2013 was a year full of changes.
At the start of 2013, I was continuing my long-term role as the Director of Interactive Marketing for a turnstile manufacturing company. A few months in, I had changed direction and went on to work with a local advertising firm, ending my freelancing work in the process. Then, right before the ending of the year, I moved on to an in-house project for an eCommerce company dedicated to helping people save money and educating on the value of those savings.
Not only did I go through professional changes, but my lovely wife, Jessica, made a bolder change. In the summer of 2013, she launched an online store, The Confetti Bar, selling nothing but custom, hand-made confetti. In pursuit of her dreams, she made the terrifying leap in November to quit her day job and make confetti full-time.
And with all the changes going on with and around me, I come back to this blog. My lonely blog, which has been so neglected, two years worth of posts show up in a listing of my ten most recent ones.
In the entirety of 2013, I managed to whip up a grand total of… Five blog posts.
Five. Blog. Posts.
2013 was a year of changes, but you wouldn’t have known it from my count.
And for 2014, I want to make a few more changes.
For This Blog
I want to start publishing posts on a regular schedule. Maybe just twice a week to start and see where it goes.
While I’ll continue to write my thoughts on happenings in the web design and technology industries, I want to cover more about the projects I’m working on and my learning experiences with them. Hopefully, they’ll either be (at best) insightful to those wanting to do the same as myself and comment their thoughts back, or (at worst) entertaining enough to share with others.
Using Jeff Goins’ model for encouraging writing and blogging, I’m going to attempt to keep the word count of each blog post around 500. Granted, his post was to encourage people to write every day for the month of January, but it is encouraging nonetheless, even to start off on a twice-a-week writing schedule.
My To Do List
As for some possible projects for this year, here’s my To Do list—not to be mistaken for New Years resolutions, which implies that items may not get completed:
I’m finally going to do the one project I’ve always wanted to do since I was a child but never had the nerve to go ahead and start: create a video game. I’ll start off small, but maybe over time, it will lead to several games.
With my love of gaming, I want to get into the habit of broadcasting live streaming through my Twitch page more. Right now, I have the right equipment, but not the best positioning to do so naturally. Plus, I need to work on my broadcast voice.
On the topic of broadcasting, I want to start creating more videos for the web. Not exactly sure on what, but maybe I’ll find ways to incorporate them into my blog posts, thereby killing two birds with one stone. A few minute video equals 500 words, right?
Lastly (at least for this short list), I want to take a stab at creating a niche site and attempting to deliver relevant information while monetize it with affiliate and commission-based methods. I’m thinking something around video games (see a pattern here?), but maybe something else will get my attention.
With being three days into the new year and I’m already playing catch up, here‘s to the memories of 2013 and cheers to the new year! As @minnixio told me on Twitter the other day, “Let’s rock it together!” Who’s with me?
Indeed, has been a little while since you’ve last posted, nice to know how 2013 was for you. Coincidentally, I too have taken on this mentality of a “to-do list” as opposed to a “new years resolution.” Resolutions themselves lack the structure of what an aim/goal is. I have more of a list of things to do for the first two weeks and then later decide what to do in the two weeks after that.
Absolutely! Having lists and schedules is an excellent way to make sure things get done. It’s also good to break large, single items into multiple items. For example, my “to do” of making a video game cannot possibly be a single item; whereas, having several items for design and development will make the process go much smoother. Thanks for your input too and I hope 2014 goes great for you too!