Janus (1): Looking back

Disclaimer: This post was written mostly for me – if you’re not me, you may wish to skip to the end or to skip it entirely!

2020: Goals in Review

Looking back, who knew what 2020 was going to be like?

I’ve heard several people say that it was a year in which mere survival (for you, for your organisation) was a result to be celebrated, and there may be something to that – but it’s important to aim for more, even if we fall mostly short.

I confess to not having looked at these goals for months, but here we go:

Goal 1: Writing Goals

Writing Goals

Overall Vision (this one will sound a bit vague):
A) To keep building Driverless Crocodile as a tool for my own learning and to help others.
Medium – Long Term Specific Goals / Vision:
B) Complete the DriverlessBookadile
C) Use this as the basis for reorganising / redesigning the site
D) Podcast it for fun
E) Workshop it somewhere if anyone’s interested
Goal for this 12 Week Year (wb 6th January to wb 23rd March):
F) Complete a first draft of the DriverlessBookadile, in rough-cut, blog-post form.
12 Week Year: DriverlessCrocoGoals

Goal A: Success. DC is still going well, is more visited than ever and continues to grow despite ups and downs in my motivation and focus. 365 days, 365-plus posts (of variable quality, some good). Job done.

Goal B, C, D, E and F: Abject failure. I made a few forays, polished some old drafts and made a few plans, but none of this (apart from one additional podcast episode) feels much closer than it did at the start of 2020.

Ouch.

Metagoal: The Twelve Week Year: This really didn’t work for me. I’m reluctant to criticise the system because I don’t think I gave it a fair go. This – and my current to do list system – needs some thought as we start 2021.

Other Goals:

2020 was the year of my first marathon, a long-running goal of mine.

Reading list in review:

I’m not promising to finish in 2020, but I’d like to. Needs more fiction.

Getting things done (4)

12 Week Year – Brian P. Moran, Michael Lennington* (read 2020/01/09)
- Read – decent premise, much repetition.
Atomic Habits – James Clear*
- I feel like I read this – habits (or practices) have become a key part of my thinking about how to get things done.
Make Time – Jake Knapp and John Zeratsky (added 2020/01/05)
- Unread
Start Finishing – Charlie Gilkey (added 2020/01/05)
- Didn’t start (!)

People stuff and organisational culture (5)

Switch – Chip and Dan Heath
- Unread
The Culture Code – Daniel Coyle
- Unread
You Are What You Do – Ben Horowitz
- Unread
The Infinite Game – Simon Sinek
- Unread
Drive – Dan Pink (remembered and added 2020/01/05)
- Unread

Design and making things (4)

The Design of Everyday Things – Don Norman*
Macintosh Human Interface Guidelines – Apple Computer*
Letting Go of the Words – Ginny Reddish*
Something by Steve Krug*

All unre-read.

Marketing and communication (4)

This is Marketing – Seth Godin*
Story Driven – Bernadette Jiwa*
The Fortune Cookie Principle – Bernadette Jiwa*
The Compelling Communicator – Tim Pollard*

Unread

Management and strategy (6)

The Excellence Dividend – Tom Peters*
- Part read. Good for dipping in and out of.
The Pursuit of Wow! – Tom Peters
- Bought. Skimmed. One of those hundreds-of-short-chapters books. Non-essential.
The E-Myth Revisited: Why Most Small Businesses Don’t Work and What to Do About It – Michael E. Gerber*
Strategy Rules: Five Timeless Lessons from Bill Gates, Andy Grove, and Steve Jobs – David B. Yoffie and Michael A. Cusumano*
Crossing the Chasm – Geoff Moore
The Long Tail – Chris Anderson

If uncommented – unread.

Ways of seeing the world and decision making (6)

Factfulness – Hans Rosling
Enlightenment Now – Steven Pinker
Thinking Fast and Slow – Daniel Kahneman
Thinking in Bets – Annie Duke
Map and Territory – Eliezer Yudowsky*
Antifragile – Nassim Nicholas Taleb (added 2020/04/01)
Surely You’re Joking, Mr. Feynman! (added 2020/01/12)
- Listened to! Fun.

Fiction, history and other (6)

Les Miserables – Victor Hugo*
- Read! Epic. Worth the effort.
Interesting Times – Terry Pratchett
Forgotten Wars – Christopher Bayly and Tim Harper
- I was about to mark this “read,” but I think I’m remembering its prequel. Will double check when I finally get back to my bookcase post-Covidlife.
Can Love Last?: The Fate of Romance over Time – Stephen A. Mitchell (or a substitute)
The Black Jacobins: Toussaint L’Ouverture and the San Domingo Revolution – C.L.R. James
Bandwidth – Eliot Peper
- Partially read. It was highly recommended but is – so far – not great.

Remaining books unread.

Books I did read:

(Including the above):

The War of Art – Stephen Pressfield
Mrs Frisby and the Rats of NIMH – Robert O’Brien
The Explorer – Katherine Rundell
Story: Substance, Structure, Style and the Principles of Screenwriting – Robert McKee (audiobook)
Generous Justice – Timothy Keller
Writing Down the Bones: Freeing the Writer Within – Natalie Goldberg
Dreyer’s English – Benjamin Dreyer
Following Jesus – Henri Nouwen
Small Giants – Beau Burlingham
Les Miserables – Victor Hugo
Dominion – Tom Holland (audiobook)
Surely You’re Joking Mr Feynman – Richard Feynman (audiobook)
The Storytelling Animal: How Stories Make us Human – Jonathan Gottschall (audiobook)
The 12 Week Year – Brian P. Moran, Michael Lennington
The Prosperity Paradox – Clayton Christense, Efosa Ojomo and Karen Dillon
A Chinese Life
Akenfield
Ethel & Ernest
Explorers on the Moon
Why You Should Read Children’s Books

… and many others dipped into or started in sample form.

Conclusions

Some of this goal-setting stuff seems rather futile. Hard to tell if I would have achieved more or less without them!
40 books on the reading list was rather over optimistic (hence “2020 and beyond” in the original), but this set of 14 includes a couple of whoppers. The list for 2021 will feature… 20 books. Coming soon.