

Ask HN: What are your goals for November? - jlees

A problem shared is a problem halved. Or something to that effect.<p>What will you achieve in November?
======
shanelja
Firstly I want to find a new job, higher paying is my main goal at the moment
as I feel I am being undervalued by my current company and their refusal to
bring my wage in line with my co-workers despite performing equally, if not
better than the majority of them doing the same task. (I should mention they
get paid 3 times what I do, the only difference being a degree, the fact that
we do the same job, with the same deadlines and difficulty being irrelevant
for some reason.)

Next, I would like to work on my relationship with my girlfriend, there has
been a lot of tension lately, mostly due to the way I've been acting and I
feel as if I owe it to my girlfriend to try and improve the person I am, there
is no point in saying "it's all her fault" - I know I'm in the wrong and I
need to do something to change that.

After that, I want to put aside some personal me time, I've been overloading
on work recently and haven't really had time for fun. I don't remember the
last time I went out with friends or even spent a day with one and that's
quite a sad thing.

Next I want to save up some money to fly to Spain to see my newborn baby
niece. When she was born she had internal bleeding and a myriad of other
health issues, we didn't think she would make it, but she proved to be strong
and my sister just took her home last week. Plus, I haven't seen my family for
7 months now and as lame as it is to say this, I miss my mum.

Outside of that, putting more time aside for personal projects would be nice
but at the moment it isn't a priority for me, just one of those "it would be
good to have this" things.

------
pg
Find the needles in the haystack.

~~~
D_Alex
By coincidence, I spent a good part of today looking at very powerful magnets
to extract needles etc from cut grass! If only we could find the analogue for
your problem...

~~~
fduran
There's a MythBusters episode about this
[http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/MythBusters_(2004_season)#Needl...](http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/MythBusters_\(2004_season\)#Needle_in_a_Haystack)

~~~
TheMakeA
Well, I certainly hope pg isn't putting the non-needles into an incinerator
like Jamie...

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jwdunne
To be happier than I have been in October.

To finally give up smoking, which has been a defining struggle in Oct.

To stick with the 5:2 diet.

To do something cool and actually finish it.

~~~
joefarish
What made you choose the 5:2 diet? Are you not worried about having no energy
on those 2 days?

~~~
jwdunne
Lack of energy is not a worry at all. I had a fast day yesterday, didn't touch
breakfast, dinner and had something very small for tea but wasn't completely
drained at all. I had walk to and from the convenience store about 3 times
after work, which wasn't harder. It even felt easier climbing the stairs too.

I chose the 5:2 since I'm interested in trying intermittent fasting in general
but thought alternate-day would be harder to stick to. The plan is to
transition to ADF eventually. There was a BBC documentary that shown the
benefits, including more controlled IGF-1 and compared them to a group of
people who completely like IGF. The people in this group are only around 4ft
tall yet have a immunity cancer and a whole host of other diseases.

Another motivation is that my boss has been doing ADF for the past 3 - 4
weeks. He reported a 4in drop in his waist line and felt fantastic overall. He
mentioned the story that motivated him to try too. A friend of his followed
ADF and within 6 weeks, he looked like a new person. He is also an MD so it
makes me much less worried about trying it.

~~~
jlees
That's really interesting. I'm going to have to look into that, as I have a
pretty intense workout schedule (Crossfit + triathlon training) and don't
usually do well working out while fasted. Thanks for sharing.

------
ammmir
I will wake up at a decent hour every day.

I will reduce clutter in my life, on my desk, and in my head.

I will learn more about App Store marketing so CloudPlay, my music app for
Mac, can grow even faster.

The final miracle will be if I can get a shipping beta of CloudPlay for iOS
ready by the end of the month. I have no idea; I haven't yet started and this
will be my first iOS app.

------
DanBC
Have fun with my son. Get more access with my son. Move on with life after a
difficult year.

------
kahfei
Switching career and get a programming job, would love it to be something in
Ruby on Rails. Be it permanent, remote, freelance, part time, whatever.

I tried different approaches this year, so far nothing come out of it. One gig
was discontinued as the owner decided to switch to a local developer. The
other project took half a year now and still no further progress from the
owner. Just attended an interview which didn't work out.

