Ask HN: 2020 goals and resolutions?

[lookingforsome]

Mine are to: • read at least a book off of my reading list per month. • AWS certs • Write a blog post per month • Save $X for a house per month

What are your goals/resolutions for 2020? or what have you learned in this past decade?

[Ididntdothis]

I am in my 50s and want to start working on Raspberry Pi and Arduino fun projects. But this time do it with the mindset I had when I started out. Take the sample code and modify it without thinking too much about consequences. In many ways experience is good but I feel I have become too “professional” and worry too much about things that aren’t really important in small projects. In short, become a reckless programmer.

Also: don’t learn tech for tech’s sake but do what needs to be done to fulfill a certain task. Projects are:

- a better trail camera trigger that ignores grass and leaves

- a dog door that opens for my dog but only for her

[anotherevan]

The dog door one is of interest to me. I've noodled over that one a bit at times.

How do you propose to identify when your dog is in proximity? I've got a Labrador and two cats, so the size differential was such that I was thinking I could probably get away with an ultrasonic distance sensor.

Other possibilities would be a pressure mat (dog is 37kg) or RFID although I never found a suitable RFID solution that had sufficient range.

I also plan on using a car door lock actuator[1] instead of a more conventional solenoid as it can be left in either open or closed position "at rest" without needing a voltage constantly applied.

[1] https://www.jaycar.com.au/slave-door-lock-actuator/p/LR8813

[x2f10]

I am working to improve self-discipline in almost all forms: diet, exercise, reading, attention span, and even relaxation. I suffer a large amount of anxiety from this. I don't do the things I need to and I do too much of the things I shouldn't. I need a better balance or I will forever be disappointed with what could have been.

[jryan49]

I used to think like this. You have it backwards. You're causing yourself anxiety by setting unrealistic goals and expectations for yourself. Take some time and chill out. Stop caring so much about what you do or don't do. Soon enough you'll start just doing the things you want to do when the pressure is gone.

[eric_cc]

As somebody that has always dealt with generalized anxiety, starting a daily yoga practice was life changing. The breath work is the most important aspect to me. I’m very fortunate to live where I can go in person to inspiring classes with great teachers.

[playing_colours]

I suggest to start with self-acceptance and reflection - you cannot just force everything via pure self-discipline.

[kmarc]

You might want to check out - mindfulness - meditation

Those can help tackling anxiety in general and also being more conscious about the choices you make (like spending time on stuff you'd "regret" afterwards)

[lnalx]

For 2019, I had set myself several objectives but the one I have respected the most is to read 1 book/month (book or audiobook).

For 2020, I will:

- Read 1.5 books a month.

- Launch my startup while being employed (I am currently working on the product).

- Enjoy life and the people around me.

- Less time on social network.

- Travel to at least 3 new countries.

- Develop my photography (and videography) skill.

- Try to write more than I read on HN.

- Propose to the most wonderful woman.

- Save money, as always.

[core-questions]

> Propose to the most wonderful woman.

Best of luck, and congrats in advance.

[arthtyagi]

that's pretty good, what product are you working on btw?

[scarface74]

Goals for 2020:

Sharpening the Saw:

- C# I haven’t kept up with the latest ASP.Net Core/Entity Framework Core over the past two years.

- Python: I first learned Python last year, but just enough for simple scripts and AWS lambda. I want to learn “Advanced Python” and at least do a hobby project with Django or Flask.

- TypeScript - I’ve worked with Javascript for years, but just started working with Node this year. I played with TS about 5 years ago but not since.

- ElasticSearch work projects.

Health:

- get off the soda and sweets and eat more fruits and vegetables.

- lose 10 pounds

- rebuild cardio and core strength

- add more workout days. I can work out at home on my gym equipment while watching educational videos to “Sharpen the Saw”

Relationships:

- More quality time with my wife. I spent a lot of time this year focused on work and getting a lot of practical experience with AWS and getting into shape (health reasons).

- Visit and call my parents more.

