It feels weird to write a “2022 in review” post on a blog where I haven’t posted at all for the year in question, let alone at the very end of January when most people write posts like this at the start of the year, but hey, and it’s better to write something late rather than never!
So, why haven’t I been as active in 2022?
Unfortunately, towards the start of 2022, I’d hit minor burnout. It was nothing serious, but it was enough to kill the momentum I had built up writing and contributing to open source beforehand. It’s much easier to keep a ball rolling than to speed it up.
In 2021 I decided to take a promotion to become a Tech Lead and tread the engineering management path. The transition from being a 100% individual contributor to splitting time between management and my desire to still act as an individual contributor wasn’t immediately apparent to me. It took me some months to get to grips with that and find a flow I’m happy with, and I am glad to say I’ve managed to reach a balance that works for me.
While most of my time over the last year was spent growing and doing my day job, I did achieve some personal goals:
- I’ve taken longer holidays than I have for a long time and used them to travel and see some lovely places, visiting remote parts of Scotland and Norway while also spending a lot of time in Germany. It’s been nice to travel again since the pandemic and see some places I’ve wanted to visit my whole life. It’s also been nice to take the time away from work and tech altogether a couple of times to clear my head.
- As someone who enjoys the variety of food, in 2022, I set myself a goal to try 50 new foods (basically one per week) that I hadn’t tried before. While I didn’t quite meet this goal (44/50), it was a great chance to try a lot of cuisines I had yet to try before and learn many new cooking techniques along the way. I’ve definitely fallen in love with Korean food a lot more!
- The biggest thing that happened to me this year, while in Norway with my girlfriend, I proposed to her and am ecstatic to say we’re now engaged!
What’s 2023 got in store?
As we advance into the next year, I want to regain momentum and return to things I thoroughly enjoyed doing. I’ve been using this start-of-the-new-year rush to get the ball rolling so that it’s easier to keep the momentum throughout the year.
So, in 2023 I want to…
- Write a lot more! I have drafted some blog post ideas I’ll follow up on, and we’re starting an engineering blog at work so I can justify spending some time at work towards writing.
- Write more about localisation with l10n.expert. I have so much to say about localisation and many parts of it written already that I need to share.
- Update all of my open-source projects. I acknowledge that I have neglected some of them and let issues pile up, but I want to get back on top of that and release some new projects and contribute some ideas to some of my favourite tools.
- Get back into the talk scene by attending meetups/conferences and giving talks myself. I’ve submitted to a handful of CFPs already and will have a keen eye out for any others that come up.
- And of course, I intend to marry the love of my life this year too!
I’m looking forward to the rest of the year, here’s to 2023!
