It’s that time of year: New Year’s Resolutions! And I’m one of those people who makes them because why not? I don’t think it’s cliche to do so. In addition, I think it’s great to develop a plan for the year because it gives purpose and motivation. So here are my 2024 plans.
My 2024 Plans – Personal
My Health
I want to start off talking about my health because health is wealth. Back in 2017 I took control of my health by doing the Keto Diet and losing over 80 pounds! Since then I kept off that weight, and toned my body through weight-lifting. Now, the first of my 2024 plans is to push myself to get more steps in.
I do walk quite a bit at work, but I usually don’t on my days off. It’s normal for me to plop down in front of my computer for hours at a time. Or sit down and read for an extended period. The only movement I’ll do during my off time is to get up to cook, do chores, or go to the store.
To combat this I want to get in 10,000 steps in a day starting today, 1/5/24. This is in addition to the weight-lifting training I currently do. I have plenty of opportunities at work and at my apartment to do this. With the latter I have trendmills so I don’t have to walk out in the cold. And when I do travel to work, the hotels I pick also have gyms with treadmills. I’ll bring my phone, watch some YouTube, and get my steps in.
My Hobbies
My next plan is to get back into my hobbies. I ignored them last year becasue of my new job and traveling so much.
My main hobbies are video games and reading books. With the former I have a gaming PC and a Nintendo Switch. I do take my Switch with me while traveling, but sometimes I’m tired after work. Or I devote more of my time to writing. In turn, my Nintendo Switch collected dust. That changes now!
I’m playing more games now after I bought three of them during Black Friday sales. First up is Pikmin 4 because I’m a huge Pikmin fan. And the game is so fun! After that I’ll get into The Legend of Zelda: Tears of the Kingdom. Yeah, I’m that behind.
As for reading books, I read quite a few books last year. If I remember correctly it was at least 10 books. I’m currently reading The Mansion by William Faulkner. After that, I have about 7 or 8 books I bought last year I haven’t read yet that I will. Until I finish those books I won’t buy any more.
My Writings
Finally, my 2024 plans for my personal life is to continue my writing streak. I’m surprised I did so well last year with my new job that’s full of business travel.
I finished the second draft of a novella, which was my goal. And I wrote quite a bit of a first draft of a novel. Unfortunately, I stopped working on the novel to focus my time on the novella.
What I want to accomplish with my writing this year is to do the final draft of the novella and self-publish it. A stretch goal I have is to restart writing a book I worked on in 2022 because I got quite far with it. I think it’s going to be another novella, but I’m not all that sure yet.
My 2024 Plans – Professional
My Career
Now I’ll discuss my 2024 plans for my professional life. First up is my career.
I’m currently working toward a promotion at my job. My manager wants to set me up for the Data Center Technician 3 role this Fall (around September). To do this I need to take on more leadership duties, and find and resolve issues with our machine deployments.
In addition to that I need to find some mentors, and take on some mentees.
Finally, I’m improving my technical wriitng skills because I’m highly-interested in becoming a Technical Writer at Google.
So I’m putting myself out there to take on more work, offer training for the new machines my team deploys, and improve my technical writing skills by taking more training classes Google provides.
My YouTube Channel
My final plan regards my YouTube channel. Many of my readers come to my website from my videos. Which is why I will continue to make videos.
I’m not sure when my first video of the year will come out. I thought about recording a video today, 1/5/24, but I have some other things to do. Plus, I haven’t written the script yet. However, I do have an idea of what I want to talk about.
I want to release one video a week, but I know that’s not doable with all the stuff I need and want to do. So it’s more realistic for me to release one to two videos a month.