First: Thanks for all great submissions and for all high quality and interesting comments from all you users here on HN.
Second: Do you have any plans for the new year, new skills to learn, excited over any new project, looking forward to something, should you do anything different this year, etc?
Personally I never had any "new year promises", neither this year, but I have at least a "goal/plan" this year, to do something different; Consume less, create/learn more. It is so easy just surf the web consuming stuff because you are bored, that in the end gives you nothing/little in the end. This year I will try to use more of my time to try to learn stuff that interest me or can be useful. I probably will fail miserably, but at least its a plan :) And now I have said it, on the internet, so best I stick to it :)
Once again Happy New Year
1. Read more books, less social media/news.
2. Spend more time with my friends. I haven't seen some of them IRL for more than a year.
3. Exercise more, play tennis with my daughter, spend quality time with my kids.
4. Spend more time with my parents. They've become visibly older in the last years, an observation that scares me.
5. Focus more on marketing for the businesses that I've bootstrapped. All the shiny new features that are developed are not as important as getting more people to use your product.
6. Promote open-source project to 1k GitHub stars[1]. I know it isn't very meaningful, but it's just nice to receive a bit of recognition from the community.
7. Enjoy life, don't stress about all the little things that happen along the way.
Happy new year!
[1] https://github.com/AddictedCS/soundfingerprinting
Are the open source work and the business marketing part of/all of the “work” that you want to do less of? If so, what is your plan for balancing doing less of it while still trying to accomplish those goals?
Balancing it with other duties is going to be hard, though I will try to explicitly divide my time into "one-week marketing / one-week dev work." Inside each week, I will try to have days fully reserved for non-work activities.
Programming keeps me in this perpetual cycle of "one more thing for today/this week" which locks me in the IDE without end in sight. I will postpone any dev work that needs to be done until "dev work week" arrives.
[1] - https://devmarketing.xyz
- I want to reduce/eliminate my alcohol consumption to become a person that doesn't rely on alcohol for social distraction or self-medication. To achieve this I have stopped keeping any alcohol in my home. If I have a drink it will need to be out somewhere and by virtue a 'special occasion'.
- I want to improve my work-life balance by setting expectations that I am unavailable after 5pm. I aspire to be someone who can remain a high performer while also finding and following my passions. This year I will continue to shape those passions. There is no real milestone that I feel I need to set.
I'm trying to do something similar. I have this terrible habit--that I suspect many, many people also do--of thinking that "future me" will be far more capable than present me, that in one year I'll be less anxious, more courageous, less fearful, more outgoing, etc.
(On a smaller time scale, people who struggle with kicking bad habits do the same thing, myself included. I will tell myself, "starting tomorrow, I will once and for all stop {drinking too much soda, eating too much}!" Tomorrow-Me is Hercules, with the willpower of Zeus and the indomitable spirit of a world-class athlete. Of course I end up spending tomorrow drinking soda like a fish drinks water, only to tell myself that "tomorrow will be different.")
Inevitably what ends up happening is that one year from then I'm still the same person, and all I have done is kick the can down the road on so many opportunities--the party I didn't go to because I didn't know anyone; the lunch I made an excuse to skip because I was embarrassed that my old friends were farther along in life than I was (whatever that even means); the interview I turned down because I "wasn't ready yet." While doing these things, I told myself that some indefinite period from now, I'll be this perfect human who is ready to do all of those things, and that right now I'm a flawed person who isn't ready to do those things just yet.
But that perfect human never came to be, and the flawed human is what remains. It's tautological to say this, but nothing changes if nothing changes. I won't be magically courageous or outgoing one year from now if I don't actually embrace the nervous and shy person that I am today. And I hope that if I embrace it, accept that I'll fall and stumble, and try to make little progress along the way, then one year from now I can look back and say, "I'm still not a perfect human and never will be, but I'm satisfied that I did ___."
Tonight at midnight will be my 9th year alcohol free. For me personally, it has been wonderful not to depend on alcohol.
