Tag: goals

I set goals at the beginning of the year, and I’m tracking my progress in these updates during 2021.

The last review of the year. I need to set new goals, but I’ll actually do that the first week of the year, taking a little time next week to think.

2021 Grade: C+

I don’t think I did OK here with the year of goals, but I learned a few things about setting goals and how to tackle them for next year. That will inform my view of the future.

This year wasn’t supposed to be as busy. With no real end to the pandemic in sight, I thought I’d be home more often, with a little more time to work on myself, but that was a mistake. I got quite busy, and I found myself spending more time away from deep technical topics.

Not a bad thing, but it affected my goals. As usual, reading is easier for me than working on technical problems, and that aligns with a lot of what I do for work.

Here is where I finished in the various areas:

Reading

I’ve been working through a few books around the fiction that captivates me. I like the feedback book, but I find myself stopping and thinking often. It’s going slower than expected. The Project to Product was good, making me rethink how I would tackle software in a company.

The GE one was personally interesting as I wanted to work there when I was in university. It’s almost more of a history book, but it confirms what I thought. A dysfunctional place to work that played with finance more than they were amazing business people. They were good business people, but not the star it appeared from the outside.

The PoSh book was a bit of a project, but I enjoyed it. I highly recommend this one.

Here’s the current progress:

• Non fiction – Project to Product – 100%
• Career – Lights Out: Pride, Delusion, and the Fall of General Electric – 100%
• Career – Thanks for the Feedback – 52%
• Technical – dbatools in a Month of Lunches – 100% (of what’s in the EAP)

Technical Skills

Here are the items I was aiming to work on this year:

• Certification –  AZ-900 – 0% (2 modules)
• Certification – DP-900 – 50% (14 modules)
• 50% of this is studying the general material
• 20% is the focused review
• 30% the test
• Skills – T-SQL – 2020 Advent of Code – 6/25 (2021 puzzles 4)
• Skills – Python – 2020 Advent of Code – 6/25
• Skills – PowerShell – 2020 Advent of Code – 6/25

Projects

My projects were in these areas.

• Support Local Events (or whatever the data platform one day event thing is)
  • Added 3 events manually in 2021
  • Managed to get SQL Saturday set up as an independent charity, a US 501.c.3 corp
  • 2 SQL Saturday events in 2021 (1 in-person, 1 virtual)
• Speak at the 3 local user groups, at least one live presentation
• Spoke at 2 groups. The third hasn’t had meetings.
• I did speak at 4 remote user groups
• Help organize a Denver/Colorado event, live or virtual
• Semi-failure. There wasn’t much interest in either, but I did get my session to the user group to be hybrid, and some people appreciated this.
• Complete my Power BI Volleyball report – Didn’t complete this, but it’s working for kids and parents to see some stats.

I set goals at the beginning of the year, and I’m tracking my progress in these updates during 2021.

I missed writing this in October. It was a stressful time with lots of deadlines, presentations, and travel.

I slacked off a bit in November, coming out of a busy work time and needing time away from my technical work. At least, outside of work. I also started coaching, and that required more personal time, so less career time.

Current Grade: C+

Given where I am, I think I’m middle of the road. I’ve done well on reading. I’ve made some project progress. A little technical skill work, but not enough.

Reading

I’ve been working through a couple books. I like the feedback one, but I find myself stopping and thinking often. The PoSh book is a bit of a project, but I’m enjoying it.

Here’s the current progress:

• Non fiction – Project to Product – 100%
• Career – Lights Out: Pride, Delusion, and the Fall of General Electric – 100%
• Career – Thanks for the Feedback – 24%
• Technical – dbatools in a Month of Lunches – 12%

Technical Skills

No coding here on the Advent of Code. I realized, however, that I’m not a great programmer. Some of these problems stump me and slow down my enthusiasm. I also don’t love the process of problem solving on the computer just for fun. I have too many other hobbies for this to be a priority.

I have, however, started studying for a certification. I’ve been going through the DP-900 modules, trying to learn a bit every day or two. I went through 3 modules in November after the Data Community Summit. I’ll keep going here.

Projects

No real changes here. Minor updates, but not enough time spent on these items. I have started to get organized for volleyball statistics for the new season and I need to document the process a bit to explain it to myself, as well as do some better data analysis.

I set goals at the beginning of the year, and I’m tracking my progress in these updates during 2021.

Not a lot of progress in September. I think this is a bit of a symptom of life for me, as I find myself in a career lull as I get near the end of summer each year. Perhaps a learning item for me is to tackle more things earlier in the year, or later, as I find the end of the year slow.

I’m also starting to think that my goals should be for part of a year, with a re-assessment at some point. Perhaps 2022 ought to be six month goals, or even 4 months goals and then create new ones, or leave some off.

Current Grade: C-

I’m leaving the same grade. Minor things accomplished. Mostly I think September was time away from work spent on life. A new car, chores before winter, and some time with my wife. No regrets here, other than my career stalled.

Reading

I did finish Lights Out, and I purchased Thanks for the Feedback. I opened it and got started. I also write a Lights Out review.

Here’s the current progress:

• Non fiction – Project to Product – 100%
• Career – Lights Out: Pride, Delusion, and the Fall of General Electric – 100%
• Career – Thanks for the Feedback – 0%
• Technical – TBD

Technical Skills

No real change here.  I have done much coding outside of work.

Projects

No real changes here. Minor updates, but not enough time spent on these items.