As someone already mentioned, have fun with my son. Am teaching him Scratch at
the moment, hopefully can complete a simple game by end of November :-)

~~~
Nathandim
Nice to find someone who's sharing goals with me. Though I have to admit I'm
not exactly new in programming, my goal for this month is to learn programming
concepts (algorithms etc.) in order to prepare myself for the switch to RoR.

I must clarify that I'm beginning with Python mostly because I'm having
trouble finding good programming lessons that use Ruby.

This is a comment from a fellow HN user that I use for reference in material
<https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=4709336>

~~~
kahfei
Hi Nathan, I think there are quite a few good tutorials for Ruby and Ruby on
Rails too, perhaps you already know some of them like

Ruby

<http://pine.fm/LearnToProgram>

<http://rubymonk.com>

<http://rubykoans.com>

<http://rubybits2.codeschool.com/levels/1>

Ruby on Rails,

<http://railscasts.com>

<http://ruby.railstutorial.org/ruby-on-rails-tutorial-book>

<https://class.coursera.org/saas/lecture/preview/index> #coursera saas course
with ruby on rails as medium

Challenges or puzzle

<https://www.hackerrank.com>

------
anujkk
1\. Launch a premium wordpress theme I made for personal site/blog/portfolio
targeted mainly at freelance hackers/designers. I made it as a side project to
be used at my own personal website and I believe there are many others who
would love to use it. I will complete its documentation this week end.

2\. Decide about what my next side project will be (preferably something that
can be a source of passive income). If possible begin working on it.

3\. Learn Haskell.

4\. Will try to include tabata in my exercise schedule.

5\. Will spend a weekend helping someone else.

------
skrish
* Balance work hours - 7:30am to 4pm. Play with kid in beach for an hour, sleep for an hour and get back to work till 11pm.

Today is the first day in this schedule & time to go home. :)

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RollAHardSix
Professionally: Having gone from web design & development into the print
design world, I'm looking at getting back into pushing the (and my!) limits of
web design & development (starting with building a Personal Portfolio
website), and am also interested in continuing my artistic endeavors be it
digital or print.

Personally: I have a BJJ grappling competition at the start of December, so by
using November to hammer out my game, I will be ready for this tournament.

------
lmm
Nanowrimo. And if I don't own the flat I'm trying to buy by the end of the
month, it won't be for lack of trying. (Conveyancing, now there's an industry
that needs disruption).

~~~
dreeves
We (Beeminder) just made a tool to force yourself to spread the writing out
over the whole month:

<http://blog.beeminder.com/nanowrimo>

Would love to hear what people think of it!

------
Nathandim
I want to begin learning programming (algorithms, data structures etc.,
already have sources to achieve that), become familiar with using the terminal
and related tools, take baby steps towards Vim, get familiar with managing a
Linux web server and maybe I'll finally decide on a back-end web development
language (for now I find both Python and Ruby juicy and attractive).

------
scottlilly
My main goal for this month is to start applying lean manufacturing principles
to my life. I'll be recording all my activities (on paper, since I'm probably
the last programmer without an iPhone or Android device), the results of my
efforts, and building value stream maps for the important processes.

This will be for all aspects of my life - work, social, health, etc.

------
jamesjguthrie
Professionally: Beta launch for my company's (Hey Jimmy) staff timekeeping
solution for SME - Team Sheet. Get some funding. Get <http://heyjimmy.net>
finished.

Academically: Get all my undergraduate coursework complete on time.

Personally: Get everything (apart from the meal) paid off for our wedding in
December.

------
yen223
Hopefully I'll get a better-paying job. I am currently getting paid ~$13,000
annually developing software for assembly-line robots.

------
jlees
Improve my swimming technique, culminating in 50 yards proper freestyle.

Build a Letterpress solver.

Enjoy time with my dog.

Run outside with no goals or time limits, just to be.

Teach my first online course, and see how well that content and format works
for future courses.

------
raghava
* play around with C->Python interface. (<http://www.linuxjournal.com/article/8497>)

* complete the wedding preps before Nov 28

* give interviews and find a job

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traxtech
I'll try to finish and launch my next startup project, My MD expert (remote
medical second opinion from world leading experts). Lots of testing to do,
experts to recruit with my co-founder, create the LTD...

------
padseeker
To get my startup into beta no later than the end of the month

For the record it is called Padseeker - <http://padseeker.com>

------
revorad
Get ramen profitable.

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tprice7
Write a three-voice fugue in ten tone equal temperament.

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ejain
Integrate several self-tracking services (incl FitBit and Withings) with my
generic data collection service, zenobase.com.

------
bemmu
Release iOS app & plan what to do next.

------
tehwebguy
Sign a popular webcomic for a merchandising deal (started with musicians, then
youtubers).

------
rasengan0
<http://www.nanowrimo.org/>

~~~
jlees
Good luck with that! It was seeing friends post about NaNoWriMo that inspired
me to post this thread, actually; I'm not doing NaNo, which made me think
_what am I doing_?

------
nodemaker
I want to travel Thailand and find out a way to solve my marketing problems!

~~~
D_Alex
Eh... wants and goals are not really the same.

~~~
nodemaker
:) well flights and ads are planned!

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donniezazen
Be more relaxed and happy.

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linh
Get 1,000 users at the end of month for my startup.

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lixon
Quit my job and do what i like

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dagw
Get married

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andyjsong
hire an android dev and close a deal with a CPG.

