2023 in review

(Last year’s post: 2022 in review)

Retro on last year

Here’s the start/stop/continue I wrote last year, along with comments about how that went.

Start

• Recurring scheduled date nights with Nancy: this did not happen at all, date nights were few and far between and that makes me sad.
• Focus on growing as a parent (read a dang book, idiot): I didn’t read a dang book but I do feel like an overall more involved and more patient parent.
• Spring and/or fall vacations with family: Yep, both!
• Being honest and saying no: Some good and some bad with this.
• Eating at the table every night: We’re halfway there. We successfully have all the kids eating at the table each night, but often by the time Nancy and I are done running around, the kids are already done eating, so it’s been rare that all six of us are actually eating together for a whole meal.

Stop

• Small talk: Pretty good here, I think, mostly by removing the things in my life where small talk was expected. Examples: I cut out those 1-1 chats that pair me up randomly with folks at my company, and having podcast guests on that we didn’t know super well).
• Spending weekends in the house:
• Getting freaking sick (wash your stupid hands, idiot): Somehow I haven’t been sick in 6 months. I’m wondering if my focus on gut farming has helped (because 70% of the immune system is located in the gut) but probably I’ve just been lucky.
• Hacker News: I’ve handed off control of my screen time so this is officially a solved problem now.
• Eating junky carbs (they make you feel like crap every time): Basically solved (again, gut farming).

Continue

• Working at GitHub: Still here, still enjoying it!
• Reading and writing: Check and check.
• Using mycopilot.com: I quit in April of 2023 after it became obvious that it wasn’t motivating me to work out since I was already motivated. It was just making me feel guilty when I couldn’t due to sickness or whatever.
• Playing video games with my kids: Check! We recently discovered Heave Ho.

Like I did last time, here are the “six areas of life balance” from my goals page (and according to The 12 Week Year). I rated each one and chose the few things that made the biggest impact on each rating, both good and bad.

(Bold means it’s a repeat from last year.)

Category	Score 1-10	Most impactful: good	Most impactful: bad
Physical	8	– Gut farming and going all in on unprocessed foods and plants – Using Fitbod for lifting routines that aren’t repetitive – Going to a gym instead of lifting at home – Starting my first ever clean, slow bulk phase	– Skipping the long runs – Lifting without bulking or cutting so it does basically nothing
Business	7	– Learning to say “let me think about it” – Writing weekly letters to my team – Intentional vulnerability and growth mindset in every conversation – Giving a company talk about feedback – Moving to bi-weekly 1-1s with direct reports	– Slack (because time suck) – Taking on a 2nd team (made April-June mega stressful with no benefit) – Lack of a goal or growth path (I’m unmotivated because I’m happy where I’m at)
Family	7	– Lots of family vacations – Playing video games together – Hiking at Paris Mountain – Going to visit Great Grandaddy in Virginia – Doing anything outside in general – Having family over regularly to play cards – Handing off control of my screen time (so I’m less distracted) – Working 40 hours or less	– Losing my temper with my kids – The constant battle over trying to get them to eat healthy food – The constant battle over trying to get them to not be addicted to screens
Community	6	– Making some actual work friends who don’t report to me – Keeping up recurring zoom chats with a few friends – Being at my company for longer naturally creates more connections	– Spending weekends at home – Generally avoiding talking with people I don’t know super well – Lack of work trips/offsites due to budget
Personal	8	– Reading (especially towards the end of the year) – Working from Panera instead of home – Getting a puppy 🐶 (this could have gone in “Family” too because she has brought us together, and she’s family too) – Writing this blog (927 posts published now!) – But also skipping the blog when I’m on vacation – Running and exercising for mental health, especially the long Paris Mountain runs	– Ditching audiobooks and listening to stupid podcasts – Therapy, which ironically became an added source of stress/anxiety
Spouse	9	– Date trip to Biltmore Estate for her birthday – 2ish hours of us time each night – Laughing at stupid Instagram reels together – Nancy working hard to fight her anxiety	– Not many date nights – Me being bad at talking about how I feel

Takeaways for this year

Here are the themes I’m seeing:

Start

• Regular date nights (or even date lunches) with Nancy
• Blocking Slack as much as possible (I got lazy on this in 2023)
• Listening to audiobooks again
• Getting us all at the table at the same time for dinner

Stop

• Listening to stupid podcasts
• Staying inside just because it’s a little chilly outside

Continue

• Taking as many vacations as possible
• Bi-weekly 1-1s instead of weekly
• Going to an actual gym instead of lifting at home
• Eating right
• Writing as much as possible
• Date trips with Nancy (like one to Europe in March!)
• Letting Nancy control my screen time
• Reading a lot (got in a good rhythm in December)

No big insights this year. Generally I feel like my life is pretty great right now, so that tracks! Here’s to keeping that going in 2024.