10 For 2024: The Final Tally

THE FINAL TALLY IS HERE:

I'm going to call this an okay year. Made progress on a lot of things, succeeded at some, failed at others. I think next year I'm going to have to be more concrete in my goals that way they're not so vague and hard to quantify the way some of these are. But in general, a final record of 4.5-2-3 on the year isn't... terrible. But not my best work either.

On to 2025!

1. Book 4: Get this book into draft form (close to, if not ready to launch-- fingers crossed!) by the end of the year. I have some other writing goals as well, but this is going to be my big, main focus for the year.

Book 4 is still grinding and nowhere near draft form. FAIL.

2. Get Another Tattoo: I might get really crazy and get two! (But for real: no reason why it can't happen this year. Money is being accumulated. The date just needs to be set to do the deed.)

Behold, a SUCCESS.


3. The Health Thing: Okay, so I'm going to get away from numbers on scales this year. It's just a waste of my time and a waste of this space. But I do need to do something here, so I'm going to aim for the following: a. ten minutes of activity a day (kettlebell, walking, stretching-- whatever, something!), b. eat more protein-- I'm going to aim for 100g of protein a day, but we'll see how that goes and c. be outside more, especially with the kids.  

Although I'm fighting a cold at the time of this writing, I'm going to call this a SUCCESS. Don't know if I met all the benchmarks I listed above, but I finished the year healthier and (I'm pretty sure) smaller than I started it, so I'll take the W.

4. Uncomfortable Confession Time: I have never been super good at managing money. I've been very much of a hand-wavey, stagger into the next month like a college student on a post-Finals bender type of a money manager and I'm getting kind of embarrassed by it. The goal for this year-- I don't think I'll be Dave Ramsey or Suzie Orman by year's end, but I would like to actively not be shit at the money thing.

Gonna call this a 'WORK IN PROGRESS'

5. I think I could stand to be a better listener. A more active, present listener who actually absorbs what's being said to me and acts on it. In general, just being more active and present in my own life is something that I would like to work on. Not sure how I'm going to measure this one, but I'm putting it down anyway.

Same. WORK IN PROGRESS-- but I'm also not sure how I would measure that one.

6. I pitch a good game with ambitious projects and things to do, but I could be better at taking the lead/initiative on all of these things. I'm not sure how I'm going to measure this one either, but I'm putting it down anyway. 

The more I read this one, the more I dislike it. It's super vague. But, a WORK IN PROGRESS

7. House Projects: Since I couldn't make grass grow last year, I'm targeting a trio of projects for this year. Redoing our Master Bedroom, Built-In Bookshelves for the Living Room, and some shelves for the Kid's Room.

I did replace a toilet flapper successfully and without incident AND managed to fix the icemaker as well. I'm going to call this a MILD SUCCESS.

8. Reading: I'm tempted to go all out for 50, but instead, I'm going to keep it modest and go for 40 books this year. I think that's achievable. Here's the Official TBR List for 2024, if you want to follow along. 

I'm going to wind up at about 31/40 books, which is 77% of my goal. Decent, but I didn't get there. FAIL.

9. Duolingo: I've been hitting Spanish pretty intensely these past couple of months-- in the New Year, I want to get back on a regular rotation of my languages and hit at least 1,000 days on my streak. (Plus, win the Diamond League at least once, if I can.)

1046-day streak as of this writing  SUCCESS.

10. The Annual Control Resolution: Have a List of New Year's Resolutions. (There, I'm guaranteed not to be a complete failure at this.)

Completed! SUCCESS

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