This year (I know, it’s almost February), I’m going to expand my “Off-Topic” posting quite a bit, so I’m not longer going to be marking these posts as such… because now they are on topic!
I wrote a post last year on my goals for 2024, and I found it nice to be able to share with readers and other people that follow me on the various online platforms what things I was thinking about. What made it even better was hearing what other people were thinking about or had experience with — that’s the power of crowds!
To be clear, I will not share all my goals because the bullet point list is over 3000 words long (I made a compressed version which is only 1500), but some of the key themes, if you will.
My general approach to what are kind of New Years Resolutions, but which I actually do, is to create both a goals document and an achievements document. The goals document sets out things I would like to do over the year, while the achievements one helps me recognize what I’ve actually achieved. The achievements element is important I think because it lets you feel rewarded when you do something good — an achievement that you did not plan for, which is a big issue with a traditional prescriptive list of goals; doing something good that you didn’t plan to do is still good!
Before I dive into my goals for the current year, I want to reflect or update you on how the goals in last years post went.
Reflection on 2024 Goals
Decluttering: This goal is something I’d say was a success, I think (not considering the many things I’ve got for my child) I own less stuff now than I did a year ago, and I was able to get rid of quite a lot of stuff when I “retired” from YouTube, and I’m also trying very hard to not introduce many new things into my life — an e-reader has been very helpful in that. That being said, I do think I have more to do on this topic.
Taking Weekends Off: This goal was not achieved. I think part of the problem is that the way I structure my week, it’s more of a three days on, one day off, type of affair (this lines up with how I exercise), which probably still provides me a lot of the rest I need. This goal is still kind of hanging around, but it’s not a top priority.
Eliminating Casual Social Media Use: I did end up using social media quite a bit less by the end of the year, though this was mostly a byproduct of Twitter collapsing, moving over to Mastodon, Instagram being much less attractive since Meta uses it to farm AI source data, and me finally setting some app time limits. I think the reduction in social media use will be even bigger this year.
Read 12 Substantial Books: For some reason I forgot that my goal here was 12 substantial books instead of just trying to consume 24 books of any kind regardless of quality (I just had to be interested). Looking back at the list I made of books I read, I think I hit about 10 substantial pieces, which isn’t bad (and I managed to read another Pulitzer winner: The Power Broker), but I think this goal is also worth carrying forward.
Spend More Time In Nature: This one I did okay on. I didn’t go camping, or kayaking, or skiing, but I did go on a hike in a national park, and I also picked cycling back up and managed to ride some trails I had not been on before. That being said, this has a lot more room to grow.
Lose Weight: This was a big success in 2024 since I did indeed lots of weight, though things sort of slowed down and then stabilized 2/3 of the way through the year. That being said, I wanted to lose weight and I did!
Getting Out of Debt: As of 2025 I am totally debt free, so this is another win in my books!
Trim Costs: To the extent I was able to, I also trimmed costs. I think the reality just was that there was less low-hanging fruit than I expected. That being said, I did switch to a different phone carrier which cut my wife and I’s bills in half, and I also helped a bunch of family members get on plans that cost way less while providing the same amount of data etc. so that feels like a win.
Buying Good Things: The motivation here was to reduce costs over time by buying high-quality non-consumable products (whereas for consumables I moved towards less-expensive, generic stuff). The idea here is to spend less over time and support more sustainable businesses by buying something reliable and long-lasting even if it costs quite a bit more upfront. Things here range from clothing, to furniture (not that I buy a lot), and other household products. One thing that I focused on in the latter half of the year was purchasing products with less plastic, and especially less virgin plastic, and I think there is a lot of synergy there.
So, on the whole I’d say 2024 was a success. I certainly didn’t achieve everything I set out to, but I achieved a lot, and many things I did were not necessarily planned. I had a kid in 2024, and while that was the plan I had no real way of know when exactly it would happen and so there was a lot of uncertainty around that.
2025 Goals
My goals for 2025 are structured differently from the ones in 2024 — most notably in that they are in a single document as opposed to four dedicated to health, finances, “personal”, and job goals. I think this format makes it easier to have goals that bleed across categories, but also to make note of things you want to do that don’t fit into a clearly defined category. Instead, this year, my goal document just sort of has headers with “themes”. I am going to include both some of the themes and some specific goals here.
The first big theme is Experiences, which I think was largely inspired by the first book I finished this year (though I most read it in December), “Die with Zero”. This is by no means a perfect or even great book, but I think the core concept is great. The idea is generally speaking that far too many people are overly conservative with how they plan their lives and finances, and that having more fun and experiences is just generally underrated. The vibe I get here is similar to a friend I have who is much older and frequently mentions he “never has regret spending money on a trip”. Basically, we should all be a little more willing to spend money on things that will legitimately make positive memories – think going to Japan, not sitting in a cafe with a latte every morning.
Within this category I am specifically planning to take a couple of small local area weekend trips, and then either a big end-of-year trip overseas for a couple weeks, or a couple week-long regional trips, I’d also like to get out to some more concerts.
Next up is Health. My health got way better in 2024, and I think working on improving it, mostly by way of diet and physical fitness was a good way of taking my mind off of COVID-era health paranoia and focusing on something I could better control. As far as health goes, the goals include getting my weight down just a little bit more, continuing to work on my flexibility (last year I touched my toes for the first time since I was a child) — with the goal of doing the front splits, and continuing to exercise lots. There are also lots of little things like wearing sunglasses more often, having better sleep habits (I’d also love to shift to waking up earlier — but all of this is hard with a young kid), trying to improve posture, and better tracking things. I also have a bunch of exercise activity related goals, like doing a 5K swim, a 100K bike ride, and a 20K row, as well as maybe a marathon (all things which can count for experiences too). For my diet, it’s much the same: incrementally continuing to remove things which I deem fairly unhealthy while trying to reduce my consumption of modestly unhealthy things — this often takes the form of only eating something on alternating days, or shrinking the portion size. Part of improving what I eat is cooking more of my own food — last year I perhaps prepared a bit more, but I didn’t cook despite it being a goal, so that’s a priority in ’25. The last major component of health is mental health — part of this is the sleep schedule stuff, but it’s also spending even less time on social media and electronics in general.
Finance wise, I have a bunch of goals as you can imagine. One is to actually try and use my various credit card points in a higher-value way than I typically do, to offset the cost of the travelling I mentioned above. Another is to set aside money for my child’s education. I also want to keep engaging with my audience I built up through YouTube, which was effectively my job for the past 5-8 years, since I think that may point me towards potentially interesting future careers as my child grows older.
The last major category is Learning, which in some ways feels like the biggest category of all, even though I numbered the items in it and there are only about 9! The big ones pertain to relearning a lot of stuff I was more familiar with when doing my degree in Computer Science, namely Linux, programming, and mathematical proofs — by way of Leetcode, books, and some MIT Opencourseware courses. I also want to continue my reading goal as mentioned above, read my entire camera manual (something which I think is underrated — but they are long), practice my second language for 30 minutes per day, watch 36 films with a big chunk of them being in theatre, and more. I think this category may be the hardest one to fulfill since the time required is just so large, but I also expect it to be a very fulfilling one.
Suffice to say, those are my goals and themes for 2025! I would love to hear what you think, and what you are thinking about!
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