It’s not quite the end of the year yet, but Happy New Year! Time really does fly. I really just want to get 2025 started early, so I’m writing this post in the hope that it makes the Earth spin a lil faster somehow. This is a very light and simple post, and I don’t go too much into detail on purpose, just have a fun lil update from me.

A year in review

I got a lot done in 2024, let’s see:

• I moved to a new country, where I got happily married to the most wonderful woman that has ever walked this rocky planet.
• I quit my job and took a bit of a sabbatical, before finding the most amazing opportunity at the most amazing company.
• I know I already said I got married but it deserves its own place on the list, so, I planned a wedding and got married
• I traveled to new places, met nice people, and tried new cooking recipes.
• I read a few books. An activity which I didn’t think I would enjoy but very much did!
• I started a blog, and embraced the world of open source by participating in it.

I also learned a lot this year:

• I learned Portuguese, though I’m nowhere near fluent
• I learned a new programming lanugage as well. One could say it’s… t-rust-worthy 😉
• Every year I learn a lot in my field, technically speaking. So I don’t really count it, but here it is.
• I reflected a lot about my past and did a lot of thinking about the future, which is a great way to learn.
• I read (and I’m still reading) a few self-help books which so far have brought a lot of perspective and useful life hacks to the table.
• I learned about lifequakes (having gone through a couple this year) and some good strategies to dealing with them

Just to say a few.

Next year

For next year my goal is to persevere. I want to put what I’ve learned in 2024 into practice and give 2025 hell.

Here’s my overall strategy to persevere in 2025:

• No starts and ends means no middles: Split problems into tasks and celebrate the completion of each task no matter how small, while also understanding there might be an endless amount of tasks for any given problem.
• Variety, I chose you!: Introduce variety into routine and problem solving to encourage breakthroughs.
• I’m out of bre: Exercise. Don’t go more than 3 days without exercise unless circumstances absolutely prevent you from exercising.
• 8,000: Try to take at least 8,000 steps every day.
• Bob Ross: Set at least 2 hours of creative time and 1 hour of boredom, every day.
• Lists, lists, lists: LISTS! Make lots of lists.
• Ctr + C: No shortcuts! Use guilt to stick to this list via mindfulness breaks.

This is what you can expect from me in 2025 in no particular order:

• Getting lilap into a polished working state
• Growing liblcu
• Making the secret project liblcu is helping build public
• A hardware project of some kind
• A few book reviews, and travel blogs (YAY!)
• Maybe a couple of posts related to drawing
• and much more!

Final thoughts

If I had to summarize 2024 with 1 picture, it would be this one: