2022 Goals

Right, time to set myself some goals for 2022. Maybe I can get this post written before April?

Most of them are in my head anyway. But until I put them down in writing, they aren’t proper goals, are they?

Big Life-Changing Stuff

Be paid like a senior engineer. Well, this was in the pipeline and was finally confirmed before I even starting turning this from draft comments to an actual post. Though at the time of writing, I still hadn’t actually been paid at the new rate. Maybe there will be a company-wide pay rise or a software engineering one too.

Seriously look into buying a flat. So, I’m fed up of house-sharing and will this year be able to afford my own place. I’m a bit lost as to what I can afford, whether I should go for the help-to-buy scheme or whether I should just get an old-school flat, what area of London, etc. To achieve this goal, I actually need to have looked at flats with the intention of buying – and if I don’t buy, have a plan for 2023.

Live on my own. This is basically a follow-up to the previous goal – to be living on my own by the end of the year, even if that means renting my own place whilst saving more.

Live My Life

12 different cultural activities. The idea behind this is roughly once a month, to do something different culturally. It doesn’t have to be every month, but it does have to balance out at 12. Multiple art exhibitions will only count as one activity. A play and a musical I feel are two different activities. Other ideas include comedy nights, drag brunch, ballet, maybe a music festival counts? Hell, maybe even sport comes under this? I wonder what Nadine thinks?

Any other suggestions let me know – I need to think of 12!

12 different great restaurants. Again a similar intention, try to go to one of the restaurants that are on my must-do list (or someone else’s) roughly once a month. January started with Gunpowder, and I’ve done another at The Bull Steak Expert – so two ticked off already. Roast dinners do not count…at least not for this.

Roast to-do list under 50. At the time of writing there are 74 places on my to-do list. I want it under 50, permanently, so that in theory everywhere can be visited in one year. It was 130 at once point which was just silly. You might think this is easy, but I constantly get recommendations of places to add…and it is difficult to say no every time!

Get Out Of This Damn Country

Get on a plane. Get on a plane that takes off and goes somewhere not Britain. I think I’m at the point where my tight Yorkshireman wanting my interest free loan back from British Airways is overtaking my mask avoidance desires, so maybe I will finally get on a plane somewhere. I very much want to use my British Airways vouchers before they go bankrupt.

3 new countries. I used to aim for 4 pre-pandemic. 3 feels achievable this year. Also buying a flat is more important so I’m not going to stress it if I judge myself unable to afford another holiday, but I’m pretty sure I can. Whether I actually want to go abroad now I’ve re-discovered the beauty of England is another matter…

Visit one friend somewhere. I have too many friends living in other areas of the UK, let alone other countries. So this is a goal to get on a train or plane, and go visit at least one of them. Reading doesn’t count.

Have A Healthier Life

Get to 85kg. Well, I’ve failed this already as this goal is impossible unless I give up drinking for a whole year. Started the year at 102kg. I know this is totally unachievable so you might say why set it as a goal, but it is a weight that I need to reach to be healthy.

3 month detox (ish). It’s a bit difficult this year, I drank on my birthday weekend – both days, and I’m intending on going on holiday in the latter half of March. Yeah, I ain’t going to be not drinking when that is the only time when you don’t have to wear a mask on a flight. So for every day I drink during the first 3 months, this means a weekend of not drinking during the rest of the year.

3 month chocolate detox. I realised when I had a month off eating chocolate in 2021 but carried on drinking, that chocolate was making me feel worse than alcohol. So I’m planning a 3-month chocolate detox. Well, I’ve started one albeit I’m less than a week into it.

Only drink at home once a month. I really like beer and really like wine, but there isn’t much point to me drinking on my own on a Friday or Saturday evening…like happens every weekend from April to December. Drinking gets in the way of achievement, let alone a healthy lifestyle. So the plan here is to only drink at home once a month. Unless with guests. Drinking in a pub by myself or restaurant is totally fine.

Tech Life

Try more code stuff. I did this State Of JS survey (JS === JavaScript) and found that I knew so little of the newer concepts – I’m not really using the newest tech at work (yet) so scope for trying things out is less, plus I don’t spend much time coding at home. So this is to try to encourage myself to try some of the newer or lesser-known concepts out – perhaps once a month.

Finish Re-writing DJ Mix Of The Week. I started re-writing one of my lesser-known blogs in Frontity, which is a React-based headless architecture – alas I have lots of difficulties in getting all the WordPress functionality to work as I’d expect. Big challenge!

Re-design My Portfolio. It’s a mess. I said I’d do it last year and possibly the year before, but as I didn’t need a new job, it never became important enough. But still, I should have a much better presence on the internet if I’m a software engineer.

Upgrade tech. I desperately need a new laptop and a new phone. But I have a deal with myself that I can only buy major items when I lose 1kg of weight. The next target is 96kg. Feels a long way away. I also need computer speakers, monitor, and keyboard.

Other Life Stuff

Less than £100 of food waste. I kept a spreadsheet last year of how much food I wasted – more than ideal but not actually that much. But how to measure success? So this year I’m setting a limit of £100.

Go to the office once. I’m not sure that I can actually work in such a disruptive environment any more, let alone cope with the bastard commute, but I feel that maybe I should go once this year. Not too difficult to achieve. Maybe just for an afternoon or something. Dip my toe in.

Read a book. Doesn’t sound too difficult but I have a large pile of books and haven’t read a book since I last went on holiday in 2019. Maybe this year will be different.

Finish decluttering. I’m struggling to find things to get rid of now, but there definitely is stuff that can go. I have about 200 items listed on Ebay, and still about 50 Mixmags to list.

Have no savings at some point. Normally I have a savings goal and a charity goal, but as I want to buy an over-priced shoebox somewhere, the goal will be to have zero savings at some point. I will still give to charity as and when, but I’m not going to be proactive about it. Soz.

Future Years…

I remember last year saying that 2022 would be the year that I find a Spanish wife. I’m just going to put that back a bit to 2023. And next year I’ll put it back to 2024.

Though, in my defence, last year I also said that 2022 would be the year I got promoted to senior software engineer (2021 was) and 2023 would be the year that I could afford an over-priced shoebox, but 2022 might be.

But other than to just keep progressing with the above, where do I want to be in 2030?

To have visited 50 countries would be nice. To have actually lost weight. To be a principal engineer. To have either paid off my mortgage or have a really expensive but dreamy London house with a mortgage. Maybe even with a dog. Or maybe better a cat, as they don’t need so much attention.

But it is all what I’m working towards anyway.

Onwards.