New Year Goals

It just became 2014 and I figured it would be a good time as any to lay out my goals for this year. Since I feel more accountable if I fail my goals publicly, I decided to post them here. Some of the main goals have sub-goals that I need to meet if I want to fulfill the main goal.

1. Get Into a Great College

• Get Straight A’s (A Range)

  This is just one of the things that I need to get done if I want to have a competitive application. I was only one grade off last trimester so this is definitely in the realm of possibility.

• Get Outstanding SAT Scores (and only have to take them once)

  As much as I hate taking them, I need to have great standardized test scores. I’m not too off on practice tests so this is also within my reach.

2. Get Really Fit

• Finish out the Wrestling season with a positive record

  I’m 8-8 right now and we have a mix of both easy and difficult matches to end out the season. If I perform well at tournaments I should be able to accomplish this.

• Be Able to do 15 Pullups

  I’m not starting from 0 with this but I need to get my numbers up from 3-4 to 15. I think this will best be accomplished by doing this.

• Be able to run a 10K/ Run a sub 24 minute 5k

  I really hate running, I find it incredibly boring and I can’t ever stick to a running program (unlike a lifting program). However, I would like to be good at running and this is accomplished by running. On a good day, I can run a 5k but that’s about it. I plan on using C25K and B210K.

• Increase lifting numbers

  Unlike running, I enjoy lifting and do it (when it’s not wrestling season) 3 or 4 times a week. I would love to increase all my lift numbers by a significant amount. Namely, I’d like to hit a 1xBW Bench, a 1.5XBW Squat, and a 1.75BW DLift. I may run into a problem of this being mutually exclusive with running.

3. Have someone pay to use a SAAS I built

So far I’ve built two SAAS’s (mostly to really learn rails / you can see them on my projects page). Unfortunately, I’ve been unable to convert free customers to paying customers. I think the real reason for this is that my projects don’t solve painful enough problems. I’m going to try and create a product that really uses lean startup principles. 1. Find a problem via interviewing different professions. 2. Build and constantly iterate a product that solves the aforementioned problem

4. Finish my reading list / Read 20 Books

As previously written about on this blog, I have a reading list that I’m constantly updating. I want (start and) Finish the remaining books left on the list. Last year, I read 17 books off my list, this year I hope to reach 20.

In the coming year, I really only have 1 thing that I’m going to stick to religiously, the idea of no zero-days. I have a problem where I’ll be incredibly productive for a few days and then do nothing for another few days. My overall goal is to always spend sometime every day getting closer to accomplishing these goals.

Discussion, links, and tweets

I'm a New York City Rails Dev. Follow me on Twitter or don't, I can't tell. But you really should, there has to be some interesting stuff there.

Tweet Follow @klinskyc