

Ask HN: What are your big plans for 2015? - gghootch

Similar to last years&#x27; threads, what is your yearly plan?<p>https:&#x2F;&#x2F;news.ycombinator.com&#x2F;item?id=6989585<p>https:&#x2F;&#x2F;news.ycombinator.com&#x2F;item?id=4985473
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aragot
Become a product manager (at least part-time). I was a developer for 7 years
and never progressed towards PM, so I've just left my company, created my
bootstrapped start-up because no-one would ever believe in me, got experience
at copywriting, marketing, negociation, product roadmap planing, went to
conferences, talked at some, (all of those in addition to developing the
product obviously), sold enough copies _within the first year_ to make a nice
living... I think I've proven my point that I'm not bad at it, as opposed to
the stigma we face when we're programmers, so next year I hope to be hired in
a proper company to do the same job.

~~~
iqonik
Where are you based?

~~~
aragot
France (Lyon). I'm ok moving to other countries in Europe and Australia.

~~~
iqonik
The company I work for will be hiring PM's in the 1st quarter. We're based in
London, UK. Got an email add.? I'll send you a note when it happens if you're
interested.

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objectified
My "big plan" is to have only small plans this year, one plan at the time.

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peteretep
\- Keep my main software R&D contract for 12 months

\- Expand my recruitment business to average x placements per y
([http://perl.careers/](http://perl.careers/))

\- Exercise 70% of all days

\- Eat 90% of my meals mindfully

\- Meditate on 90% of all days

\- Finish my dissertation and graduate my part-time MSc by July

\- After July, release an eBook OR complete the iOS developer and Data
Scientist Nano degrees from Udacity

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kunstmord
1\. Read more books (now that I have a Kindle, shouldn't be a problem)

2\. Visit Shanghai

3\. Start my work for ESA (European Space Agency)

4\. Launch a couple of projects I've been working on recently

5\. Participate in at least 3 Kaggle challenges

6\. Finish recording my album

7\. Gain some weight, do more sports

8\. Try and finish my startup project, if it turns out to be a dead-end
financially, open-source it

------
waterlesscloud
My plans for 2015 are to make progress in areas where I have a foundation and
want to move along further.

1\. Write and self-publish 2 novels to launch a series. I've self-published a
few things, ready to move into it more seriously.

2\. Become competent with lisp. Fooled around with it in the past, but I'd
like to know what I'm doing.

3\. Become competent with deep learning / neural networks. Another place where
I know the basics, but would like some proficiency.

4\. Gain enough fitness to get back into backpacking. Something I used to do a
lot, but over the last several years I've been very, very lazy. Long way to go
on this one. I'm wasting living in California.

5\. Work on a few different micro-documentary projects using things like Vine.
I've had some ideas about this, need to put them into practice.

------
manish_gill
\- Improve my health. I'm so bad at waking up early it's not even funny, much
less do any kind of exercise.

\- Have a good social life. Go out on dates etc.

\- Learn a new language and stick with it. Contribute to open source if
possible.

\- Earn more money. Maybe ask for another raise or ugh, I dunno.

\- Visit another country.

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matteotom
1\. Exercise 6 days/week.

2\. Work on one thing at a time (no more multi-tasking). This includes not
doing something else while talking to somebody.

3\. Plan out when to do work the day it's assigned, and don't leave it to the
last minute.

4\. Meditate daily.

5\. Minimize distractions. That is, no reddit, less Facebook, Twitter, and HN.

I guess those are more goals than plans, but same idea.

Edit to add: get into shape to run a marathon in late 2015 or early 2016. I
ran one last year, but I've lost most of my progress this year.

~~~
collyw
If your location permits it, I would really recommend cycling to work. That is
a really easy way to get daily exercise in. (Plus its a very efficient way of
getting around some cities, if you don't mind bending the rules).

I should try your list as they are all things I feel I ought to do more of (or
less of in the case of 2 and 5).

~~~
matteotom
As a college student, that wouldn't help too much, as it's at most a 15 minute
walk walk to class.

And shipping my bike across the country would probably be more expensive than
a good pair of running shoes.

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FabianBeiner
I want to work in as much different countries as I possible can. Best case
scenario: 12 countries (or locations) in 12 months. I want to see how
companies and people work outside of Germany and gain the best possible
insights, while helping as good as I can with my skills. The end result might
be a book or “just” a blog. So, if anyone of you knows a neat company or
agency, which might be able to help with that idea, tell me. ;)

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toyg
1\. Hopefully ship a couple of big internal projects that would basically make
me a product manager.

2\. find the courage to actually launch a silly viral website I've done in my
spare time. It's been sitting on my disk for a couple of months now, ready to
go, but I fear the maintenance burden I'll get once launched.

3\. if the two above items flounder, retool -- in 2016 my current job will
likely be obsolete, so I have to prepare for that.

~~~
corobo
What's the general idea of number 2? Colour me intrigued at least :)

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Rzor
\- Start to meditate regularly. \- Read more books. (Mainly philosophy, then
non-fiction in general.) \- Feed my curiosity more effectively, i. e.,
instigate a more persistent 'truth seeker' mentality across my life. (I have
little to no idea how to do that, but I guess start a diary and document every
effort might help.) \- Exercise constantly two and then three days a week. \-
Leave the idea-guy mindset more aside and start to work as the execution-guy
more often.

------
karka91
I've got a 2 year plan that starts tomorrow - since I've decided to quit
university my plan is to bootstrap a business that would make a profit of
atleast the same amount that I would have had to pay for the degree (4400 eur)
in the same amount of time that I would have had to spend learning (2 years).

I'm pretty positive about my chances, though this will be my first attempt at
`doing business`

------
jmnicolas
Nothing fancy :

\- contribute at one open source project. I use OSS so much that I feel I
should give back even a little.

