Alright, it's time again for me to talk about my New Year's Resolutions, since mentioning them on the internet at least makes me think about them on a regular basis. I appreciated that last year – even though I didn't end up following through on all my resolutions – so I'm doing it again this year.
Without further ado, let's take a look back at what I had planned for 2014:
1. Take 52 photos in 52 weeks.
Success! I did succeed in shooting all the photos I needed for this particular goal, though I didn't publish all of them, in part because of a bug that completely killed VSCO Cam during the iOS 8 beta. Good news, though: I'll post the last few to the 52x14 Flickr album in the coming week or so.
After that, I want to actually turn this into a book that may or may not be available for purchase. I'm still thinking about it.
2. Write a blog post a month.
Well, we can all see how that went, can't we? I learned this past year that even if I really want to write a blog post a month, it can be hard for me to take time and make it a priority, especially after a day of writing other stories. One of the biggest roadblocks for me this year was dealing with my own perfectionism – I often want to make sure that my ideas are the best they possibly can before publishing, which is often a recipe for publishing nothing at all.
3. Write an iOS app I actually want to use.
I said this one wouldn't see the light of day, and I was right. I have successfully noodled around with Objective-C a bit, and built a couple small apps that give me a sense for the language but don't translate into anything useful, which is too bad. I'm hoping that I'll come to grips with Swift this coming year, which may fuel future development (and future resolutions), but I don't have anything concrete planned at the moment.
4. Develop an exercise practice and lose some weight.
I didn't mention this in my post last year because I'm of the belief that my weight and personal fitness is basically my business, and I'm not super-interested in airing that publicly for the most part.
All of that said, I would be remiss not to mention one of the largest changes in my life over the past year: I lost a little more than 50 pounds. There's no real secret to what I did – I'm eating better than I was, and exercising more – and I'm sure that my 20-something metabolism helped matters.
With that in mind, it's time for me to take a look ahead to 2015. Here's what I have planned:
1. Take 52 photos in 52 weeks.
Anyone who follows me on social media may have noticed that this photo showed up with the hashtag #52x15 attached. So yes, that means I'm doing the same photo-a-week-ish project this time around as well. I really enjoy what it does for my habits, so carrying it on makes a whole lot of sense.
I've started a new album on Flickr which will get updated as time goes on. As usual, I'll be posting items to Instagram (and by extension, Twitter) as well.
2. Use Reporter to create a record of my 25th year on the planet.
I gave Reporter a shot last year, but gave up on it midway through the year becase the app lost all data after I restored my phone to the iOS 8 beta. That said, I've been a huge fan of the Feltron Reports ever since Justin introduced me to them during his Intro to New Genre Arts Practices class, and I'd love to replicate something like that for myself.
3. Read 24 books in 12 months.
I read a good deal less than I wanted to in 2014, in part because there are so many different interesting things I can do to relax. I tend towards leisure activities that also allow me to listen to podcasts, since I listen to more than a dozen of varying lengths a week. I can't really pay attention to a book and a podcast at the same time, but it's easy for me to whip out my Vita and play Minecraft while catching up on Directional. As such, reading has fallen by the wayside, except in certain special cases.
So, I've set myself a fairly ambitious goal of reading 24 books this year – basically one every fortnight. And that means I need books to read, so if you have any favorites you want to share, let me know. If you want to follow along with my progress, check out my Goodreads page.
If all goes well, this time next year I'll have some good news to report. At the very least, I hope to have something of a better track record.