I set goals at the beginning of the year, and I’m tracking my progress in these updates during 2021.
As I look at goal progress for 2021, I’m going to follow a similar pattern as last year. I’ll give myself a current grade and report on overall progress in of the areas where I set goals.
This is a two month update. I forgot to publish June, so here I am including both months together.
Current Grade: C
June was vacation month. I spent a few days in the Florida Keys, and then another week in Orlando coaching. In between, I was trying to get work done. Not as much progress as I’d like, especially as a lot of non-work time was spent catching up on chores around the ranch. An unusual level of things to fix.
July was slightly better, but not a lot. I ended up with a couple trips away from home, lots of chores around the ranch, a business trip, and a bit of stress from a home renovation. As a result, I read a bit but fiction. I also tried to take a bit more time away from the computer.
In any case, I’m still not pleased with progress for the most part, but I am learning that maintaining steady progress across the year is hard, even with relatively few goals..
Reading
The goal was 4 books (3 non-fiction, 1 tech). I finished one in early July, and found a few more to add to the list. I haven’t been sure what to read, but I found a few career books. Now I need to find a tech book for the second half of the year.
Here’s the current progress:
- Non fiction – Project to Product – 100%
- Career – Lights Out: Pride, Delusion, and the Fall of General Electric – 3%
- Career – Thanks for the Feedback – 0%
- Technical – TBD
I started with Lights Out as I think it’s easier to read.
I’ll put a short review of the Project to Product book out in August month as well.
Technical Skills
I’m solving the Advent of Code three times. I’m also studying for certification.
In terms of work here, I did little with vacations. I should have spent a little time on Azure, but really, I didn’t do much. A little, but not much. For coding, I’ve just hadn’t put in much time. I started on day 7, but got a little stuck, and hadn’t completed the challenge in SQL, which is where I started. I should have started with Python or PoSH, as this is a recursion issue. I also hate recursion, and I’ve been avoiding this.
For certifications, I started watching some videos, but I find myself getting too distracted with other things. So I’ve not been focused on more programming, which is really a state of where I am in my career. I should have done less here goal wise.
Update:
- Certification – AZ-900 – 5%
- Certification – DP-200 – 0%
- Skills – T-SQL – 2020 Advent of Code – 5/25
- Skills – Python – 2020 Advent of Code – 6/25
- Skills – PowerShell – 2020 Advent of Code – 5/25
- Skills – TBD
Projects
Little things are moving forward. I did send a note to the 2 groups near me offering to speak. The other one appears to have stopped meeting during the pandemic. I have scheduled a talk at one for August. Not sure about the second.
I did a little more work on my volleyball report, and started to structure the data store in Excel better to ensure I can easily publish this early next season for the next team. I also started to write about how I’m doing this, so I think this is further along than it was before.
- SQL Saturday Inc – 90%
- Support events: I spoke at another event and a couple user groups
- Speak at the 3 local user groups, at least one live presentation – 15%
- Help organize a Denver/Colorado event, live or virtual – 20% (more conversations)
- Complete my Power BI Volleyball report – I know lots of kids will use this, so I need to get it done – 70%
- SQL Memorial – 90% – I updated this, sadly, as someone passed. I need to move this to straight GitHub Pages and get the custom domain set.