\- manage successfully to reach day 14 of my fasting experiment that started
December 26th then continue to fast one day a week

\- finally start the side project that is bugging me since 2007 !

\- find an alternative source of income (this is sorely needed and might be
provided by the side project)

\- get better at my hobby

\- Learn the Ada programming language (just because)

------
dejv
I want to get more into HW after decade of working on pure software stuff. I
bought Raspberry Pi, Arduino and couple of modules and will try to create
something interesting and maybe get it into production of some magnitude.

My other big project this year is to find new home for my tiny winery: I am
looking for new land to build proper facilities and acquire more vineyards as
well.

------
yzzxy
Reduce the time I spend staring dead-eyed at the internet. I still want to
spend some of my free time programming (I'm a student) but I don't enjoy
killing hours mindlessly looping through the same three or so sites.

Otherwise - get better at systems programming. Learn an ML language maybe.
Study algorithms. Go to college.

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informatimago
How big can a plan be for 13 hours and 40 minutes remaining for 2014 (in my
timezone)?

I guess that would depend on the degree of preparation. Perhaps I've prepared
for ever to become Master of the World at 23:59:59? That would be a big plan
for 2014 :-)

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alias_
1\. Read (books) for at least an hour a day.

2\. Start experimenting with quantum algorithms.

3\. Expand my social circle.

4\. Be more positive.

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flares
1.Socialise more

2.Travel more

3.Work on a OSS and on Quantum Algos (picked this up from other comments to
ths thread)

4.increase my breadth while maintaing depth in the work that i do

\-----------------------------------------------------------

posting it here as a permanent reminder to myself

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collyw
React less to people and circumstances (as in don't get annoyed, upset,
angry).

Finish some side project and try and get some freelance work once when I can
show people the sort of things I do.

------
stevoo
1 ) Do some serious marketing/sales on my SAS. Some very nice features there
but my sales skills are lacking.

2 ) Build my house.

3 ) Develop the next SAS with a friend as opentable for my country.

4 ) Travel to Africa !

------
sobSingh
Write one more book (wrote one last year)

Run a marathon (new to running, so a BIG task)

Quit my job (been three months in a job and already want to quit) and do
something that throws some money at me

------
udswagz
\- Put more effort in my bootstrapped startUp (a founder just left)

\- Read a book at least one every month

\- Exercise daily

\- Launch my Startup and get Funding.

\- Quite every trace of freelance and focus on the Startup.

\- Date more

\- Work more at Nights

\- Get a hobby outside programming

------
sianliu
Don't fall into a funk.

Get married.

Take TBI Commons to the next level.

Move in to my new place and turn into a comfortable place to stay for the next
5 years.

Start something that can generate $1K passive income every month.

------
fergie
My big plans are as follows:

\- Start my own consultancy (and resign from my comfortable, well-paid job at
a big consultancy)

\- Monetize my reasonably popular yet underpromoted open source project

------
jonnyscholes
\- Play more frizz-bee, start bike riding again and go diving more

\- Say "No" more often to working on other peoples babies

\- Buy a house

\- Actually release my (deployed) side projects to the world

------
iqonik
My aim for 2015 is to spend more time with my family. To do this will probably
involve a change of job etc. But that is my main goal.

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johnmark1845
1) Make everyone around me more happier (my family, friends, clients, etc) 2)
Contribute to the society 3) Work towards making my business more profitable
4) Exercise, keep fit and and healthy

------
pasharayan
\- Develop a habit of healthiness with less sugar

\- Somehow be a good brother, son and boyfriend while I work excessive hours

\- Develop an exceptional enterprise app

------
gghootch
Last year's thread:

1\. Graduate before september so I can start my PhD position. √

2\. Date more. √

3\. Move to a better place. √

Great success!

===============================

============This Year=============

1\. Publish, publish, publish

2\. Start side-business

3\. Stop gaining weight

------
amouat
\- Finish my book (on Docker) and do a decent job of it.

\- Learn a couple of songs on guitar (2014 failure).

\- Move flat.

~~~
jmnicolas
Can you provide any info on your book or it's still hush-hush ?

~~~
amouat
No, it's not hush-hush (or my editor hasn't told me it is at any rate!). The
working title is "Using Docker: Developing and Deploying Software with
Containers". Coming out on O'Reilly next year.

As well as describing how to use Docker, it will try to explain how to use
containers in the full software development workflow.

------
Kiro
Spend less time with friends and more time on programming and playing games.

~~~
jmnicolas
Are you sure it's a good thing ? Social interaction is important for our
mental health.

~~~
Kiro
Why is it important? I'm very outgoing and people would consider me a social
person. I also have a lot of friends. The thing is that I don't enjoy it. I
see most social gatherings as a waste of time and prefer being home alone
working on my projects.

~~~
jmnicolas
Well if you don't isolate yourself completely it's not a problem, just pay
attention not to become reclusive.

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metaprinter
1\. Launch one profitable product 2\. Finish my Arduino ultimate machine 3\.
Launch one new passive income source 4\. Sleep better 5\. More family time 6\.
Learn d3.js 2014 I struck out on all fronts

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bbody
\- Release two books \- Commit to some OSS projects \- Get a mobile app on the
app store \- Get my startup side project up and running

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VaedaStrike
Ship on the big project that originally drove me into programming.

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NonEUCitizen
Perhaps you mean 2015 ?

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ahmetaltindis
\- Finish the half of the projects I started in 2014.

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iaskwhy
Improve myself and enjoy life as much as possible.

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edpichler
\- Work less.

\- Make my first surf trip.

\- Learn how to dance.

\- Study German.

\- Spend more time building relationships.

------
_RPM
Pass all my math classes

