Wednesday, December 31, 2014

Challenges for 2015


So, after an awesome year 2014, filled with interesting challenges, I have learned a lot.

  • I did not know that I enjoy hot drinks that much.
  • I did not know that you might get used to almost anything
  • I did not know that drinking water each day was really good
  • I did not know that not drinking alcohol was not really a problem
  • I did not know that I am so incredibly lazy
  • Sleep deprivation is an experience I do not seek again.

Nevertheless, I decided to take a new approach:

Instead of monthly challenges, I will have just some goals to be fulfilled this year.

These will be:

  1. Learn seven new programming languages
  2. Learn at least seven frameworks, libraries, whatever. This will be mainly web frontend related stuff
  3. Finish seven projects and put them on GitHub. (some of them are already existent in my GitHub account, but no commits yet.)
  4. Cook a new meal for my family once a month
Let's bring it on!

One Month Without an Smartphone


This month was sometimes weird, sometimes it just sucked and sometimes I did not miss a thing.

The Good
  • Its easier to focus on conversations with the other person when you're not constantly distracted by some notifications and habit-shaping glances on your phone.
  • It's easier to realize what's happening around you
The Bad
  • I did miss an appointment because I did not take a look at my calendar that day. So I disappointed one person, who did need my help.
  • My online communication via WhatsApp was nonexistent this month. So I might miss something urgent. But I think, if it might be something important (not to be confused with urgent), The people had plenty of other ways to contact me.
  • I forgot my phone way more often at home than before. One time it resulted in a awful misunderstanding between me and my wife. This sucked so much.
The Ugly
  • My wife uses Pintrest since yesterday. It did suck up about one hour on my life to stare on her screen.
  • Writing text messages with T9 sucks so much, I will never miss it any more. I have to admit, I really hated it.
  • I still wasted some time with playing a silly game (coded in Java for Embedded Systems, good old times).
  • I tend to adopt an "better-than-thou"-attitude. "Hey, you still use a smartphone? You social outcast instant-gratification monkey!". That is a attitude I really had to watch out for and capture it, not letting any room to breathe.