Highlights of 2017. Goals for 2018

Last year, I wrote a post with a similar title (just subtract one from each number). In it, I exhorted you not to make lots of resolutions which you won't be able to keep and I stand by that advice. Indeed, I haven't made any New Year's Resolutions for a while now.

I've read a couple of these posts today and, for some reason, nearly everyone seems to be talking almost exclusively about their careers and how awesome they are. I'm not going to do that; suffice it to say that everything is going well and I've been very busy with various consulting gigs. But this is a fairly light-hearted post.

Before I forget, do you like the 2018 cover image? My kids made it this morning. Not bad, eh?

Selected highlights of 2017

• Traffic to most of this site went up. I got slightly less traffic overall, but most of that reduction was to my most popular article (Fix the WiFi on your Surface Pro 3). Traffic to the rest of the site was up around 17%.

• In February I got a contract at Microsoft UK in Reading. It went on for most of the year, but it has now finished. I really enjoyed working at Microsoft. I met a lot of very nice (and bright) people. If I get the chance, I'd like to work there again.

• I went to the gym 222 times. When I started at Microsoft, I joined a nearby gym (David Lloyd at Thames Valley Park).
  
  Note that I already have one attendance in January 2018, too. That's because...

• I registered for my first powerlifting competition for over eight years. It's at the end of January (pretty soon, then) and I entered it on a whim just before Christmas (and promptly got tonsillitis, which doesn't help with training much). So the results might be interesting.

• I either gave a talk entitled "How I got fit and lean by arranging to give a talk on how I got fit and lean" or I bottled it. There is a separate article coming about this.

• I either lost about 25kg of bodyweight or looked a fool when giving the above talk (assuming I even turned up in the first place). As I said, there will be a separate article about this very soon.

• I started reading again and read a lot of books. Except I didn't really read them, I listened to audiobooks. But they were unabridged, so it still counts. There's a (frequently updated) list of books at https://tomssl.com/books/ and an explanation of how I managed to free up the time here.

• I managed to help some people in some interesting ways. One example: I've been doing some remote personal training (as the trainer, not the trainee), which is fun. Before you ask, the people are in other countries, so it has to be remote.

What became of my goals for 2017?

Well, as I looked at my goals for 2017 just now, it occurred to me that I really ought to have looked at them once or twice during the year, too. Having said that, I did achieve most of them. I have not yet got tomchats.com up and running and I didn't make any real progress on writing my novel. I also didn't email my subscribers or run any prize draws. Finally, I didn't finish my email security article series (and that's the only annoying one).

Goals for 2018

I'm not going to list many goals for this year. All the family stuff again, of course. And helping people. And I'm going to write a lot more, one way or another. You'll probably hear about it here.

And finally...

What about you? How did you get on last year? Have you got any interesting plans for 2018? If you're neither fit nor lean, but would like to be, let me know. I can probably help you.

And that's it. There'll be more technical stuff coming soon (and that article about how I got fit and lean, of course). Have a happy, healthy and prosperous 2018. And have more fun.

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image credit: my kids and me