2019: Goals in review

Driverless Crocodile Goals for 2019:

Here’s a review of the year’s goals:

Goal 1: Keep it up. 600 posts on DC by the end of 2019, with enough of a frontlog to set it and forget it for a couple of holidays.

Result: 578 posts by 31st December 2019. (GOAL MISSED)

Commentary: The original plan required an extra 50ish posts over the year, so I was more than half-way there… but in hindsight, I don’t really care. This was part of a larger goal of hitting 1000 posts on DC by the end of 2020 – a goal I also no longer see as particularly important in itself because: a) I’ll get there by early 2021 if I keep on posting daily b) I’d rather do better posts that more posts and c) I’m happy with what I have achieved:

• I did keep it up: 393 posts in 2019, with 93,533 words written and 2,827 views, for an all time total of 3,500+ views. It’s been tremendous fun, and personally very helpful.
• I managed to ‘set it and forget it’ over Christmas 2019, with enough of a frontlog queued up that I could leave my computer behind while we went away over Christmas week – and didn’t have to pull any late nights in the busy buildup to keep the posts coming.

If you were part of it – thanks for coming!

Goal 2: Hit the reading list

Title	Author	Notes
The Invisible Killer: The Rising Global Threat of Air Pollution – and How We can Fight Back	Garry Fuller	I read about half of this and lost momentum. Should probably pick it up again in 2020.
The Inevitable	Kevin Kelly	Read it. Loved it. Recommend. Should do more with it here.
This is Marketing	Seth Godin	Read it. Loved it. Recommend. Should do more with it here.
Execution: The Discipline of Getting things Done	Larry Bossidy and Ram Charan	This was a real slog. Have been meaning to write a review here. In short: this might be useful if you’re an executive in a huge company, but if not, read the first couple of chapters and maybe the final ‘letter’ and give the rest a miss. Tedious.
The 4 Disciplines of Execution	Chris McChesney, Sean Covey and Jim Huling	This was also a bit of a slog… but really good and helpful. As with many books the first few chapters contain the fundamental insights, but the rest provides texture and application that helps. Should do more with applying these principles, and with writing about them here. Recommend.
Leveraged Learning	Danny Iny	Interesting first couple of chapters. A bit tedious. Mainly about adult learning.
Forgotten Wars – The End of Britain’s Asian Empire	Christopher Bayly and Tim Harper	Very good… so far. Roll over to 2020.
Defeat Into Victory	William Slim	Read and really enjoyed. Already have a few highlights up on DC but will be returning to my notes in 2020.
The Daily Drucker	Peter Drucker	Read. Not quite as good as actually reading Drucker through (e.g. reading The Effective Executive and Management) – but still a gold mine, and nice to keep dipping into throughout the year.

Result: 7/9. Decent performance. Read a load of other books too – more later.

Goal 3: Podcast – an initial series of five episodes, starting with with a decent spec

Result: A fun failure. Would like to return to this later in 2020.

Goal 4: A DC Redesign

Result: Partial success. A tweaked WordPress theme and entertaining logo took me part of the way there, but I had imagined doing something more.

Goal 5: Pull key threads from posts into a more structured set of how-to articles

Result: Some progress (work on the DriverlessBookadile). Incomplete. Roll over to 2020.

Goal 6: Make connections with people who do my kind of work and/or find some of the ideas here helpful. Experiment with a forum?

Result: Not achieved. Some progress in the course of my work, and a few connections made – but no forum, and certainly no workshop. I think DriverlessBookadile will be the basis for any possible action here, so I’m happy to kill this goal.

Goal 7: Work on these goals in 12 week chunks

Result: Failure. I had too many goals, and never got granular enough in setting them out. But will roll the 12 Week Year approach into 2020, starting with a planning week this week.

Final Review:

Too many goals, inadequately focused-on, executed and reviewed – so lots to work on for 2020. But it was an unexpectedly busy and demanding year at work, which took a toll on my energy and capacity, so I’m happy enough with what I managed here. Goals for 2020 to follow.