No matter what you do, just take it one day at a time and best of luck.
Sadly this did cause some social life problems. I had to mostly replace the people I hang out with.
For more information, see https://www.reddit.com/r/Alcoholism_Medication/, or https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=6EghiY_s2ts, or https://www.dropbox.com/s/60fs7gmvbyzs1kk/Cure%20for%20Alcoh... (warning: large pdf)
* Congrats on removing alcohol from the home thats a big first step, keep that one aspiration and I think it'll have a profound impact. Not trying to push this at all , but CBD ( delta8 ) helped me with the cravings ( its kind of like the side effect of smoking weed, you're relaxed and somewhat sleepy but not 'stoned' ).
I don't even know if Delta8-CBD exists but if you go somewhere and ask for delta8, it's going to get you high and potentially be very not relaxing. If you ask for CBD specifically, it will not be highly psychoactive. Just be careful out there these days, it's only getting more confusing and marketing heavy.
Ali Abdaal expressed this well in this video - https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=0rkRC728rIU
I wish you all the best in your journey!
I think it’s really good for setting expectations.
My notifications in Teams and Outlook stop coming to my phone in my off hours. You may need to go to the phone settings and change notifications to say do not notify outside of work hours or something similar.
I had a sip of champagne about 10 years ago, prior to that my last drink was probably around 2002 or so.
I don't miss it a bit. Stopping drinking is one of the best decisions I've ever made.
I want to finally get my first job as a developer. I have been trying to transition into tech for the past two years. I have been teaching general and advanced mathematics in high schools here in Nigeria. My goal will be to finally land a programming job in 2022.
Anyone hiring or any senior looking to take a valuable junior under his belt I'm open to working, learning and adding great value. My email is in my profile. I look forward to hearing from anyone.
I hope you find something useful in that. If you have any questions or need help, feel free to email me (in profile). Btw your email is not visible in your profile. You need to add it in the about field. The account email value is private.
All the best and happy new year!
My email is tolexreal7@gmail.com. Thanks.
Hundreds of posts from within the community.
Thanks everyone for your kind words and encouragement.
Finding the first job is always really stressful, and I really hope you find what you are looking for.
Happy New Year!
Everyone is entitled to live the way they prefer (within certain limits), of course! :) But I would want to “consume better” instead of “consuming less”.
Consume things made sustainably, buy quality products made by small/family businesses, purchase more services rather than goods, avoid consuming things made by big corporations under regimes that go against the values I believe in, support technologies that move humanity closer to the future that appears to be “a better future”, etc.. I hope that this does not sound too contrarian and does not offend anybody! Peace and happy New Year to everyone!
Several conversations with tech folks lead me to believe that I would do very well in UX. I feel skeptical of boot camps, but here in Minneapolis the impression seems to be that Prime is a useful ‘box-check’ for obtaining a junior position. Any Twin Cities HN’ers have insight into whether (or to what degree) that’s true?
I feel apprehensive about the “flood of junior candidates, dearth of senior talent” dynamic.
Thoughts/comments/connections would be appreciated.
Email in profile.
Since a lot of tech work is still people work (communicating clearly, managing expectations, etc), I suspect you'd be a better candidate than someone straight out of college.
Many people I know (myself included) are looking less at overall skillset and more for a good understanding of the fundamentals + a desire to grow and stick with a role (ethic).
That is, if you can focus on understanding the core principles of UX/design and show that you can apply those (usually by way of portfolio showing the desires, and therefore your comprehensive of the desires + the outcomes), that means a lot more because most teams realize that hiring someone is an investment and they know that it will take you time to understand how they work, their needs, etc.
My aim this coming year is to work smarter, not harder. In fact, I want to spend less time on the computer, and more time with my horses - while still maintaining the same or higher level of productivity.
It would be nice to finally unleash my (10+ year and counting...) pet project on the world - but that still requires a transition from vapour to code ;)
Happy New Year!