still not what I meant.
24. Learn to complete all work within strickly 8 working hours. Less of stretching of time, less of inefficiencies, less of distruction, more discipline. Efficiency. Time is our most precious resource.
    1. Mar: March was probably one of the most efficient months for me at Google so far. Feb: I’m tracking my time super-precisely and can tell there is close to 0 of time-wasters (news, social, etc) during work hours. Oct: This goes “oke-ish”. Calling this a success even I don’t feel I work enough. My employer seems to be happy, though.
25. Better track money. I’ve been tracking money since my first paychecks, but in the year 2020 I lost my routines so need to reestablish them.
    1. Mar: on track. Feb: Back on track. Rewamped my “balance and net worth” sheets. Oct: Not sharing too much but I have a hold on money tracking and investing. It is just maybe I can make more if, say, I worked in US or something.
26. Make or lose 1000$ in a risky investment. Failures are learning experiences.
    1. DONE: I have some crypto ETFs that jumped like hell and I didn’t budge. Jumps were X*1000 so I’m covered for this goal. I have some confidence in risk tollerance now. And no, I do not believe in all this crypto hype.
27. Invest 20% more money in 2021 than in 2020.
    1. DONE.
28. Create a painting and/or a drawing. I already know some basics. Just want to do something to really like.
    1. Failed. I just didn’t feel like doing this for entire year. There is still tiny chance before 1 Jan I do this.

Same as last year, I will consider succeeding if I complete at least half of the items on this list.

To make sure I succeed this year again I will be tracking my progress each month in a spreadsheet (already prepared it) and posting occasional comments below this post, much like I did last year. I’m also tracking a couple personal goals I’m not too comfortable posting publicly.

Happy New Year!

Dear reader, what’s your plan for the year 2021? Do you have one? Share your plan and keep on! If any of you wants to run occasional challenges with me, just ping me. I’ve ran them in the past with few folks and though we failed to stick the outcome was noticeable progress for participants.

Happy New Year!