How I am starting 2024

Hi! I’m happy to see you here. I’d like to briefly share how I’ll be starting my 2024. Towards the end of the previous year (2023), I experienced severe burnout, leading me to take a break from social media.

A Brief Overview of 2023

It became apparent that I was pushing myself too hard to balance the previous phase of my life (before I got my internship) with the new phase. One thing I realized was that my intentions were not wrong, but I wasn’t ready for it. I should have been comfortable with where I currently am before attempting to merge the two phases together.

The thought of not being able to contribute to open source, work on my side projects, and lacking enough time to write articles made me anxious. I wanted to force my way through.

Highlights of 2023

I started 2023 financially broke with a laptop that could barely stay on when not charging. I experienced a range of emotions, and the prevailing thought was to get a job immediately. Then it occurred to me that I had been applying for jobs in 2022, but all I received was rejection. So why not get so good that they can’t say no?

I decided to face the odds and do my best to learn. Along the way, I met many amazing people. I earned some income from contracted projects, secured an internship, and ended the year with two laptops.

Thoughts on 2024

On the first day of thinking and journaling about how I want 2024 to unfold, I devised a new system for myself. It consists of four simple questions that I must answer regularly, and the answers have deadlines. Here they are:

• What am I learning?
• What am I working on?
• What am I practicing?
• What am I producing?

While many people create detailed plans with numerous action steps, I believe that by following this system consistently, I can focus more on doing and figuring things out along the way. Instead of getting stuck in analysis paralysis, which happened a lot last year.

2024 Targets

Some things I want to do in 2024:

• Create YouTube videos.
• Improve my technical writing skills.
• Build more side projects.
• Spend more time reading.
• Contribute as much as I can to open source.
• Gain a deep understanding of the frameworks I use and love.
• Hopefully, start a podcast.

Overall I am going to be mixing a lot of love and faith into what I am doing in 2024. I have a strong sense that I am gonna do something huge.

Until next time

I also want to update my blog more frequently; it feels like something I should do often. I’d love to hear about the things you want to do in 2024. Perhaps we could be accountability buddies!

See you next time.