2018 Year in Review

It is almost the end of the year which means only one thing really, come up with some New Years resolutions actually instead of coming up with things like that to make yourself feel better, I think there is a lot more value in looking at the past year and seeing what worked and what didn’t.

The words YEAR IN REVIEW written in vintage letterpress type

2018 was…

On the whole I think it was fair to say it was a pretty good year.

What worked

  • Daily writing – I managed to write every single day of the year and every entry also had a photo to go along with it. I use Diaro and really like it, and the pro version is worth it and is a one off price which is cheap, check it out. I like being able to read what I was doing last year and for me it works better than a paper based journal.
  • Bullet Journal – I can’t remember if I posted about the latest layout I used for most of this year, I like it so much I have set up next years bullet journal with it. The bullet journal method works well for me, and I’m not artistic at all. Find out my views on it here and here
  • Consolidating information – I’ll do a post on this next year, but I have been using the writing program Scrivener for almost all my writing needs, it’s a program mainly used for writing novels, I use it for everything, including writing blog posts like this, I like it a lot.
  • The Gym – I like my gym, it’s open 24/7 and I can go to any other one in the world which is part of the membership and not some other add on expense (I’m looking at you Les Mills)
  • The Budget – I felt good about the budget this year, I think I was on top of everything and Christmas went smoothly.  I use YNAB to keep track of everything and I’ve talked about it here.
  • Stepping back and thinking do I really need this when wanting to buy new things.

What didn’t

  • Planning – I need to start with the big goals and break them down into smaller manageable chunks.
  • The Gym – I had really good months of going along to the gym mixed in with long periods of not going for various reasons. I worked out that I had been 112 time this year, more than I thought I had, but I would have liked to have been more.
  • The Budget – More precisely the debt repayment side of the budget, I’m behind where I wanted to be at this time of the year and am going to sort that out very soon.
  • Updating websites – No real consistency here, just spurts of energy when I felt like it.
  • Giant Veges NZ – I planned to launch this site this year, but am unsure of the need for it now. I’m thinking of focusing on the pumpkin site, but will keep this domain active for now.
  • The pumpkin podcast – Another thing I didn’t launch this year, I feel like I’m not in the right space right now for this. Not sure if that is me making excuses or I do need to wait until other things fall into place.

More of

  • More travels next year – This can be hard when trying to prioritise getting rid of debt.
  • More pumpkin goodness – Getting involved in things, creating and interacting, this year was slack in some areas.
  • Debt repayment – It’s so hard sometimes.
  • Gym time – Getting my ass along to the gym and doing something
  • Planning – In depth planning to make sure I use my time wisely (easier said than done)
  • More experiences over things

Less of

  • Bread – Damn I love me some bread and eat a lot of it, need to slow down on the white gold of the food world.
  • Beating myself up when I have a “less productive” day than I had planned.

There we go, that is everything that comes to mind. I’m sure 2019 will have it’s awesome bits, not so awesome bits and everything else in between. All while trying to remember that Life is 10% what happens and 90% how you react to it.

How’s your year been? Have you done a yearly review?



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