The story of my 2024 really ended up being the story of my health (or lack thereof) despite it being another ‘exciting’ year for other reasons.

I came into the year feeling underpowered and out of sorts which led to a quiet time socially during the winter months (though the new job meant work was busy) before a scheduled health check with my GP in early spring caused significant alarm and a slew of URGENT text messages, follow-up appointments and eventually a great deal of medication.

The medication is no walk in the park and I’ve barely put a string of healthy feeling days together in the last nine months but I do look healthier, and lighter, due to the pills and the crappy lower-carb, sugar free diet I now mainly abide by. My beard i almost white now though.

I set myself some targets for 2024;

200 alcohol free days – this is going to end up at nearer 275 even if I drink too much in Nashville.

10,000 steps per day – got nowhere near this but I did move from around 3,500 on average in 2023 to something like 6,000 a day this year – and I had far fewer days where I did nothing – even with all the bad days.

50% fewer takeaways – smashed this – looking at about 20% of my Deliveroo spend of 2023 this year.

Try yoga – I did try and as usual it did not stick. Something else next year I think.

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I did come into the year with ambitions of spreading my wings travel wise beyond North America. This didn’t really happen – baring a trip to Hamburg my vacations consisted of Austin, New York and, tomorrow, Nashville. Oh and an aborted week in Amsterdam due to changing jobs.

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I set out a target of 200 new subscribers for my newsletter – but topped out at 160 (which I am pretty happy with). I sent out 48 newsletters which beat my target of 40 and while I ended up abandoning my job board plan due to work and health pressures I did recycle my plans to make that pay for itself by trying a few things to cover the cost of the newsletter – which I just about managed.

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I set a goal to do a full year of weeknotes with no skips, that looks like it should happen with just two editions left, and at least six non weeknote posts which I also managed, with a couple doing really quite well.

As promised I quit Twitter, actually deleting my account in August, and went all in on Bluesky promoting its use and setting up a couple of popular starter packs. I find myself with almost 2700 followers these days – though most are in other timezones with zero idea who I am!

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We put on three more Product for the People meetups – London, Leeds and Bristol – and they all went pretty well. With the Bristol edition a particular highlight.

I did want to try and speak at two conferences with a new talk but in the end I only really contributed to a panel at TICTeC and a couple of online talks (with one planned for this afternoon) though I am booked to speak at a meetup in Cardiff in January and then Camp Digital in July both with new presentations. 

Again the lack of energy blew up my mentoring plans and the thoughts to launch a new public service digital meetup in Bristol. Though I did host a few First Friday drinks.

Getting one of my essays included in the ‘I thought a lot about..’ publication was a real honor – proud of that…but all other creative ambitions fell to the wayside this bumpy year.

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Returning to TPX didn’t really pan out. With hindsight I never asked the right questions about the role itself and found myself unprepared for the reality of it. My health issues didn’t help but despite so many lovely people it was never going to work out.

My time at GDS hasn’t been without some challenges but it is a much better fit, I am much surer footed and it has provided me with a lot more clarity of what I want to do with the final years of my career.

So another bumpy year, with some big challenges but more than a few positive moments.