- Spend more time with friends.

Finances:

- spend less on junk food and eating out.

[lookingforsome]

all excellent goals scarface, may you meet these resolutions this upcoming year!

[iammiles]

I have a few goals in mind:

1. Get more flexible. I'd like to be able to touch my toes. Stretch goal (pun slightly intended): palms to the ground

2. Finish 3 (BotW, Doom, and Celeste) of my Switch games. I've done a good job of playing a few hours of some great games, but I'd really like to see some of them through.

3. Deep dive into Clojure. For someone that uses it daily at work, I really feel like I ought to know it better.

4. Complete the Rust book and explore some ideas using WASM and WASI.

5. Another triathlon. I did one (slowly) 3 years ago. It'd be fun to train again and try to better my time.

[Swtrz]

On touching your toes > hamstrings, work on them liberally but try not to make them too sore.

[simonsarris]

I'm a big fan of committing publicly. I posted a number of goals on twitter, so I can hold myself accountable and see how I did at the end of the year: https://twitter.com/simonsarris/status/1205178408344457217

I'll post only a few here so I don't pollute the space too much.

4. build dry stone arch bridge with remaining granite to the 2nd field over the big stream

7. Turn the entire front lawn into a crazy field of poppies, probably a mix of shirley, california, and icelandic. The california poppies experient grew really well this year but we'll see how they do year over year.

8. Have a baby

9. Design some cottages. It may be many years before we're able to build one, though [note: one year ago we designed and built and moved into our house]

13. Make a few more "for fun" websites

14. Make a small LLC? And sell some art stuff? I'm not sure what yet, maybe pottery or wood things, just for fun.

16. On the 3rd field, start to build a temple to Artemis or Apollo, or the sun. It will almost certainly have to be timber, not stone. Also build a small temple or shrine to Christ. Probably won't be done in 2020.

18. Start a book of fables, try to self-publish it before the end of 2021? I have only some notes for this so far, I really don't know how long it will take.

[cosmodisk]

Substantially reduce alcohol consumption. Quit Smoking. Bring 20-40% of my income from initiatives not related to my current work. Build profitable side project. Join Toastmasters.

[throw51319]

Alcohol is a killer. I'm thinking more and more that without cutting it out after you realize you've "been there done that", a person will never reach their potential.

[fedorova]

* Consume less. Do something good for the planet.

* Rekindle my career now that I’m done having kids. Start a new research project, submit ~5 good papers.

* Help my husband with his career transition.

* Figure out how to have more impact in my consulting gig.

* Learn how to match flavors in food and how to pair food and wine.

[rusty__]

I have a few various things I'm trying to achieve in 2020.

- Reduce meat consumption significantly. I do enjoy meat and cooking dishes like slow roasted meats but I started eating beyond meat/fake meats in 2019 and loved them. In a couple of dishes I literally couldnt tell the difference. I think when things get to the point where they taste as good/better than the product they're intended to replace, why not embrace them? I still like meat and am not seeking to become fully vegetarian but will definitely cut down to just 1-2 times a week, high quality butcher/organic meat and reduce my impact on the planet in some small way.

- Go completely cashless. I was just about there in achieving this in a couple of months in 2019. It's not a hugely difficult challenge but I think it's a fun one to try and it's very doable these days. Starting Jan 1st I'm going to see how far I can make it without holding real money.

- Take more 3-4 day weekends and travel more. I live in a city with great public transport and don't own a car so it can be tough to travel without thinking you have to take 2+ weeks off from work, but renting a car for a weekend is trivially cheap if you plan ahead a little bit (<$100 including gas).

- The usuals of trying to get fit, lose a few pounds, more regular gym. Need to find some way of making the gym fun as I really don't have any interest in it even though I know it's good for me.

- Make more music. I'm really getting in to Ableton and Maschine and whilst I'm really 'level 1' at the moment I enjoy it loads and want to dedicate 2-3 nights a week to just making tunes, it's very relaxing and it's great to be doing something that's more actively producing something rather than passively consuming yet more netflix, HBO etc.

