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.
Big up! I hope to do something similar this year -- in January I'm pitching a couple of internal projects that would basically make me a PM. If they don't fly, I'll consider my options (although bootstrapping with two kids and mortgage is... very unappealing).
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.
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.
- 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.
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).
Some admirable goals, I especially like number 2. Just a small thing, from what I understand exercising 6 days a week might not be optimal, your body rebuilds in rest times so there's a risk that you'll slow down your improvements in health by doing more than 4 days a week. I suppose you could alternate the parts of the body you work on? Anyway, I'm not an expert, just thought I'd pass on what I'd heard.
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. ;)
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.
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`
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.
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.
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 :-)
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
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
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.
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.
