Goal Setting

It’s time to wrap up the year.  I don’t have a resolutions or goals post from last year to re-cap so that leaves this post fairly open ended.  At some point a couple years ago I read an article about not publicizing your resolutions to help keep you on track.  Now, though, since I don’t have any thing to compare against, who knows how well I did.  For all you know, I could make up my goals now and say I accomplished them and you’d be none the wiser.

Some of the goals I did have in mind at the beginning of the year were the following:

1. Plan and Execute a local SQL Saturday event. This was done back in October.
2. Travel and speak at SQL Saturday events. I made it to five SQL Saturday events this past year.  I also participated in both SSWUG virtual conferences.
3. Blog more. Yeah, I think I did that.

Moar Blogging

Blogging more is definitely something that I managed to do a lot more of.  About half way through the year I got organized and made a plan.  Now when I blog there is a system in place and as new ideas cross my mind I have a method to file and prep them to appear on here in the future.

The process I came up with is pretty easy.  Almost too easy.  Basically when I find something interesting that I send to friends or co-workers I also send it to a personal e-mail account.  Every two weeks I go through that account and add all of those e-mails to a Word document that has a list of the other posts I’ve had ideas of writing.  When I have time, I write.

It’s not too fancy but it works.  If you’re looking for a process give mine a try, it might be just the thing you need.  You’ll probably find yourself in my position with nearly 200 ideas on things to write about and no time left to do it.

Now before I wrap up… I’m going to pull out a couple Top Ten lists of posts from my blog in the last year.

Top Ten Posts Based on WordPress Stats

1. Index Black Ops Part 1 – Locks and Blocking
2. Index Those Foreign Keys
3. Index Black Ops Part 2 – Page IO Latch, Page Latch
4. Cry, Baby, Cry! Failing the MCM Test
5. Index Black Ops Part 5 – Page Splits
6. Index Black Ops Part 3 – Index Usage
7. Index Black Ops Part 4 – Index Overhead and Maintenance
8. Please, no TRIM()?
9. XQuery for the Non-Expert – Exist
10. An Index on Indexing #TSQL2sDay

Top Ten Posts Based on Google Analytics

1. Index Black Ops Part 1 – Locks and Blocking
2. Analyze This – Your Indexes Analysis – Part 1
3. Index Those Foreign Keys
4. Index Black Ops Part 2 – Page IO Latch, Page Latch
5. Index Black Ops Part 5 – Page Splits
6. Index Black Ops Part 3 – Index Usage
7. Cry, Baby, Cry! Failing the MCM Test
8. Index Black Ops Part 4 – Index Overhead and Maintenance
9. Wait Stat Categories

Top Ten Posts Based on FeedBurner

1. Index Black Ops Part 6 – Fill Factor vs. Page Splits
2. Can You Dig It? – Missing Indexes
3. The SQL Server MCM Training Has Changed
4. Index Black Ops Part 1 – Locks and Blocking
5. Can You Dig It? – Parallelism in the Plan Cache
6. Index Black Ops Part 2 – Page IO Latch, Page Latch
7. Return of Index Analysis Part 2
8. Viewing RING_BUFFER_OOM Errors
9. XQuery for the Non-Expert – Exist
10. Return of Index Analysis Part 4

It’s pretty interesting to me the similarities and differences between each of top ten lists.  The post on TRIM() is always interesting to me when it it shows up in my top read posts lists.  The others aren’t too surprising.  Overall, I’m glad that people find some the stuff that I write interested.

Otter Accomplishments

What else did I get done this year?  Here’s a short list:

• Got engaged to Sarah.  We met over 15 years ago and after a divorce each we finally figured out where we were meant to be.
• Won the SQLServerPedia Blog Award for Blog Series.
• For the SSWUG Fall Virtual Conference, I found out that my multi-server management session was Best In Show.
• Was re-awarded MVP for SQL Server in July.
• Went to the PASS Summit and thoroughly enjoyed it.
• Actually went on vacations and wasn’t working.

Heading Into 2011

With 2011 just around the corner I’m going to go ahead and layout some goals for next year.  Here goes:

1. Moar Blogging. Why change a thing that’s been going so well.  I’ll be keeping at this and hoping to add some month long series that cover some of my recent projects.
2. Moar Writing. I’ve been working on ideas on things to do outside of blog writing.  I’m actively looking for activities  to  write longer items or to collaborate with others on projects.
3. Moar SQL Saturdays. I made it to 5 last year and I’d like to maintain and possibly increase that number by one or two.  Also, the I’d like to take up the Minnesota SQL Saturday (or Friday) a notch.
4. Moar Presenting. Not just at the SSWUG Conferences and SQL Saturdays – I’m looking to participate more with the PASS virtual chapters and maybe hosting some of my own presentations.
5. Moar Knowledge. I’m also hoping to learn a lot more about SQL Server in the next year which will hopefully lead to completing the MCM for SQL Server certification.
6. Get Hitched. I got engaged this past year and, well, if I don’t follow through with that one things could get rocky.  But this is one that I’m fairly certain will be a priority over the next few months.

Related posts:

1. An Index on Indexing #TSQL2sDay
2. 2-Weeks to PASS Summit 2010 Countdown
3. SSWUG Fall 2010 Virtual Conference Starts Today!