[simonsarris]

> I think when things get to the point where they taste as good/better than the product they're intended to replace, why not embrace them?

The simplest answer may be that the precautionary principle suggests that eating tried and true foods, rather than newer synthetics, is probably better for your health. Many nutrients are most bio-available in the dense animal products we have eaten for a very long time.

Why not eat pastured meat instead? If you eat pastured cow, you are supporting the ecosystem of cow (for its partial life) but also possums, raccoons, ducks, field mice, butterflies, snakes, birds, bees, and thousands of other insects that populate the fields of pasture. If you eat beef every day, you still eat less than 1 cow for the year. Pasture animals are regenerative and allow for other animals to co-exist without the horrifying bits that go into making row crops (The pesticides causing colony collapse disorder? It's not the cow's fault.) Herbicide and insecticide usage is also way higher.

So I don't think it's quite so ethical clear cut, but if you try to do a calculus, I think pastured mammals is some of the best, maybe followed by vegetarian-ish diets, maybe(?) followed by factory meat at the lowest rung.

[stockkid]

Thanks for sharing. You have goals similar to mine, including travel and music production.

> Go completely cashless

Just curious, could you explain your motivation behind it? In my case, I was actually thinking about doing the opposite, because I rarely use cash and feel like I spend more than I should due to not seeing the actual money leaving the wallet.

[lookingforsome]

Has anyone ever A/B tested meat / vegetarian diets here?

[AlchemistCamp]

In 2019, I built Alchemist Camp into a decent side-business (see https://questinglog.com/2019-year-in-review/).

In 2020, my goals are:

- Double gross subscription sales

- Keep lifetime retention above 60%

- Launch product #2 by the first of March

- Finally travel to the US for an Elixir conference

[bdibs]

Back when I was first learning Phoenix, I watched a couple of your videos! The one I can remember is about using edeliver to deploy, which I'm using right now for my little project, Podalong.

Just wanted to thank you for them, it's a solid resource for anyone interested in Elixir/Phoenix. I hope you reach and exceed your goals!

[markosaric]

My primary goal is to make more environmentally conscious decisions whenever possible. I'm thinking along these lines:

- buy minimal necessary amount of stuff in general

- choose local, seasonal and less-packaged stuff when buying groceries

- choose independent and environmentally conscious producers over large multinationals

- drink tap water and loose leaf tea instead of drinks packaged in plastic bottles

- consume minimal amount of meat/milk/cheese/fish/eggs

- walk and run

- take buses and trains instead of a personal car, cab or plane

[mapandey]

very impressive and motivating (Y)

[lookingforsome]

wholesome goals!

[nunodonato]

* Start (and finish) another hobby game dev / app dev

* Finish cutting my ties with Google services

* Finalize my solar offgrid system with a tiny bit of home automation

* Focus more (professionally) instead of spreading myself thing over so many areas and interests (so hard to do...)

* Read/study the Bhagavad Gita

[Swtrz]

Is there a mapping system close to being as reliable as Google Maps?

[nyxtom]

I like to use dimensional analysis when setting goals, so in that spirit:

Health:

- Get better at cooking meals from basic ingredients. This year I cut back eating out for financial reasons. I now incorporate intermittent fasting, smoothies, lots of veggies, some meat. Cold potatoes are a staple for satiety. I would like to continue exploring different vegetables variety with a single new recipe based on a given veggie/root at least each week.

- Do a sunrise hike at a state park

- Incorporate yoga as pre routine to workout regiment in the early morning. Incorporate body weight workout into running routine.

- Sleep in once a week

- Stop work at 4pm

Joy/Relationships:

- Play and finish existing games I own: Witcher 3, BoTW.

- Plan for and invest in the romance of my relationship. Get better at dating wife

- Take dog out to walks at parks more

- Introduce and invest in game night with family

- Invite family over and cook for them

Home/Finances:

- Work towards purchasing a home this year

- Make one room in the home as beautiful as possible.

