January 13, 2013
Goals
Tags:
Goals
A year has again quickly passed and it is time to assess the goals I
set last year and
decide what I want to achieve in the coming year. Last year I said I
would:
- Blog at an average rate of at least 3 times a month. Result:
achieved. 43 blog posts in 12 months.
- Complete the game demo and send it out for comments. Result:
achieved. I completed a prototype of Concealed
Intent
around mid-year and had some positive feedback. I then started on
the proper game and sent out an early build to a friend - more
positive feedback with some constructive criticism. I’m confident
enough in the idea that I will continue.
- Be able to run. Result: achieved. I can run for about 10 minutes
(at a slow speed) with no complaint by my feet or ankles the next
day. It’s not much, but it’s a definite improvement. My feet are not
100%, they sometimes feel a bit tight, but I haven’t had any pain
for months.
- Decrease net ownership of physical goods. Result: achieved
(just). I got rid of all my DVDs, some books, old clothes and many
unnecessary papers (e.g. 9 year old bank statements). On the other
side of the ledger I acquired a laptop. I know that everything I own
now fits in around 11 packing boxes and two suitcases. It will be
hard to make further decreases without getting rid of my books, CDs
or desktop PC.
- Leave the UK. Result: achieved. I now live in Kuala
Lumpur and
plan to be here for the next 4 years. After 6 weeks, I like it here.
I don’t think enjoyment of life will be a problem, but I just need
to be mindful of my career for when it comes time to leave.
- Maintain general Blender, Ruby and Scala skills. Result:
partial. I have barely touched Blender and haven’t used Ruby at
all. However, my Scala skills were improved by the Functional
Programming course from
Coursera.
There is talk of a follow-on course teaching more advanced concepts
in Scala - I look forward to it.
Not a bad track record. I think it helps to just focus on a few things
rather than trying to achieve too much. For the coming year, I will:
- Finish or nearly finish Concealed Intent to a saleable level. I want
to complete the game to at least public beta where it just requires
some fine-tuning and bug-fixing. The aim is to sell the finished
game and at least break even. Thus I will continuously promote the
game through the year, to build awareness. I will aim to build a
community as early as possible. Especially for the purposes of
gaining feedback (to this end I hope to soon’ish produce an alpha
build with a wider testing audience). Starting soon, I hope to
produce nearly weekly updates on progress at Jarrah
Technology.
And that is it! Well no, there are a couple more, but Concealed Intent
is going to be such a focus over the coming year, it deserves a list to
itself.
- Blog at an average rate of at least 3 times a month. Never more than
4 a month. The level of effort required to maintain this blog over
the last year seems about right to me. Many of the technical posts
will probably migrate to the Jarrah Technology blog, so this will
become largely memories, travels and general thoughts.
- Exercise 3 times a week. For the first time in 6 years, I have both
the time to exercise and I’m injury-free. While my first priority is
to stay injury-free, I also want to become fit again, rather than
being puffed after just a slow 10min run.