Website Blog

2016 - Looking Ahead

Here are my plans and goals for 2016. 2015 hasn’t been in terms of keeping up with the goals, I’m hoping 2016 is going to turn out better.

  1. Do more analog
  2. Stay Healthy
  3. Mastery of tools
  4. Explore new programming languages
  5. Devops
  6. Learn more about security
  7. Manage money better
  8. Embrace functional programming
  9. Read often
  10. Write more
  11. Hardware


As part of sticking to these here are a couple of concepts that I feel will be useful

No zero days

From the original post on reddit

There are no more zero days. What’s a zero day? A zero day is when you don’t do a single fucking thing towards whatever dream or goal or want or whatever that you got going on. No more zeros. I’m not saying you gotta bust an essay out everyday, that’s not the point. The point I’m trying to make is that you have to make yourself, promise yourself, that the new SYSTEM you live in is a NON-ZERO system. Didnt’ do anything all fucking day and it’s 11:58 PM? Write one sentence. One pushup. Read one page of that chapter. One. Because one is non zero. You feel me? When you’re in the super vortex of being bummed your pattern of behaviour is keeping the vortex goin, that’s what you’re used to. Turning into productivity ultimate master of the universe doesn’t happen from the vortex. It happens from a massive string of CONSISTENT NON ZEROS.

Measure

You can’t improve what you don’t measure. This applies not just to startups or multi national companies but to everything. Unless you measure it, you can’t track it. Unless you track it, you don’t know it. Unless you know it, you can’t work it. Unless you work it, you can’t improve on it.

Delayed gratification

The ability to resist temptation for a smaller reward in the short term in order to receive a much larger reward at a later time.

Path of least resistance

Hack your environment so that you are unlikely to face resistance when you feel disinclined to do a task. For example, if you find it a chore to go to the gym early in the morning, get a set of dumbbells and keep them right by the couch or something. It’s just a way to stop your brain from making excuses.

Learn to say No

Learn to respectfully say no to ideas, people, things ,impulses that you are not okay with, even if it is tough. Realize you are human and you can’t take on everything.

15 minute rule

Give something the benefit of doubt for 15 minutes(Trying a new book, tv show, idea).If you don’t want to continue after 15 minutes drop it. Credit: Shae Erisson


Do more analog

As programmers we spend so much time writing code and looking at screens we tend to ignore the real world out there. I want to be able to work with the real objects rather than just virtual ones. Right now, carpentry comes to mind.

Stay Healthy

Weight loss, healthier body, good eating and sleeping habits. I wish to be consistent with my workouts this year. Until now, I’ve been on and off with exercising and I would like to log at the least 300 days of working out. I also like the idea of running 365 miles this year. In the past, I’ve always committed to 1000 miles, that’s way too much for someone that isn’t a regular runner. 365 seems like a manageable number. Let’s hope it works out.

Finishing a marathon has been my long term goal for quite some years, but I’ve always stopped at the half marathon mark. Although, I do not plan on running a marathon this year, I hope to finish a half marathon comfortably.

Mastery of tools

Given that I spend most of my using IDEs, debuggers and terminal, I want to achieve good level of proficiency in working with these tools. Especially I will be focusing on the following

Explore new programming languages

There are a bunch of programming languages out there that are exciting. New designs, paradigms, a lot to learn and experience with these. My goal is to explore the following languages and build at least one non-trivial application in each of these by the end of the year

As part of exploring new programming languages I want to embrace functional programming, my choice of the languages might’ve made that evident.

I also have a list of js frameworks that I’ve been meaning to look at, but because I’m not a fan of Javascript, I’ve been neglecting these. These are definitely lower priority than the languages. I’m listing them here for reference

Devops

Devops is one area that’s been progressing quite fast lately and I would like to catch up with all the exciting things happening right now. In that pursuit I’d like to learn more about the following,

Learn more about security

I’ve been pretty familiar with the tools and techniques with just passing knowledge of their implementation. This year I want to learn about the theory and probably implement a couple of these myself. Maybe I get to do them in one of the new languages I learn (I should definitely do that).

Manage money better

Coming out of working for a failed startup for three years, my finances aren’t where I would like them to be (or in other words, they are in shambles). I can’t put all the blame on to the startup either when I haven’t put in the effort to manage them better. Coming out in public like this is a little embarrassing. But I believe it’s an effective tactic. So, this year I’ll manage my finances better, control impulses and clear off as much debt as possible without incurring any new debt.

Read often

Given that time is a finite resource and there are a lot of things that I’m prioritizing higher, I’m afraid my regular reading is gonna take a hit. I’m not yet sure how I will manage this, but I have at least a few books this year that I want to read.

Write more

Writing is something that I’ve definitely been wanting to do more of but has always taken a backseat to everything. Here’s hoping things will be diffrent this year.

Hardware

I’ve started working on some home automation projects using Raspberry Pi and Arduino. I would like to see how far I can take them. I find it interesting working with this low level stuff.

Credits: Some of the above are inspired from Matt Might’s post. Thanks boss!