2025 Year in Review

Welcome to 2026. What will it bring? Who knows. Hopefully more good things than bad.

This is the post I write to help reflect on the past year. I’ve found it useful as a brain dump, a way to remember the last year as well a post I can refer back on in the future.

I’ll be using the same format I used for the 2024 and 2023 review.

While this is mostly for me, if you are reading this and haven’t done something like this before I highly recommend coming up with your own process. It’s a useful exercise to help remind you what you’ve done, what’s important and maybe help you focus on different areas in 2026.

General Overview

First off this is a great time to sit down and think about what you have done, experienced or taken part in over the last 12 months,

Last year the big thing for me was my new job. Changing careers and doing something different is exciting and scary at the same time.

For 2025 I think work, and this new job did dominate a lot of time for me. Which isn’t a bad thing, it’s just how it was.

With the change of job and time available it made me realise how little time people have to do things they might want to do.

With the copious amounts of time I had at the old job over 10 years I was very lucky. Time to dig into 2025 and how it all went down.

Highlights

New Job;

The new job was a highlight like it was last year, this year because:

• Team is really good
• Learned even more, with training and site visit opportunities
• Hours are pretty good, Mon-Fri

Misty Flicks Films Festival

Another year another film festival. This one went really smoothly, which was great. We had a good bunch of people helping us out.

I spent a lot of time working on this. It took up a lot of time, from meetings to setting aside time to sort things out.

While we have a good core basis of how to run this event, know what we can improve on which is great, we have a lot of things to figure out for next year which means more meetings.

Podcasting

In general this went great, I tweaked a few more things to help streamline how it is done, and started to promote it more in December which seems to be having promising results.

I’ve started working on short clips to share around which seems to have shown an increase of downloads. I’ll continue with this and see how it goes.

I’ve also started working on a new podcasting project.

Trips & Outings

Right now I am writing this while in Christchurch for Christmas and New Years, which is nice for a change of scenery.

Went to a Lego show this year, Balloons over Waikato and a couple of craft type shows.

Don’t think there was any big trips that happened this year.

Other Things

Fieldays this year again for the podcast. Which led me to starting a new project.

Just recently I got a new refurbished laptop for $179. It seems to be working OK, and is what I am writing this on currently.

I found an app that I really like that helps me keep track of what I need to do each day, helps me record easily what I am up to as well as help sort projects, very happy to find a tool that covers everything for me,

Lowlights

Very similar to last years topics to be honest.

Balancing Things

It’s been very hard to get things done on many different projects. Work can really take it out of me some days. Being constantly on and staring at computer screens means you don’t really want to do it when you have spare time.

While the job is great, I can see how people in corporate worlds have enough and want to get out and do something random like open a coffee cart.

So while I’ve noted it down as a lowlight, it is more about the things I know to keep in mind when I have the time to work on them.

Part of this is making sure the things I can create once and have sitting there are done to a high standard.

Health

Usual story, need to do more physical activity. The working on a computer most of the day, and then maybe in my spare time is not good.

My wrist had problems this year, mainly from overuse of the mouse and keyboard. Got it under control, but will need to do some more work around making it better in the future.

Money

For most of the year there just wasn’t enough spare cash to do other things apart from day to day living.

I will say I probably spent more on food this year than I have in the past. From random coffee outings at work, to not planning meals out as well as we could have.

This looks to be changing soon though. The money that is, and hopefully the food situation.

2026 Planning and Thinking

This is the part where I talk a bit more in depth about the different areas or things I want to work on.

Productivity

The big thing with this is knowing what you need to do then making sure you do it when you have time set aside for it.

I will say I haven’t been stuck watching much content this year around productivity. Was either tired, or didn’t have the time to do it.

Find a system or tool that works for you. Use it for at least 3 months, re-evaluate it if needed. Don’t get stuck trying to find the perfect tool.

Work

At it’s core work will be the same, and things will be OK. But people have moved on so there will be changes, opportunities and things that crop up I’ll have to deal with.

In theory it should be a really good year. But lets see what I write this time next year.

I’m currently in a role where I am the senior person for 2 others. I have to have meetings and regular catchups. For the end of the year it was going well.

I do need to remind myself that it’s not just me I need to sort out now though.

Health

I’m ramping up the walking as it’s easy to do, but is time consuming.

I’m going to stick to the healthyish eating I’ve been doing lately, as I feel better with good food. Who would have thought.

Finances

Things here are going OK, we’ve had a couple of changes, which is working out well for us currently. Will be in a better position this time next year.

Need to save up for a car replacement and some travel.

I did make the switch from YNAB to Actual Budget this year. I’ll need to do a post about it later in the year explaining why I did the change and how I’m finding it.

Reading

This went out the window, Even with using a dedicated reading device. I think going back to physical books is the only way I will actually get reading done.

In reality physical won’t work for me, so I’ll be listening to audio books. I usually stick with non fiction stuff but will branch out to fiction for a change, I’m taking advantage of the Borrow Box app.

Projects

I was going to write that this year was not good on the project front. Which isn’t exactly true, but it wasn’t the best.

I’ve written before that working on different things at different times, even for short bursts must have been better than doing nothing, now I’m not so sure.

Depending on the project on hand hyper focused work until it is done is the better option I feel.

I still have this mental block I’ve had since I was a child of struggling to finish things. Even if I make a good start, getting to the finish can be really hard for me.

Giant Pumpkins NZ

The tweaks I’ve done on the website I’m happy with.

I still need to sit down and grind out some page updates to make sure things are as good as possible.

The newsletter list has grown a lot. I have not been keeping up with updating this and sending out emails.

I pre scheduled half of the show us Sunday posts and need to do the rest. Like a lot of this stuff I can do it once and have it ready to go.

For growing, this was going OK until I wasn’t paying attention and the plant snapped in the wind. I got a back up plant, but it was crap. Mixed in with the lack of preparing and lack of funds this season is a write off.

Op Shop Directory

I don’t think I’ve touched this in a year.

Updated keep coming in, people keep using it and I’ve kept ignoring it. There’s been a couple of emails about collabing on things, but from my experience those never really work out well.

One thing that is contributing to this is that it sometimes is similar to what I do in my day job, and staring at a screen updating data and not creating something can be draining.

I have been contacted by website selling platform, where it seems there could be potential buyers of this. I need to make contact with them and see what they have to say. While it does make some money through the year, not having to worry about it and make some money from a sale could be a good thing. It also sounds like a pain in the ass to sort out as well, so I’ll see how this goes.

Audio Scrapbook

Another idea that has sat patiently waiting for some attention is the Audio Scrapbook website.

This is another thing that has the completion paralysis thing happening to me,

Which is crazy, because this is a sort of set it and it’s done type of project.

I need to sit down (which I’ve been doing the last couple of days) and create the stuff I need and have it setup. Also need to keep in mind that once it’s mostly done, that is when to have it up, no need for perfection.

Then schedule out a years worth of stuff and see how that goes.

New Project

I’m still keeping this under wraps at the moment, but have been able to make some content thanks to other people coming on board and helping me out,

I need to sit down and finish the creation of the content. This could also be a do it and set it and see how it goes from there.

I still believe in the concept, the idea and what I am trying to achieve.

Other 2026 Thoughts

I know what I want to do, I know what I have to do, I just have to believe in myself and do it.

I need to take those moments of spare time and smash out the different things. Easier said than done of course.

Always moving forwards and towards some sort of goal. Hopefully I’ll have better results to share not only at the start of next year, but during this year as it progresses.

It’s time to make 2026 better than 2025.