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2021 Year In review

2021 has come to an end, and I thought I would look back and see how it went. I did this last year as well.

I mentioned the Tim Ferris thing last year, and I’ll mention it again. I find it helpful.

Tim Ferris has a way of reviewing the year, he finds it more important than coming up with resolutions. You can read about it here

I find it interesting, so I’ll break down the main concept for you here:

Create 2 colums in a notebook, piece of paper, spreadsheet. Whatever works best for you. Label one POSITIVE and the other NEGATIVE

Go through your calendar, photos or blogs etc from the last year. For each week find people, activities or commitments that triggered a peak positive or negative emotion. Put that thing into the respective column.

Once you have done that for the last year, ask yourself. What 20% of each column produced the most reliable or powerful peaks.

For the positive ones, work out how to get more of those items in your life next year. Start planning now.

The ones in the negative list now get put into another list called NOT TO DO. Put this somewhere you can see it, and make sure not to do these things that can cause you stress, make you miserable, cause problems in your life.

There we go, a nice and simple way to look at the past year.

I also like to look at my projects over the last year and write down what went well, what didn’t and what I can do in the future.

So this is the 2020 end of year break down for each one.

WebSam Website

Lets kick things off first by talking about this website.

Positives:

  • I simplified the website yet again.
  • I removed the newsletter signup form.

Negatives

  • Blog posts weren’t prioritized or really planned at all. I did want to do more, but I find these posts are at the end of my to do lists.
  • I changed the website over to use Guttenberg, the standard setup WordPress comes up with now. I really want to like it, but I personally find it a pain in the ass. Every little part of text becomes a block. I’m sticking with it for now, but yeah a pain in the ass.

Future Plans
I’m adding the partially written ebook I had in mind as blog posts on the site. Better to have it out in the world than not. Biggest problem is copying and pasting it into the blog, then trying to get it to look normal. Guttenberg is not helping me.

Giant Pumpkins NZ

Positives

  • I planned out more social media content ahead of time. Seems to work well. People like the memes.
  • Lots more engagement from growers this year, which is great to see.
  • New location, new challenges and hopefully bigger pumpkins.
  • Posted a lot more shorter videos without worrying too much about editing and finish of them. Seem to work well.

Negatives

  • Selling seeds was a pain this year. It’s such small quantities, with problems with germination etc. So spent more on postage and sending replacements.
  • Didn’t get around to updating some of the pages on the website. Not sure why I have such a mental block with doing this.

Future Plans
Continue with updates on the site and posting interesting things. Work on future plans.

The Great Pumpkin Carnival

Positives

  • We had our event this year. With a new NZ record.
  • We got more funding than ever for next years event.

Negatives

  • Couldn’t sell our seedlings this year in the usual way – gave them away instead

Future Plans
I’m not really feeling this at all anymore. I find it hard to get enthused about it, and I’m really thinking of stepping away from this after next years event.

Op Shop Directory NZ

Positives

  • Consistent visitors to the website over the year.
  • Added Google ads to the site again. Making a couple of $ a month
  • A lot more of the sites were checked and have automation set up to let me know of any changes.
  • Good open rates on email newsletters
  • I have a better way of checking major changes I do on the website.

Negatives

  • I didn’t get through all of the checks I wanted to do in regards to the listings I have on the site.

Future Plans
I want to get through the list and update them faster. Also will be good to connect with a set of Op Shops to test out some new things.

Podcasting

Positives

  • We stayed on track for The Chris and Sam podcast, publishing super consistently throughout the year.
  • We recorded a lot remotely, which helped with scheduling.
  • We went to Fieldays and interviewed some interesting people.

Negatives

  • No other podcasting ideas were done this year.
  • Armageddon was postponed, and we didn’t want to go on the new date.
  • Listening stats went down over lockdowns, and didn’t bounce back.

Future Plans
Probably stick to more of the same.

Everything Else

Positives

  • Girlfriend and I moved in together, which was great. We joke that maybe after 7 years of long distance, and knowing each other for so much longer, maybe we are rushing things.
  • We moved house. A better house, better location, and it all went quite smoothly.
  • We lost flatmates, which was good in general. But can be a bit hard on the bank account.
  • I came up with an idea for a newsletter and built the website for it over a weekend.
  • Got some more Lifetime Deals on software. Which helps me a lot.
    • Main one is a newsletter service. Which I can use across all brands, and works well with open rates and features.
  • Managed to make some spare cash with some free things I have access to.

Negatives

  • I seemed to have a bad case of ringworm. Took a while to get it cleared up.
  • Wasn’t as active as I would have liked to be
  • Twisted my ankle at the start of the year, thought it had come right. But now it is sore again. Managing it, but will need to get it looked at.

Future Plans

  • Move new projects forward, to the point where they might make some money.
  • Plan to be more active, focusing onw hat I eat and get moving more.
  • Figure out what works for me and what doesn’t. Focus on the things that do.
  • Hoping to upgrade some things around here.

So that’s my review. It’s not the most detailed review, but it does let me look at things at a higher level.

How’s your year been? Let me know in the comments below.



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