“All these little failures. My year in review” — Bill Mallonee “My Year in Review”

A new year is about to begin, so it seems appropriate to reflect on the previous one. The 2012 year started with the family in Nebraska so my son could receive some specialized medical care. We had been there since early December 2011. It was a long month.

For 2012 I had set some goals. They included losing some weight, launching a couple of mobile apps, and reading more books from the “The List.”

On the losing weight front, I didn’t really get very far until the last month or so, but once I concentrated on it, the weight started to come off. You can find more details on all of this in my post about the Fitbit.

My plan for launching mobile apps was also kind of a bust. There are a few reasons for this though. While I didn’t launch any mobile apps, I did launch CodeCasts.tv, Jotting Journal, and I helped a friend launch a thing he was working on. Jotting Journal is something I’m particularly proud of as it went from it’s first lines of code to launching in 30 days, which I think is an amazing turn around.

For CodeCasts.tv, I did launch it, managed to stay ahead of myself, then we had a small home accident that involved my office and CodeCasts.tv kind of fell to the side. I’ve scripted out the final 2 episodes for the current series on Git, and once I get them recorded and uploaded, I will make all the Git videos available in one go. Then I have to decide if I want to try and continue the weekly releases or just release things as I get them done. I like the idea of consistency but I know that I won’t always be able to meet the deadlines. If you have some thoughts on where CodeCasts.tv should go as far as the release cycle is concerned, let me know in the comments.

So no mobile apps this year, but Jotting Journal mobile apps are in the works for release some time next year. It’s actually my primary technology related goal for 2013 and something I won’t skimp on because I’m really excited to get it done to better Jotting Journal’s market position.

On the subject of books, I read a lot last year. I managed to beat my goal of 2 books a month. I hit my goal of the number of “list books” I wanted to read. A large number of the books I read this year were from the “Dresden Files” series. Those books were a whole lot of fun, and I highly recommend them to anyone looking for a solid bit of fun reading. I could have probably read more list books, but instead I decided to do a Bible reading plan that allowed me to get through the Bible within the year. Since I gave it precedence I managed to finish the entire Bible in less than a year. I’m happy with the trade off. I hope to add more “list books” to my “have read” list in 2013.

So 2012 had some dropping the ball, dropping it and then picking it up in another place, and hitting a home run. You’re not going to meet all the goals you set for yourself, but any progress is still progress. Remember:

“‘Dead last’ is greater than ‘Did not finish’ which trumps ‘Did not start.'”