An overdue 2020 postmortem
As I imagine, most people’s 2020 was weird. Life has changed immeasurably in many ways; in as many ways for the better as the worse.
Mulligan?
My year started out strong with my resolutions. As February/March rolled around, and lockdown started to become a thing, I slipped on almost all my resolutions. I stopped writing blog posts, doing personal project work, reading books, and going to the gym. This isn’t a failure. This is a readjustment of priorities after several major life-changing events.
Hobbies
Due in part to an internet friend, I rescued my Warhammer 40,000 T’au army from basement storage to start painting again. What started as something fun to pass the time, has reignited my love for the hobby. I’ve painted all the models which I purchased several years ago. I am now in the process of buying and painting more. I have a goal to exit lockdown with a fully-painted 2000 point army in which I can take to events and tournaments.
The Warhammer 40k hobby was an excellent outlet for me. For at least an hour every day, I was able to escape to the hobby; turning my brain off.
To help me feel better about the backlog of models to paint, and assemble, I created a project log section of my site.
Coding
As I dedicated more time to the Warhammer 40k hobby, I had less time to devote to personal coding projects. I regret not spending more time on this, but this is something I’m hoping to focus on more in 2021.
Exercise
All my gym-based lifting goals were hard-reset during this year. Considering no one in my area had access to a gym for several months, this isn’t to be expected. My net lifting gains for the year were minimal.
Onward to 2021
I’ve copy/pasted most of my 2020 goals into 2021. There are a few other things I’d love to do; including:
- Redesigning padraig.io, leveraging the MDX upgrades I made back in February 2020
- Open source contributions
- 1+ blog post(s) a month
- Fully painting a Warhammer 40k army, and vaccine pending: participating in a tournament this year