Work/Skills:

- Build a game with webgl, wasm, rust

- Finish rust book, rustwasm

- Attend Meetups, make a presentation at one

- Stay consistent with focused time. I got really good at eliminating all distractions this year, would like that to continue into next year.

- stay consistent with one pull request a day.

- play piano at public gig, be able to play through first movement at least in Mozart’s sonata

[SkyTreasure]

My goals: 1. Do one Himalayan trek 2. Visit one country abroad. 3. Run 12 Half marathons, one every month. 4. Run 1 HM with timing of less than 2hrs 30mins (current best 2:45) 5. Read 25 books 6. Double my focused work from 4hrs/day to 10hrs/day 7. Keep building, irrespective of failure and keep improving and learning from it.

[raghavkukreti]

- stop messing up at Uni

- stop distancing everyone due to my anger issues

- do everything I can to make the people I love happy

- learn haskell

- patch things up with my family

- go backpacking with my brother

[arthtyagi]

In this past decade, I went from being a naive 7 year old who had a vague idea of programming to a developer who is investing his time in his startup, i love doing it so im gonna keep doing it and as for resolutions, i guess i might try to get in good shape ( probably on the list of 1 in 3 people ), try out for Y Combinator Startup School Summer, keep building the services I'm building except get some more traction. :) that's probably it. simple. oh and also, get away from MacOS. I'm starting to like Windows again after that 1909 update, i just realized after years of using MacOS that Windows had simply more flexibility than MacOS while at the same time not being unsupportive of game development as Linux ( Ik i can do game development on linux with extra effort but i don't wanna do that :) ).

[fyfy18]

I'd highly suggest focussing time to build a routine to keep yourself active while you are still young. Either get used to working out / going to the gym, or even better find a hobby that keeps you active.

I'm in my early 30s and pretty much avoided any sort of fitness when I was younger. I cycled to get from A to B and walked a fair bit but that was it. Now my body is starting to complain from a decade of sitting at a desk.

As well as avoiding pain, I find exercise helps to reduce stress, which means you can work more effectively, so I wouldn't even consider it lost time (vs working).

[jborichevskiy]

As far as past learnings go I did a year in review but it's the first one I've done so it encompassed a little more than 2019:

https://jborichevskiy.com/posts/year-in-review-2019/

As far as the next year goes, the important ones are:

* write - at least one in-depth blog post per month

* read - ideally an hour a day

* dive into org-mode and replace my most annoying tools with it

* start hosting regular dinners - just giving curious/motivated a people a space to talk, brainstorm, and discuss the world

* more hikes, dancing, painting, and sunsets

[535188B17C93743]

2020 Goals:

- Start freelancing. I'd like to both write independently and do development work.

- Get back into running (XC in high school, but I'm out of practice). Run at least a 5k (preferably longer, like a half marathon) and run at least 500 miles in the year.

- Visit three more National Parks.

- Start blogging (informally or formally, whichever) about personal finance

- Travel more. I took two international trips in 2019, but they were both to places I'd already been. I'd like to go to the Baltic states in 2020 (plans maybe in process...) and possibly somewhere in South America or Africa?

[lookingforsome]

any personal finance top tips?

[shadow-banned]

- Stop smoking so much weed - Read regularly every night or at least 4-6 times a night - Exercise 4 times a week (I already do, just gotta keep it up) - Remain positive - Leave Silicon Valley

[gubsz]

Hah I feel you on the smoking, with vape pens it's almost too easy to take a quick hit here and there. Cutting back weed is probably number 1 on my resolutions for next year.

[Impossible]

In 2020 I'd like to complete the goal I've set for myself for the last 8 years or so, complete and release a small game by myself as a side/hobby project. This has never been a skill challenge, I'm a professional game developer and I've shipped multiple games, both on small indie teams and large AAA teams in that time period. It's a challenge of motivation and time management. It's important that I do everything myself for personal reasons.