Ask HN: What have you achieved in 2016?

Fallback - got most of the pounds back. The house is taking most of my free time - no time to code. Office politics is killing me - thinking that a small startup might be more engaging, but mortgage is now an issue to think about. Some days I'm thinking that having a cozy job and learning some gamedev on the side is not too bad. Could be worse.

Up and onward to 2017

- Dropped out of college and accepted a full time offer

- Became the new lead for the security interest group at work

- Attended AWS re:Invent for the first time

- Moved into my own place for the first time

- Started playing around with the stock market

- Visited Abu Dhabi, London, and Iceland for the first time

- Turned 21 years old a few weeks ago, I can finally go to bars and clubs now

- Finally finished and pushed my re-designed personal website (an endeavor that I started last Fall)

- Entered into my first relationship

  - Sub-achievement: 2 Chainz has a song called 100 Joints with the line

    > You need your passport for our second date

    I decided to beat him at his own game and for our first date I flew us to Montréal for the weekend which I'd also consider an achievement

- Last year I vowed to read more this year - I picked up and finished a book in the Spring, but haven't read much more since that

- I used to constantly work on new side projects, I just haven't had a lot of time for them recently

- After living with friends from college for the last ~3 years, living alone is a little lonely. I do enjoy the time alone, but I've also moved to a new city where I don't have much of a social network

Edit:

- Achievements:

-- I love to fly. Last year I did something like 39 flights. This year I'll do 41 flights. A new record for me, if not a significant one. Note that these are flights, not reservations. So if my trip includes a layover, it counts as two. I love flying to the extent that given a direct trip and a trip with a < 1 hr layover, I'll pick the latter. I love each flight. Taking off. Landing. Cruising at 35,000 ft. Turbulence, the more the better. I want more cumulative time in the air.

- Fallbacks

-- From August to December (and extending into January 2017), I've only been at home 1-2 weeks a month which has caused a bit of strain on my relationship.

Edit:

To whoever left and then deleted a comment asking if I considered the date an achievement because of the cost and suggested that I may have missed that's needed to form a relationship:

I'm not entirely sure why I consider it an achievemnt. It's most likely related to the cost yes. I think it's because whereas previously (as a student) I would need to think about finances, I now have the money where I can do things like this and not worry about going hungry for the next month.

As far as the relationship aspect, prior to the date we spent 10 days traveling in Iceland as friends after meeting in person a total of three times. The purpose of the date wasn't specifically to build on the relationship, but more to do something ridiculous and romantic.

* Worked on more interesting projects

* Had a lot of (intentional, not working) free time

* Earned more

* Developed other hobbies / spent extra time with the existing ones

* Saw more of the world

Fallback is design for which I also went to art school but never finished that either. Also have lots of friends and family support and a small savings to keep me focused.

Fallback - My job was outsourced to a team of Eastern European devs, because it was "taking too long" for me to build everything by myself. My girlfriend left me a few weeks later.

-: Didn't write any Rust.

We also went on our honeymoon (Turks and Caicos, highly recommended) and vacations in Portland, Seattle, San Francisco, and Florida.

Learned my lesson, hopefully I will make them regret it, but probably not.

But if US picked Trump I guess I'm entitled to make big stupid mistakes as well.

Other stuff that's happened: managed to move out of a big city for the first time in 15 years, spent almost no time arguing about bitcoin online which was a huge time sink for me, used selfcontrol to block reddit on my laptop for close to 9 months of the year(still use it on my phone), started a new company which is progressing well, gotten a lot better at money management, become more focused on my fitness with gym+running almost everyday now.

Made a plan for 2017.

Was able to serve in a friend’s wedding.

Made it to the out-of-state wedding of friends. (2 days)

Attended the funeral of a friend whose greatness as a person was matched by the reach of his work. (2 days)

Was able to visit my mentor before he moved back to Europe after 18 years in the US. (2 days)

That accounts for 9 of the 14 days off I’ll have this year, which makes me grateful my off days were well spent.

No friendships were lost—even the distant ones that can slip through the cracks of life—a number of new friends were gained. Can’t remember failing to come through for anyone when they reached out in need, whether for little things like a tech support question to the more notable existential issues we can face.

My company will have about 40% growth in sales volume, and comparable growth in revenue. Still, it’s a small company. Very small. But the lone employee I have has received multiple raises and a few thousand in bonuses.

Some things will remain on the to-do list, even if I’m pleased with the improvements made lately: read more, improve empathy and listening skills, get better control of my emotions, further my awareness of the breadth of my ignorance. That’s not an exhaustive list, but doing better with those will enhance specific areas, like my customer service, serving as an employer, benefiting friends, understanding how better to take care of myself, etc.

Tech-wise, I made pretty significant progress on a hobby project, and revamped my personal website.

https://www.pooplog.xyz/

https://medium.com/@kefsco/i-finally-updated-pooplog-for-and...

[edit] actually in hindsight I've spent a lot more time with my 9yr old daughter than I have since the birth of our son. Pokemon Go turned out to be a pretty big player in us spending time together.

https://medium.com/startup-blink

I convinced a few people to draw me dinosaurs.