2023 was a dramatically different experience for me than any other year of my adult life.
It was a year of “more” in many ways, as I opened my apertures in many areas to take in and evaluate more sources.
It also came with a big area of “less”, as in, less full-time work because I was unemployed for more than half of the year.
Stats
During 2023 I …
spent 28 weeks un(der)employed (Laid off June 1. Started a new job December 18.)
read ~35 books and ~100 articles/posts
listened to ~250 episodes totaling ~7,500 minutes across ~45 podcasts
My Top 3 Podcasts were: The Tim Ferriss Show, The Knowledge Project, The Engineering Leadership Podcast
wrote 27 Substack posts and 10 LinkedIn posts
listened to 67,121 minutes of music across 3,837 songs, 1,225 artists, and 65 genres
saw two Nathaniel Rateliff concerts and one special event with Geddy Lee
What I Learned This Year
People care. Even people you barely know.
I have more friends than I previously believed.
I am an ambivert. (Thank you to Brené Brown. Check out this excellent episode of ReThinking with Adam Grant for more.)
Be careful who you trust and believe, and how much.
Keep a record of the value you provide, and don’t sell yourself short.
Your resume and LinkedIn profile have very little to do with getting a job these days. The same with applying.
Network. Network. Network. (And networking isn’t as hard, time consuming, or “gross” as you’re making it.)
The strength of weak ties. (Directly related to #7.)
I’ve waited until my 50th year to wake up and figure things out.
I haven’t been dealing with my shit.
Musical Interlude
If you’re looking for a song to go with this post, my choice is A Long December by Counting Crows.
A long December and there's reason to believe
Maybe this year will be better than the last
I almost always have a strong emotional response to this song. Sadness. And it has usually made me cry as I sing along.
It came on when I was driving last week and I didn’t have that response. I think 2023 changed me.
In fact, as the years go by I have found the Christmas season to be a bad time of year for me. I tend to get depressed. More so when I take time off from work and I’m not busy, i.e. distracted.
I didn’t feel that way this year. Yes, I was working … barely. But the entire holiday season felt different. I hope it was a turning point.
2024 will be a Reboot
I want 2024 to be a year of intentionality and Essentialism, i.e. fewer but better.
My goals are meant to be simple, not easy. Jocko Willink would call much of this “getting back on the path”. Yeah, that tracks.
My reboot will focus on three areas:
Personally I will seek out more pleasure and joy in my life by …
investing in relationships more
getting back to riding my motorcycle
expanding and enriching my soundscape
leaning into new experiences by saying Yes more when I’d typically say No
Physically I will lose 50 pounds by my 50th birthday (and end the year at 12% body fat) by …
exercising 5 times a week
re-baselining by eliminating alcohol, caffeine, sugar, and grain for 90 days (Thank you to Tim Ferris for the idea. Checkout episode #712 of The Tim Ferriss Show for more.)
engaging in intermittent fasting and multiple multi-day fasts
Professionally I will advance my career by
completing two certifications (likely both will be AWS)
Posting more consistently here (every two weeks) and on LinkedIn (1-2 times per week)
I also intend to
Read fewer books. Less than 30 new books driven by a planned reading list of 20.
Re-read ~5 books
Listen to fewer podcasts with more preference for my top rated ones and significantly less of others.
Better Ways
This is the first time I have done a year end review. I hadn’t encountered the concept until a year ago and it resurfaced in episode #712 of The Tim Ferriss Show. (Where else right?) The idea is to use it as a replacement for New Year’s Resolutions and to inspect our past results and adapt and improve upon them in the coming year.
My 2023 year end review didn’t take very long. (Although it might be hard to tell based on when I am posting.) In the process I identified a few things I need to improve in my systems to make it easier and richer in the future. And there are a few things that I could improve but I will probably choose the satisficing path over trying to maximize them.
In my opinion, performing a year end review is a better way.
P.S. I plan to change when I do my year end reviews to the end of August, right after my birthday.
I have two reasons for this change.
There’s often plenty to do at the end of the calendar year, especially events that afford us opportunities to invest in relationships, which is essential to my personal reboot. And when the new year begins, there’s an equal amount demanding our time and attention (especially in our professional lives). The period of time around my birthday, the last week of August through Labor Day, is not impacted by these same factors.
I feel there’s more significance to ending another year of life as a human, another trip around the sun as it were, than there is to ending another arbitrary calendar year. This also affords me the opportunity to plan for longer arcs based on significant life milestones like the next decade of my life, a loved one or friend’s milestone, or retirement (maybe someday). This is another idea I picked up from a podcast which mentioned how Steve Martin set a focus for each decade of his life, i.e. his 20’s, 30’s, 40’s etc. I can at least start doing this with my 50’s. (I wish I could find the episode and share it with you, but no luck on this one.)