I Am Joe’s Blog:

January 1, 2011 • 10:17 PM

What I Did in 2010

It’s now less than 24 hours into 2011, and I already feel hopelessly behind. My list of tasks that absolutely, positively, without any question or wiggle room whatsoever, had to be done by the end of 2010—and are in fact not yet done—is agonizingly long. So I’ll be spending the first part of 2011 catching up with all that stuff, putting me that much further behind on all the incredibly urgent things that have to happen this year. I don’t do New Year’s resolutions, but to be honest, I have a feeling that even “Polish off my 2010 list” is too ambitious a goal for 2011. That makes me feel kind of, you know, unhappy.

On December 31, 2009, I wrote up a little post here called What I Did in 2009. As I explained in that post, I did it as a sort of therapeutic exercise to help me overcome the disappointment of unfinished tasks and unrealized goals at the time, and the feeling that the year had been woefully underproductive. It worked so well I decided to do the same thing this year. Maybe I’ll make it an annual tradition.

So here we go—what I accomplished in 2010:

I also spent quite a bit of time doing non-work-related stuff:

That’s a long list—but then, in 2009 I did a similar number of things plus wrote a 900-page book on Mac security. On the other hand, Morgen and I have the cutest baby in the world, and I am not one to exaggerate. And I find that playing with our baby (or, to be honest, even changing poopy diapers while he’s screaming his head off) is about 37.5 times more fun than writing that book was. So there’s that. Also, as is my custom, I ate large quantities of chocolate, which makes me feel a whole lot better. And I would have ended the year with an empty inbox if a couple of people hadn’t sent me messages right before midnight that I was really not going to interrupt my movie watching, wine drinking, and family time to deal with. (It’s empty now.)

In just over a week I turn 44. Back when I turned 30, I predicted that my 40s would be my decade of wealth and influence. I’ve made some meaningful strides in that direction, but I can now say I’m actively cultivating a plan to make that a reality. This could be a very big year indeed, but if I’m too distracted by the smiles and giggles of my wonderful son to achieve fame and fortune in the next 12 months, that wouldn’t be the worst thing in the world either.

Posted in Bricolage