There’s nothing like the New Year to make us think of what’s important and what changes we wish to make during the year. This year, I’ve broken my resolutions down into sections, although this will be the first time I’ll have written them down.
Family
Last year was a bit of a disaster. There wasn’t enough family time. A busy work schedule for myself and my wife being relocated to Kuala Lumpur for work made family time rare. As my son is growing up and becoming more active, I want to spend more one on one time with him. Father-son time.
Fitness & Health
In 2016, I discovered Ultimate Frisbee, and have been practicing multiple times per week. Two international Ultimate tournaments have been booked in for the first half of the year, with hopefully another two in the second half.
While Ultimate keeps me fit, I would like to reach a level of fitness that I’ve never had before. To get things started, I’m joining forces with a friend, Ben, to do the 1000 Reps Per Day challenge. It’s simple enough; 1000 reps per day, 6 days a week, with Sundays off:
- 100 Pike Push Ups
- 100 Push Ups
- 100 Squats
- 200 Sit Ups
- 100 Dips
- 100 Jumping Jacks
- 100 High Knees
- 100 Burpees
- 100 Pull Ups a day for 30 days.
This will be a replacement for my usual gym routine until the 30 days is complete.
Progress reports will be posted on Instagram @aaronportbury with #1000RepsADay
Work
2016 was a productive year for work. I was very lucky to have amazing long term clients throughout the year, which reduced the need to source ongoing projects. This year I would like to be more product focused, packaging some of the components from common projects, and selling them as a fixed priced package; themes, plugins etc. I believe this will add a high value, entry level price point for new clients, and will help free up some of my time to spend with family, friends, and work on higher end projects.
Personal
Coding. I want to be a better coder. Specifically full-stack JavaScript. While I use JavaScript every day with my WordPress development, I really want to understanding the deeper workings of JavaScript and build complex full-stack apps using NodeJS on the backend and ReactJS on the front.
To get started, I’ll be joining the #100DaysOfCode challenge: Coding for at least one hour per day, for one hundred consecutive days. The time I spend coding for my day job won’t count towards the one hour per day. I’m hoping this will encourage some of our regular Coffee and Code attendees to also join in.
Accountability
Now that everything is written down and published, I have more reason to push through and will rely on friends and family to hold me accountable.
The next 30 days will be hard, with an extra 2 hours added to my schedule with the #1000RepsADay and #100DaysOfCode challenges, but I’ll push through!
Bring on 2017!
2016 was about letting go.