My Plans for 2020
What with the new year and all, I figured I should probably set out a list of things I hope to achieve this year in the hope that doing so makes them happen and also so that on 31/12/20 I can look back and see how far things got derailed!
Finish reading Discworld
I set myself a goal at the start of 2019 to read all 40 of the Discworld books and only made it to book 28 so I’ve still got another 12 to go.
I’d hope to have that done by June as it usually takes me half a month to get through a book, I’m really enjoying the books so far so this should give me the motivation to continue.
New Zealand Trip
The big holiday plan for 2020 is to go to New Zealand, a country that I’ve wanted to go to for a while and last year me and the girlfriend decided to delay our plans of buying a house to instead focus on a big blow our holiday.
In 2011 I took my first self-organised holiday to Iceland in order to see the Northern Lights on my 23rd birthday (turns out the 12th of January is a really good time to see them) and wanted to see the Southern Lights.
The initial plan for New Zealand is very dependent on work allowing us the time off but we’re looking to do a three week trip that includes:
- One week on the North Island (for LOTR stuff)
- One week on the South Island (for the southern lights)
- One week in Japan (as part of the journey back home)
Hopefully we’re able to get the full three weeks off so we can do them all, otherwise I think we’d just go to the South Island and Japan (as the girlfriend really wants to go back).
In order to see the Southern Lights we’d need to go in June-August which when combined with the trip to Japan will be interesting to pack for as it’ll be winter in the Southern Hemisphere and summer in the Northern Hemisphere and I imagine Japan will be a lot hotter than the UK ever gets.
Get fitter
This is always on the list but now my working life means I don’t have the time to play much Pokemon Go and I can feel my body reacting to that lack of exercise.
Towards the end of 2019 I bought Ring Fit and I think playing about 10–20 minutes a day will help keep me in shape and will ultimately work more muscle groups than Pokemon Go did.
While I’m no foodie (I’m more of a ‘bung it in the oven for 20 minutes’ kind of cook), I read about a way of eating called ‘Ichiju Sansai’ which is the Japanese home cooking approach and stands for One Soup, Three Dishes which is exactly what it involves (and a bowl of rice).
The hope is that by following the Ichiju Sansai approach it’ll control portion sizes and ensure that the meals involve the main food groups.
Create a side hustle
I have a lot of side projects that I do but I think 2020 will be the year that I start trying to turn those projects into another income stream.
I’ve got a couple of ideas, some tech related but also an art related one.
I bought myself a five-week silkscreen printing course in January as a birthday present which will hopefully be fun but also give me the knowledge and access to the tools for the plans I have.
On the tech side I think I’ll be developing some apps to solve some of the problems I can see friends having and if I’m lucky there will be others who share those problems who will get value from using them.
