Published: December 31, 2018 • 2 min read
Each year (mostly) I conduct a review to reflect on the ending professional year and share the results of that review on this blog. Here’s the full collection:
2023 2020 2019 2018 2017 2016 2015
This was an important year for me professionally; here’s a summary of what I did:
My professional goal for 2018 was to submit 10 proposals to technical conferences. That number was based on my previous 1/10 proposal acceptance rate.
This did not go as planned; the first proposal I submitted was accepted to ElixirDaze 2018. I summarized that wonderful experience for the Hashrocket Blog. TL;DR: code formatters are good and you should use them!
For me, speaking at conferences is exhilarating but daunting, and after going through that experience again so early in the year, I decided to refrain from submitting any more proposals in 2018. Unless I start repeating talks or develop a more improvisational style, one conference per year seems to be my limit.
This year I plan to pivot to a single mantra: ship.
I want to get good at turning the river of ideas I have into products. Some will be silly demos and jokes, some will be open source libraries I plan to maintain, and some will be products in production.
I’d want to move away from “learning for learning’s sake” and start learning by facing the real challenges of shipping. I want the exhaust of my learning in public to be tangible products that people use to improve their lives.
Here’s to more shipping in 2019.
Thanks to everyone at Hashrocket, my Meetup crew, clients, family, and friends for making this year memorable.
What are your thoughts on this? Let me know!
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